What Does Numbers 28:14 Mean?
And their poured offerings shall be half a hin of wine for a young bull, and a third part of a hin for a ram, and a fourth part of a hin for a lamb; this is the ascending offering of every new moon, throughout the new moons of the year.
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 their drink offerings shall be half an hin of wine unto a bullock, and the third part of an hin unto a ram, and a fourth part of an hin unto a lamb: this is the burnt offering of every month throughout the months of the year.THE KEY
The rite holds two motions together: the wine is poured out, and the offering goes up.
THE MEANING
Here, the offering is precisely proportioned: the wine portion shifts with the animal, and the sequence returns each month through the year. The Hebrew word for month also carries the sense of newness, so each recurrence holds repetition and beginning together.
THE ROOT
נִסְכֵּיהֶם
niskēhem
GROWS FROM
נסך
to pour out, especially as a libation
“poured offerings” in this verse is niskēhem. The noun for the wine portion grows from the verb for pouring it out. The root keeps the offering as an action: what is set apart here is literally what gets poured.
ALSO GROWS
nasak: to pour out a libation
נָסַךְ
The verb names the act contained in the noun for the drink offering.
massekah: cast-metal image; poured casting
מַסֵּכָה
The root’s sense of pouring also applies to metal poured into a mold, revealing its concrete physical core.
חֹדֶשׁ
chodesh
GROWS FROM
חדש
to be new, to renew
The word for month is tied to newness and the new moon. The offering recurs, yet the word itself marks each interval as new.
ALSO GROWS
chadash: new
חָדָשׁ
This adjective shares the root that gives the month its sense of newness.
chiddesh: to renew, make new
חִדֵּשׁ
This verb carries the root’s renewing sense into an action.
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
to go up, ascend
“ascending offering” in this verse is olah. The Hebrew name for the burnt offering comes from the verb ‘to go up.’ Beside the poured libation, it gives the verse a paired shape: the wine is poured out while the main offering rises.
ALSO GROWS
alah: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
This verb is the root action held within the name of the offering.
maʿalah: ascent, step
מַעֲלָה
This noun carries the same upward movement into a way of rising.
THE PATTERN
A poured portion gives tangible form to devotion alongside a larger act of offering.
With the one lamb, a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a fourth of a hin of crushed oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine for a poured offering.And Jacob set up a standing stone in the place where he spoke with him, a stone pillar, and he poured out a drink offering upon it, and he poured oil upon it.But even if I am poured out upon the offering and service of your trust, I rejoice, and rejoice together with you all.THE THREAD
And Jacob set up a standing stone in the place where he spoke with him, a stone pillar, and he poured out a drink offering upon it, and he poured oil upon it.Numbers uses the noun נֶסֶךְ (nesekh), meaning a poured libation; Genesis uses a verb from the same root when Jacob pours one out. The shared root links the measured, recurring offering with a single act of encounter.
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