What Does Numbers 29:2 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall offer a burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year without blemish:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
What rises as an offering is received in a phrase whose root means rest.
THE MEANING
The offering is precise in its count and condition: one young bull, one ram, and seven first-year lambs without blemish. The burnt offering rises to the LORD, and its “sweet savour” carries a Hebrew root of rest and settling. The verse holds ascent and rest together in the form of an offering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that an offering is an undefined gesture: here its count, age, and condition are explicit.
THE ROOT
נִיחֹחַ
nîḥōaḥ
GROWS FROM
נ־ו־ח
To rest, settle, or come to rest.
The Hebrew phrase carries the sense of a soothing or settling aroma beneath the familiar “sweet savour.” Its root lets the image of an offering received by the LORD echo with the language of rest.
ALSO GROWS
Noach: Noah; a name associated with rest.
נֹחַ
The name shares this root, linking the aroma in Genesis 8:21 with the same rest-language heard here.
menuchah: Rest or a resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This branch makes clear that the savour word belongs to the same root family as rest and settledness.
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ה
To go up or ascend.
The Hebrew name for the burnt offering is “that which goes up.” Beside נִיחֹחַ, the verse’s image moves upward and then settles into rest, a motion the English label does not itself reveal.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
The verb preserves the upward movement contained in the name of the offering.
ʿăliyyāh: Ascent or going up.
עֲלִיָּה
This noun shares the root and makes the offering’s upward movement audible in another Hebrew word.
THE PATTERN
An offering rises to the LORD as a pleasing aroma.
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.THE THREAD
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.Genesis joins the same “sweet savour” to Noah’s name, נֹחַ (Noach), which carries the root of rest. Numbers repeats that rest-root in נִיחֹחַ, letting the reader hear settling inside the aroma itself.
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