Numbers 29:3

וּמִנְחָתָם סֹלֶת בְּלוּלָה בַשָּׁמֶן שְׁלֹשָׁה עֶשְׂרֹנִים לַפָּר שְׁנֵי עֶשְׂרֹנִים לָאָֽיִל׃

Hebrew interlinear

Tap a word to see its entry

The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וּמִנְחָתָ֔ם סֹ֖לֶת בְּלוּלָ֣ה בַשָּׁ֑מֶן שְׁלֹשָׁ֤ה עֶשְׂרֹנִים֙ לַפָּ֔ר שְׁנֵ֥י עֶשְׂרֹנִ֖ים לָאָֽיִל׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἡ θυσία αὐτῶν σεμίδαλις ἀναπεποιημένη ἐν ἐλαίῳ, τρία δέκατα τῷ μόσχῳ τῷ ἑνὶ καὶ δύο δέκατα τῷ κριῷ τῷ ἑνὶ,

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

et in sacrificiis eorum, similæ oleo conspersæ tres decimas per singulos vitulos, duas decimas per arietem,

Spanish

junto con su ofrenda de grano de harina fina mezclada con aceite: tres décimos de efa por el toro, dos décimos por el carnero,

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y el presente de ellos, de flor de harina amasada con aceite, tres décimas con cada becerro, dos décimas con cada carnero,

English

together with their grain offerings of fine flour mixed with oil — three-tenths of an ephah with the bull, two-tenths of an ephah with the ram,

What the text says

Summary

This verse specifies the grain offering (minchah) that accompanies the animal sacrifices: fine flour mixed with oil, measured in tenths of an ephah, with different quantities allotted to the bull and to the ram.

Key words

  • minchatam ("their grain offering", H4503G) — construct noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, meaning "the grain offering of them," linking this offering back to the animals named in the preceding verse.
  • solet ("fine flour", H5560) — feminine singular noun, the base substance of the offering.
  • belulah ("mixed", H1101A) — qal passive participle, feminine singular, agreeing with solet; it describes the flour as being in a mixed state without naming who performed the mixing.
  • shloshah ("three", H7969) and esronim ("tenths", H6241) — cardinal number governing a plural noun, together forming "three tenths [of an ephah]," the standard measure of dry grain offerings.
  • shnei ("two", H8147) — dual/construct form of the number two, governing the second occurrence of esronim ("tenths", H6241) to specify the smaller quantity assigned to the ram.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a list of measured quantities attached to specific animals rather than as a full independent clause. It opens with u-minchatam ("and their grain offering"), a construct phrase whose suffix ties the offering possessively to the animals mentioned earlier in the passage. The core description — solet belulah va-shamen ("fine flour mixed with the oil") — uses a passive participle (belulah) rather than an active verb, so the text presents the flour as already in a mixed condition, without specifying an agent.

The measurements follow in parallel construction: shloshah esronim la-par ("three tenths for the bull") and shnei esronim la-ayil ("two tenths for the ram"). Each phrase pairs a cardinal number with the plural noun esronim ("tenths") and a prepositional phrase using la- ("for the") plus the animal. This repetition creates a proportional scale — more flour for the larger animal (the bull), less for the smaller one (the ram) — communicated purely through numerical contrast rather than explanatory language.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders la-par ("for the bull") as τῷ μόσχῳ τῷ ἑνὶ ("for the one bull") and la-ayil ("for the ram") as τῷ κριῷ τῷ ἑνὶ ("for the one ram"), adding the numeral "one" that is not explicit in the Hebrew noun forms, which are simply singular. The Vulgate renders the same nouns with distributive Latin phrasing, per singulos vitulos ("for each of the bulls") and per arietem ("for the ram"), where "per singulos" implies a distributive plural sense for the bull not present in the Hebrew singular par.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.