What Does Numbers 29:20 Mean?
And on the third day, eleven young bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs of the first year, without blemish.
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 on the third day eleven bullocks, two rams, fourteen lambs of the first year without blemish;THE KEY
The verse ends its exact count with תְּמִימִם (temimim, whole and complete): what English calls “without blemish” also names wholeness.
THE MEANING
On this third day the count is exact: eleven bulls, two rams, and fourteen one-year lambs. Across the surrounding sequence, the bull count drops by one each day while the rams and lambs remain at two and fourteen. The closing words name the lambs as whole and complete.
THE ROOT
תְּמִימִם
temimim
GROWS FROM
תמם
tamam
To be whole or complete; to reach completion.
The phrase “without blemish” carries the broader sense of tamim: whole, complete, sound. This root also yields language for integrity, so the verse’s closing description holds the lambs within a word of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
tam: Whole, complete, blameless.
תָּם
The same root describes a person as whole, showing that tamim carries a quality of integrity as well as soundness.
tom: Integrity, completeness.
תֹּם
This noun shows the root’s range as wholeness of character, deepening the verse’s description beyond physical soundness.
THE PATTERN
The offering is counted in detail and marked as whole.
And you offer an ascending offering, an offering of fire, for a fragrance that settles unto the LORD; thirteen young bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs of the first year; they are without blemish.And whoever brings near a wholeness offering to the LORD to set apart his vow, or a willing offering from the herd or the sheep, it shall be whole to be pleasing; no blemish shall be in it.but with the costly blood of the Anointed One, as of a lamb without blemish and without stain.THE THREAD
And whoever brings near a wholeness offering to the LORD to set apart his vow, or a willing offering from the herd or the sheep, it shall be whole to be pleasing; no blemish shall be in it.The word rendered “perfect” is תָּמִים (tamim, whole or complete), from the same root as the lambs’ description here. Numbers names the lambs as whole; Leviticus uses that same word-family to describe an offering fit to be accepted.
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