Numbers 7:45

Summary

This verse lists three sacrificial animals — a bull, a ram, and a lamb — each specified as a single animal, with the lamb further qualified as one year old, all designated for a burnt offering. The verse belongs to a repeated formula listing offerings brought by the tribal leaders in Numbers 7.

Key words

• par ("a young bull", H6499) — masculine singular noun, the first animal named, appearing in construct with bakar.
• ben-bakar ("a young one of cattle", H1121H + H1241) — construct phrase, literally "son of cattle," specifying that the par belongs to the bovine herd category.
• 'echad ("one", H0259) — cardinal number repeated three times (once per animal), marked as feminine singular in this tagging despite modifying masculine nouns (par, 'ayil, kesev).
• ben-shenato ("son of its year", H1121L + H8141 + H9023) — double construct chain with pronominal suffix, an idiom meaning "one year old," modifying the lamb.
• le-'olah ("for a burnt offering", H9005 + H5930A) — prepositional phrase marking the purpose/destination of all three animals listed.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has no verb; it is a list of nouns in apposition, each animal named and then quantified by 'echad ("one"). The construct chain ben-bakar attached to par does not simply mean "bull" but "a young one belonging to cattle," situating the animal within its category of livestock — a common Hebrew way of specifying kind before individual. Similarly, the lamb (kesev) is qualified by the double construct ben-shenato, literally "son of its year," an idiom for age that Hebrew expresses through kinship terminology (ben, "son of") rather than an adjective for "old."

The repetition of 'echad after each animal name (bull–one, ram–one, lamb–one) creates a rhythmic, itemized listing style typical of administrative or cultic inventories, emphasizing that exactly one of each animal is specified rather than a plural offering. The final phrase le-'olah ("for a burnt offering," H5930A) governs the entire list, indicating the destination-use of these three animals collectively, not a separate use for each.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint renders ben-bakar as ἐκ βοῶν ("from oxen/cattle"), a prepositional phrase rather than the Hebrew's construct-chain idiom "son of cattle" — both convey that the bull belongs to the cattle category, but the syntax differs. The Vulgate's bovem de armento ("an ox from the herd") similarly uses a prepositional construction. The Vulgate omits explicit repetition of "one" for the ram and lamb (unlike the Hebrew's threefold 'echad and the LXX's threefold ἕνα), listing them simply as arietem and agnum without the numeral, though the singular form itself implies one animal.