Numbers 7:75

Summary

The verse lists three sacrificial animals — a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb — each specified as a single animal ("one"), all designated for a burnt offering ('olah, H5930A). This is part of a repeated offering list in Numbers 7 describing tribal leaders' gifts at the dedication of the altar.

Key words

• par ("a young bull", H6499) — absolute masculine singular noun, the head of a construct phrase further specified by ben-bakar.
• ben ("a young one of", H1121H / H1121L) — appears twice in construct form; the first instance links par to bakar ("cattle", H1241) to specify the bull's category, the second links kevesh to shanato to indicate its age.
• 'echad ("one", H0259) — the cardinal number repeated three times, once after each animal named, marked in the data as feminine singular despite modifying masculine nouns (par, 'ayil, kevesh).
• shanat ("year", H8141) with suffix -o ("its", H9023) — construct noun plus pronominal suffix forming the idiom "son of its year," i.e., one year old.
• 'olah ("a burnt offering", H5930A) — feminine singular noun following the preposition le ("to/for", H9005), marking the purpose of all three animals.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has no verb; it is a list of construct phrases, each naming an animal followed by the numeral 'echad ("one"). The first phrase, par 'echad ben-bakar, uses a construct chain (ben-bakar, "young one of cattle") to classify the bull as bovine stock, rather than simply naming the species. The third animal, kevesh 'echad ben-shenato, uses the same construct pattern with ben ("son of") plus shanato ("its year") to express age — a formulaic Hebrew idiom meaning "one year old," built with the possessive suffix -o attached to shanat. All three animals are joined at the end by the single prepositional phrase le-'olah, indicating that the bull, ram, and lamb together constitute the material for one burnt offering, rather than three separate offerings.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ben-bakar as ek boōn ("from cattle"), a prepositional phrase rather than the Hebrew construct chain. It also translates ben-shenato with the single adjective eniausion ("of one year"), collapsing the Hebrew's construct-plus-suffix idiom into one word. The Vulgate omits the numeral "one" for the bull and ram (bovem... et arietem), while keeping "anniculum" ("of one year") for the lamb, differing from the Hebrew's threefold repetition of 'echad.