Numbers 29:4

Summary

The verse specifies the grain offering accompanying each of seven lambs: one-tenth of an ephah of flour for every single lamb, repeated for all seven. The Hebrew constructs this through a distributive apposition rather than a single multiplied quantity.

Key words

• 'isaron ("a tenth [of an ephah]", H6241) — the measure noun designating the grain-offering unit assigned per animal.
• 'echad ("one", H0259) — appears twice: first attached to kesev ("lamb") with the article (ha'echad, "the one [lamb]"), functioning distributively to mean "each single lamb."
• kesev ("lamb", H3532) — occurs first in the singular (la-kkesev, "for the lamb") and then in the plural (ha-kkevasim, "the lambs"), marking the shift from the individual unit to the whole group.
• shiv'at ("seven of…", H7651) — a construct-state numeral, grammatically bound to the following noun ha-kkevasim, meaning literally "the seven-of the lambs."

What the text says

The Hebrew clause is built as a distribution formula: ve-'isaron 'echad ("and one tenth") is first assigned la-kkesev ha-'echad ("for the one/single lamb"), and this same allotment is then said to apply le-shiv'at ha-kkevasim ("for the seven of the lambs"). The repetition of 'echad — once modifying "lamb" directly and once implicit in the phrase structure — establishes that the tenth-ephah measure is not a total sum but a per-unit ration: each lamb, individually, receives its own tenth, and this is stated for all seven lambs collectively. The construct form shiv'at ha-kkevasim ties the numeral tightly to the noun it counts, presenting "the seven lambs" as a single defined group to which the distributive rule applies.

This grammatical repetition (singular kesev then plural kevasim) is the mechanism by which Hebrew expresses "for each of the seven" without a distinct distributive particle; English and other translations must supply words like "each" or "per" that are not separate lexical items in the Hebrew text itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the distributive sense by repeating the noun for the measure itself — δέκατον δέκατον ("a tenth, a tenth") — before stating τῷ ἀμνῷ τῷ ἑνὶ ("for the one lamb") and τοῖς ἑπτὰ ἀμνοῖς ("for the seven lambs"), using dative case rather than a preposition to mark distribution. The Vulgate renders it as unam decimam per agnum ("one tenth per lamb"), using the distributive preposition per, then adds a relative clause, qui simul sunt agni septem ("who together are seven lambs"), restructuring the Hebrew's construct-numeral phrase into an explanatory clause not present as such in the Hebrew syntax.