Numbers 5:25

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וְהֵנִ֤יף

nûwph

H5130

“and · to wave”

Conjunction + Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 37× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 20:25

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1329 , 1330

to move to and fro, wave, besprinkle - (Qal) to besprinkle, sprinkle - (Polel) to wave, brandish (in threat) - (Hiphil) to swing, wield, wave - to wield - to wave or shake (the hand) - to wave (hand) - to shake or brandish against - to swing to and fro - to wave (an offering), offer - to shed abroad - (Hophal) to be waved

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

16: words
13: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְהֵנִ֤יף to wave H5130 occurs in 35 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
9 nouns
1 preposition
3 particles

Verb forms

וְלָקַ֤ח Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְהֵנִ֤יף Hiphil · Sequential Perfect
וְהִקְרִ֥יב Hiphil · Sequential Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

מִנְחַ֣ת offering H4503 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 28 words from the Hebrew and 30 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 16 Hebrew tokens and 24 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 5:25 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Leviticus 8:27 He put all these in Aaron's hands and in his sons' hands, and waved them for a wave offering before Yahweh.
Exodus 29:24 You shall put all of this in Aaron's hands, and in his sons' hands, and shall wave them for a wave-offering before Yahweh.
Numbers 5:15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring her offering for her: the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal. He shall pour no oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to memory.
Numbers 5:18 The priest shall set the woman before Yahweh, and let the hair of the woman's head go loose, and put the meal offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal offering of jealousy. The priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings a curse.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 5:25 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְלָקַ֤ח הַכֹּהֵן֙ מִיַּ֣ד הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה אֵ֖ת מִנְחַ֣ת הַקְּנָאֹ֑ת וְהֵנִ֤יף אֶת הַמִּנְחָה֙ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה וְהִקְרִ֥יב אֹתָ֖הּ אֶל הַמִּזְבֵּֽחַ

The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 5:25 Septuagint · lemma form

καί λαμβάνω ὁ ἱερεύς ἐκ χείρ ὁ γυνή ὁ θυσία ὁ ζηλοτυπία καί ἐπιτίθημι ὁ θυσία ἔναντι κύριος καί προςφέρω αὐτός πρός ὁ θυσιαστήριον

And the priest shall take from the hand of the woman the sacrifice of jealousy, and shall present the sacrifice before the Lord, and shall bring it to the altar.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְיִסַב כַּהֲנָא מִידָא דְאִתְּתָא יָת מִנְחַת קִנְאָתָא וִירֵים יָת מִנְחָתָא קָדָם יְיָ וִיקָרֵב יָתַהּ לְמַדְבְּחָא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְיִסַב כַּהֲנָא מִידָא דְאִתְּתָא יַת מִנְחָתָא דְקַנִיאֲתָא וְיָרִים יַת מִנְחָתָא קֳדָם יְיָ וִיקָרֵב יָתָהּ עַל גַבֵּי מַדְבְּחָא

But the priest shall (first) take from the woman's hand the mincha of jealousy, and uplift the mincha before the Lord, and lay it on the side of the altar.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 5:25 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

25. shall wave the meal-offering] The word ‘wave’ probably does not bear its technical meaning (explained in note on Num_6:20), but denotes simply to ‘offer.’ See Num_8:11; Num_8:13; Num_8:15; Num_8:21.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand,.... Which she was obliged to hold in her hand while the above rites and ceremonies were performed; which was very heavy, being an omer of barley flour, a measure about three quarts, which was put into an Egyptian basket made of small palm tree twigs: and this was put into her hands to weary her, as before observed, that, having her mind distressed, she might the sooner confess her crime:

and shall wave the offering before the Lord: backwards and forwards, upwards and downwards, as Jarchi; who also observes, that the woman waved with him, for her hand was above the hand of the priest so the tradition is,"he (her husband) took her offering out of the Egyptian basket, and put it into a ministering vessel, and gave it into her hand, and the priest put his hand under hers, and waved it (a):"

and offer it upon the altar: this was the bringing of it to the southwest corner of the altar, as Jarchi says, before he took a handful out of it, as in other meat offerings.

(a) Misnah, ut supra, (Sotah) c. 3. sect. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

Offer it upon the altar. According to tile law of the minchah, (Le 2) only a handful was burnt as a "memorial" (Hebrew, azkarah), the rest being "presented," and then laid at the side of the altar to be subsequently eaten by the priests. All this was done before the actual ordeal by drinking the water, in order that the woman might in the most solemn and complete way possible be brought face to face with the holiness of God. She stood before him as one of his own, yet as one suspected and abashed, courting the worst if guilty, claiming complete acquittal if innocent.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

והניף THEN [THE PRIEST] SHALL WAVE [THE MEAL-OFFERING] — He moves it about horizontally and vertically, and she, too, waves it together with him, because her hand has to be above the hand of the priest (Sotah 19a).

והקריב אתה — This refers to what is known as the הגשה — bringing it to the south-west corner of the altar before the קמיצה, “the taking off of the handful of flour”, just as is the case with all other meal-offerings (cf. Rashi on Leviticus 7:7 and Sotah 14b).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 16 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is nûwph (“to wave”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to wave” (nûwph) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Exodus 20:25 shares the word «to wave» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“offering” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וְלָקַ֤ח» is Qal Sequential Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and John Gill's Exposition read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 16 Hebrew ↔ 24 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 15 words in this verse.
“offering” occurs 2× in this single verse.
13 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 16 words in this verse.