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UTN uW Translation Notes:

Numbers 29 Introduction

Structure and Formatting

4. At the plains of Moab (22:1–36:13) * Instructions for regular and festival offerings (28:1–29:40) In this chapter, Yahweh continues to give instructions concerning the animals, grain, and wine that the Israelites needed to offer to him on certain days. That includes the first day of the seventh month (sometimes called the Festival of Trumpets), the tenth day of the seventh month (the Day of Atonement), the seven day festival that began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (the Festival of Huts), and the day immediately after the Festival of Huts.

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Grain and drink offerings

This chapter includes instructions for what the Israelites were supposed to offer along with animal sacrifices. For each male lamb, ram, and bull that they offered, they needed to offer also a specific portion of grain and wine. The portion size was different for each animal. When the Israelites included the grain and drink offerings with each animal, Yahweh was pleased. (See: mealoffering and drinkoffering)

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Quotes in quotes

Most of this chapter is part of a long quote within another quote. The ULT represents the quote within a quote. The UST models how to express the idea with only one level of quotation. Consider how your language indicates that a quote contains a quote. (See: figs-quotesinquotes)

“a scent of pleasing”

Multiple times in this chapter, Yahweh describes a sacrifice as “a scent of pleasing” to or for him. This phrase refers to burning the sacrifice in a way that causes smoke to go up, picturing the sacrifice as being converted to pleasant-smelling smoke by the fire and arising to Yahweh in heaven, where he would smell the smoke and be pleased. That the sacrifice was accompanied by the gift of the pleasant-smelling smoke of the sacrifice was apparently crucial to the acceptance of the offering as an appropriate sacrifice on a person’s behalf.

Repetition

The list of offerings for each day of the Festival of Huts is very repetitive. There are some minor differences in wording (represented in the ULT), and the number of bulls goes down by one each day. Beyond that, the instructions for each day are identical. Most likely, this kind of repetition represents a list or table in sentence form. The author thought that listing each item for each day was important. Because of this, it is recommended that you do not shorten the repetition. Instead, be sure that the repeated verses are translated in the same way. You could also use formatting to make these verses look more like a list and enable readers to follow the repetition better. See how you handled the repetition in [Numbers 7](../07/02.md).

Parallel NUM 29:0