Numbers 7:83

Summary

This verse lists the animals Ahira son of Enan offered as the zevach hashelamim ("sacrifice of the peace offerings"): two oxen, five rams, five goats, and five year-old lambs. It closes the enumeration with a formal identification of the donor.

Key words

• Ze.vach ("[the] sacrifice of", H2077) — masculine singular construct, linking directly to ha.shelaMim; it names the category of offering rather than a specific ritual act.
• she.la.Mim ("peace offerings", H8002) — masculine plural noun with definite article, designating the class of sacrifice to which all the following animals belong.
• cha.mi.Shah ("five", H2568) — cardinal number repeated three times (for rams, goats, and lambs), each time following its noun rather than preceding it, a common pattern in these census-style lists.
• be.nei- ("sons of", H1121H) — masculine plural construct with sha.Nah ("a year", H8141), forming the idiom "sons of a year" to indicate the lambs' age.
• ka.re.Ban ("[was] [the] offering of", H7133A) — masculine singular construct, introducing the closing formula that attributes the whole list to Ahira.

What the text says

The verse opens with a conjunction u ("and", H9002) attached to the construct phrase le.Zevach ha.shelaMim ("to the sacrifice of the peace offerings"), marking this as the continuation of a longer inventory (the peace-offering portion of a larger set of gifts). The construct chain Zevach... shelaMim ties the general term "sacrifice" tightly to its specific category, "peace offerings," so the phrase functions as a single unit meaning "the peace-offering sacrifice."

The animals are listed in a fixed pattern: noun followed by cardinal number — baKar sheNayim ("oxen, two"), 'eiLim chamiShah ("rams, five"), 'atuDim chamiShah ("goats, five"), kevaSim... chamiShah ("lambs... five"). This noun-before-number order is typical of Hebrew enumerative lists and differs from ordinary Hebrew word order elsewhere, giving the passage a formulaic, almost tabular rhythm. The lambs receive an additional qualifier, benei shaNah ("sons of a year"), an idiomatic construct expression indicating they are one year old, inserted between the noun and its number.

The verse ends with a summary clause: zeh karBan 'achiRa' ben-'eiNan ("this [was] the offering of Ahira son of Enan"). The demonstrative zeh ("this", H2088) points back to the entire preceding list, and karBan in construct with the proper name closes the unit by naming the offerer and his patronymic, ben-'eiNan ("son of Enan").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shelaMim as σωτηρίου ("of salvation/deliverance"), a semantic shift from the Hebrew's "peace offerings," while the Vulgate uses pacificorum ("of peace offerings"), closer to the Hebrew sense. The LXX also renders 'eiLim ("rams") as κριοὺς and kevaSim ("lambs") as ἀμνάδας ἐνιαυσίας ("year-old ewe-lambs," feminine), whereas the Hebrew kevaSim is masculine plural without specifying sex.