What Does Numbers 29:14 Mean?
And their gift is flour mingled with oil; three tenths for each of the thirteen bulls, and two tenths for each of the two 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 their meat offering shall be of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto every bullock of the thirteen bullocks, two tenth deals to each ram of the two rams,THE KEY
The offering is measured in relation to the creature it accompanies: three tenths for each bull, two for each ram.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the flour and oil a precise measure beside each animal. The portions differ with what is presented, making the offering specific rather than an undefined amount.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that every offering has one uniform measure falls away: this verse assigns different portions to bulls and rams.
THE ROOT
עֶשְׂרֹנִים
ʿesronim
GROWS FROM
עשר
ʿ-ś-r
Ten; counting or reckoning by tens.
“tenths” in this verse is ʿesronim. The measured portions belong to the same word family as the tithe, מַעֲשֵׂר (maʿaser). The verse makes the offering’s measure explicit: the share is named and counted, not left as an unspecified gift.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeser: Ten.
עֶשֶׂר
This is the number carried in the root of the measured portions.
maʿaser: Tithe, a tenth portion.
מַעֲשֵׂר
It shows the same root shaping a counted share given from a larger whole.
שֶׁמֶן
shemen
GROWS FROM
שמן
sh-m-n
To be fat or rich; richness and abundance.
The word for oil shares its root with words for fatness and richness. Here the flour is mingled with oil, so the measure describes a joined provision rather than flour standing alone.
ALSO GROWS
shamen: Fat, rich.
שָׁמֵן
It carries the same sense of richness present in the name for oil.
mishmannim: Rich foods, fatness.
מִשְׁמַנִּים
This branch preserves the root’s association with richness as nourishment.
THE PATTERN
What is offered is given a measured portion that corresponds to what it accompanies.
And three tenths of flour for a gift, mingled with oil, for one young bull; and two tenths of flour for a gift, mingled with oil, for one ram;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.For if the leaning heart is there first, it is well received according to what one has, and not according to what one does not have.THE THREAD
You shall truly give a tenth of all the yield of your seed, what the field brings forth year by year.The Hebrew for “tenth deals” comes from עשר (ʿ-ś-r), the same root in מַעֲשֵׂר (maʿaser), “tithe.” Both verses make an offering a counted share of what is present.
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