Numbers 7:86

Summary

The verse gives the total count and weight of the twelve gold pans (kappot) offered by the tribal leaders: twelve pans full of incense, each weighing ten shekels by the sanctuary standard, for a combined weight of one hundred twenty shekels.

Key words

• kappot ("pans of", H3709I) — feminine plural construct, opening the phrase "pans of gold"; the same root appears again in plural absolute form (word 18) when totaling "the gold of the pans."
• shteim 'esreh ("two-ten", H8147/H6240) — the dual form of "two" combined with "ten," the standard Biblical Hebrew way of expressing "twelve"; it modifies kappot to specify twelve pans.
• 'asarah 'asarah ("ten, ten", H6235, repeated) — the numeral is doubled to express a distributive sense, "ten shekels each," rather than being stated as a single collective number.
• haKaf ("the pan", H3709I) — singular definite noun following the doubled numeral, marking that the repeated "ten" applies individually to each pan, not to the group as a whole.
• kol-zehav ("all the gold of", H3605/H2091) — construct chain introducing the final summary total for all pans combined, distinguishing the per-unit figure from the aggregate figure.

What the text says

The verse is built in two halves. The first half describes the individual pans: kappot zahav ("pans of gold") receives the numeral shteim 'esreh ("twelve") and the description me'le'ot qetoret ("full of incense", H4392/H7004). The second half shifts to weight. Here the grammar is distinctive: instead of writing "ten shekels for each pan" with the word for shekel repeated per pan, the Hebrew simply doubles the numeral — 'asarah 'asarah haKaf ("ten, ten, the pan") — a construction understood distributively, meaning "ten [shekels] per pan." The unit sheqel ("shekel", H8255) appears only once, in construct with haqodesh ("the holy place", H6944G), specifying the standard of measurement ("the sanctuary shekel") that applies to the whole calculation.

The closing clause then moves from unit weight to total weight: kol-zehav hakappot ("all the gold of the pans") is followed by the sum 'esrim ume'ah ("twenty and a hundred," i.e., one hundred twenty), confirming that twelve pans at ten shekels each amount to one hundred twenty shekels total.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew doubled distributive 'asarah 'asarah ("ten, ten") with a single numeral, δώδεκα ("twelve"), attached directly to θυίσκαι ("dishes"), collapsing the Hebrew's per-unit phrasing into a straightforward count. The Vulgate instead preserves the distributive sense explicitly with "denos siclos appendentia" ("weighing ten shekels each"), closer to the Hebrew's repeated-numeral construction than the LXX's rendering.