Numbers 29:38

Summary

The verse specifies one male goat as a sin offering, to be presented in addition to the regular daily burnt offering, which itself included its accompanying grain offering and drink offering. This verse closes a list of festival offerings by adding the sin offering as a supplement to the standing daily ritual.

Key words

• se'ir ("a male goat of", H8163B) — construct form linking to chattat, identifying the animal type consecrated for this offering.
• chattat ("a sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun designating the offering's purpose/category.
• milvad (from H9006 mi + H9005 le + H0905J bad) — a compound preposition meaning "besides" or "apart from," marking this offering as additional to what follows.
• tamid ("continuity", H8548) — masculine singular noun modifying "burnt offering" ('olat) to indicate its perpetual, daily character.
• minchatah ("its grain offering", H4503G) with suffix -ah ("her/its", H9024) — the pronominal suffix ties the grain offering directly back to the burnt offering of tamid.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure builds through a chain of construct relationships: se'ir chattat 'echad ("one male goat of sin-offering") stands as the main clause item, followed by the compound preposition milvad ("besides/apart from") which grammatically separates this goat offering from the following elements. What follows milvad is itself a construct chain: 'olat ha-tamid ("the burnt offering of continuity/the regular burnt offering"), further extended by two feminine nouns bearing the 3rd-person feminine singular suffix -ah: minchatah ("its grain offering") and niskah ("its drink offering"). The suffixes on these final two nouns grammatically point back to 'olah ("burnt offering"), showing that the grain and drink offerings belong to the burnt offering, not to the goat of the sin offering.

This construct-suffix chain makes clear in the Hebrew that the sin offering (the goat) is a separate, additional item, while the grain and libation offerings are specifically bound to the continual burnt offering by grammatical agreement (feminine suffix matching feminine 'olah).

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete text) shows some divergence: it renders milvad as πλὴν ("except/apart from") and appears to attach the grain and drink offerings (αἱ θυσίαι, αἱ σπονδαί) using plural forms with a 3rd-person plural suffix (αὐτῶν, "their"), differing from the Hebrew's singular feminine suffix (-ah, "its") that ties these offerings to the burnt offering alone. The Vulgate follows a structure similar to the Hebrew, using "ejus" (singular "its") for the sacrifice and libation, aligning with the Hebrew's singular referent.