What Does Numbers 23:29 Mean?
And Balaam said to Balak, Build me here seven altars, and make ready for me here seven bullocks and seven rams.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams.THE KEY
Seven altars, seven bulls, and seven rams make the scale of this repeated sacrifice impossible to miss.
THE MEANING
Here, the offering is arranged with exact repetition: seven altars, seven bulls, and seven rams. The verse shows the ritual being set in place, while leaving its outcome unstated.
THE ROOT
מִזְבְּחֹת
mizbechot
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter or offer sacrifice.
“altars” in this verse is mizbechot. English names the structure; the Hebrew word for altar carries the act of sacrifice in its root. With bulls and rams explicitly prepared, the verse links the place to the act destined for it.
ALSO GROWS
zavach: To slaughter or offer sacrifice.
זָבַח
The verb reveals the act carried by the altar’s root.
zevach: A sacrifice or sacrificial offering.
זֶבַח
This noun makes the connection between the altar and the prepared animals explicit.
THE PATTERN
Across Scripture, an altar marks a place where an offering is presented.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.And with the stones he built an altar in the nature of the LORD, and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would hold two measures of seed.We have an altar, from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.THE THREAD
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.The Hebrew word for altar in both verses is מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach), from זבח (zavach), to slaughter or offer sacrifice. Genesis makes the root’s action explicit; Numbers repeats the altar-and-offering pattern on a scale of seven.
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