Numbers 7:87

Summary

This verse totals the animals brought by the twelve tribal leaders for the dedication of the altar: twelve bulls and twelve rams and twelve male lambs for the burnt offering, along with their accompanying grain offering, and twelve male goats for the sin offering.

Key words

• kol ("all", H3605) — construct form meaning "all of," governing ha-bakar ("the cattle") to introduce the entire summary list.
• 'olah ("burnt offering", H5930A) — feminine singular noun preceded by the preposition la ("for the"), marking the purpose of the first group of animals (bulls, rams, lambs).
• sheneim 'asar ("twelve", H8147 + H6240) — this compound numeral (literally "two-ten," i.e., "twelve") is repeated four times in the verse, once for each category of animal, structuring the text as a repeated tally.
• benei-shanah ("sons of a year", H1121H + H8141) — construct phrase meaning "a year old," specifying the age of the lambs (kevasim).
• minchatam ("their grain offering", H4503G + H9028) — construct noun with third-person masculine plural suffix, indicating the grain offering belongs to ("their") the burnt offering animals just listed.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a list with no main verb; it simply enumerates categories of sacrificial animals, each followed by the numeral sheneim 'asar ("twelve"). The opening word kol ("all") governs the whole cattle category dedicated la-'olah ("for the burnt offering"), and within that category three sub-groups appear in sequence: parim ("young bulls", H6499), 'eilim ("rams", H352A), and kevashim benei-shanah ("year-old lambs"). Each sub-group is given its own "twelve," so the numeral is not stated once for the whole set but repeated per animal type, a construction that emphasizes count rather than syntactic subordination.

After the burnt-offering animals, the conjunction u- ("and", H9002) attaches minchatam ("their grain offering"), which grammatically continues as a construct noun with a pronominal suffix, tying the grain offering back to the animals just named. A second u- introduces a separate category, se'irei 'izzim ("male goats of goats", H8163B + H5795), again followed by "twelve," and closed with the prepositional phrase le-chattat ("for a sin offering", H2403H), marking its distinct sacrificial purpose from the burnt offering.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders minchatam ("their grain offering") as καὶ αἱ θυσίαι αὐτῶν καὶ αἱ σπονδαὶ αὐτῶν ("their sacrifices and their libations"), introducing two Greek terms (offerings and libations) where the Hebrew has a single word for "grain offering." The Vulgate renders it more simply as libamenta eorum ("their libations"), using one term but a different sense (libation rather than grain offering) than the Hebrew minchah.