Numbers 29:26

Summary

The verse specifies the animal offerings for the fifth day of the festival: nine young bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs of one year, all required to be without blemish. It follows the pattern of daily sacrificial counts found throughout Numbers 29.

Key words

• pa.Rim ("young bulls", H6499) — masculine plural noun, the first category of offering, numbered by tish.'Ah ("nine", H8672).
• 'ei.Lim ("rams", H0352A) — masculine plural noun, paired with she.Na.yim ("two", H8147), a cardinal number in dual/paired form matching the quantity of two.
• ke.va.Sim ("lambs", H3532) — masculine plural noun, the third offering category, further specified by the construct phrase that follows.
• be.nei- ("sons of", H1121L) — masculine plural construct form of "son," used idiomatically with sha.Nah ("a year", H8141) to mean "yearlings" — literally "sons of a year."
• te.mi.Mim ("unblemished", H8549G) — masculine plural adjective, agreeing with all three animal categories, indicating the physical condition required for all the offerings listed.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a list without a main verb, simply enumerating three categories of sacrificial animals with their respective quantities: pa.Rim ("young bulls") nine, 'ei.Lim ("rams") two, and ke.va.Sim ("lambs") described as be.nei sha.Nah — literally "sons of a year," an idiomatic construct expression meaning animals one year of age. The number for the lambs, "fourteen," is split across two words, 'ar.ba.'Ah ("four-", H0702) and 'a.Sar ("teen", H6240), reflecting how Hebrew constructs compound numbers between 11 and 19 by joining the units digit with the word for "-teen."

The final word, te.mi.Mim ("unblemished", H8549G), is a plural adjective that grammatically can apply to all the animals named in the verse, since it appears at the end of the list rather than being repeated after each category. The absence of a finite verb in the Hebrew (no verb "to offer" or "to bring") is typical of these sacrificial-list verses in Numbers 29, where the verbal action is understood from the broader context of the chapter rather than stated in each individual verse.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) inserts the verb "offeretis" ("you shall offer"), making explicit an action that is not represented by any word in the Hebrew, which simply lists the offerings without a finite verb. The LXX (LXXSWETE) similarly presents the list without a verb, in agreement with the Hebrew structure, but uses "β΄" as a numeral abbreviation for "two" rather than spelling it out. The BSB and RV1909 translations, like the Vulgate, add explicit verbs ("you are to present," "ofreceréis") not present in the Hebrew wording of this specific verse.