Catholic Commentary

Numbers 29:29–31

Feast of Tabernacles: Sixth Day Offerings

²⁹“‘On the sixth day: eight bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without defect;³⁰and their meal offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number, after the ordinance,³¹and one male goat for a sin offering; in addition to the continual burnt offering, its meal offering, and the drink offerings of it.

What does Numbers 29:29–31 mean?

Numbers 29:29–31 prescribes the sacrificial offerings for the sixth day of the Feast of Tabernacles: eight bulls, two rams, fourteen unblemished male lambs, along with their corresponding grain and drink offerings, plus one male goat for sin atonement. These offerings follow a precise ritual pattern decreasing in bulls while maintaining constant rams and lambs, all performed alongside the continual daily burnt offering.

Key Insight

On the sixth day of Tabernacles, Israel's offerings descend from thirteen bulls to eight—a meticulous countdown pointing toward one perfect Sacrifice.

Commentary

Numbers 29:29 — "On the sixth day: eight bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without defect"

Numbers 29 governs the sacrificial calendar for the seventh month (Tishri), Israel's most sacred month, culminating in the great Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth), which runs from the 15th to the 22nd day. The offerings prescribed for each of the seven days follow a mathematically precise pattern with respect to the bulls: thirteen on the first day (v. 13), twelve on the second (v. 17), eleven on the third (v. 20), ten on the fourth (v. 23), nine on the fifth (v. 26), eight on the sixth day, and seven on the seventh (v. 32). The rams remain constant at two, and the lambs constant at fourteen throughout all seven days. The sixth day, then, represents the penultimate station in this deliberate descent.

The requirement that the lambs be "without defect" (Hebrew: tamim) is not incidental. The word carries the weight of wholeness, integrity, and ritual completeness — the same term used of Noah (Gen 6:9, "blameless"), of the Passover lamb (Ex 12:5), and prophetically of the Servant of the Lord. Blemish excludes; perfection alone approaches the Holy One.

Numbers 29:30 — Meal and drink offerings according to number and ordinance

The grain (meal) offering and drink offering are not afterthoughts but integral components of the sacrificial act, specified "according to their number, after the ordinance." Numbers 15:1–12 establishes the proportional scale: the more costly the animal, the greater the accompanying offerings. For each bull: three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour with oil, and a hin of wine; for each ram: two-tenths and a third of a hin; for each lamb: one-tenth and a quarter of a hin. On the sixth day alone, this means enormous quantities of grain and wine poured out upon the altar — a lavish, multi-sensory act of worship engaging Israel's agricultural produce alongside its flocks.

The phrase "after the ordinance" (kəmišpāṭām) is crucial. It signals that Israelite liturgy is not spontaneous invention but received order — taxis, to use the Greek word the Septuagint favors. Worship is shaped by divine prescription, not human preference.

Numbers 29:31 — The goat for sin, and the continual burnt offering

The single male goat (śə'îr 'izzîm) for a sin offering (ḥaṭṭāʾt) punctuates each day of the feast. Even in celebration, Israel does not presume before God. The feast's joy does not dissolve the consciousness of corporate sin; rather, atonement is woven structurally into the liturgy of rejoicing. The goat is offered "in addition to the continual burnt offering ('ōlat hattāmîd)" — the twice-daily lamb sacrifice (Ex 29:38–42; Num 28:3–8) that anchors all other liturgy and which never ceases. The feast augments but never replaces the regular rhythm of daily worship.

Typological and Spiritual Senses

The descending sequence of bulls — from thirteen to seven over the seven days — fascinated the rabbis, who connected the seventy bulls offered across the whole feast to the seventy nations of the world (Gen 10), interpreting Israel's sacrifice as intercessory for all peoples. This universalist reading finds its Christian completion in Christ the High Priest, who offers himself once for the sins of the whole world (Heb 9:26). The tamim quality of the lambs anticipates the Lamb "without blemish or spot" (1 Pet 1:19). The daily goat for sin reminds us that liturgical celebration and penitential consciousness belong together — a truth encoded in every Catholic Mass, which includes the Confiteor and the Agnus Dei even at the most solemn feasts.

Catholic Commentary

Catholic tradition reads the elaborate sacrificial legislation of Numbers not as archaic irrelevance but as pedagogy — what St. Paul calls the Law as paidagōgos, a tutor leading to Christ (Gal 3:24). The Council of Trent, in its Decree on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Session XXII), explicitly teaches that the sacrifices of the Old Law were "figures" prefiguring the one sacrifice of Christ, which the Mass makes sacramentally present. The Catechism affirms: "The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who 'brought out bread and wine,' a prefiguring of her own offering" (CCC 1333), and more broadly treats Old Testament sacrifices as anticipations of the Eucharist.

St. Augustine, in City of God (Book X), teaches that the visible sacrifices of the Old Covenant were "sacraments" — sacred signs pointing to the invisible sacrifice of the heart and ultimately to Christ's self-offering. The meticulous variety of animals and offerings at Tabernacles illustrates what Augustine calls the diversity of gifts by which God's people approach him, all unified in the one Mediator.

The tamim requirement resonates with the Catechism's teaching on holiness: "Christ... 'holy, blameless, unstained' (Heb 7:26)... is the one, perfect, and unsurpassable Sacrifice" (CCC 614). The goat for sin embedded within the feast's joy prefigures the Catholic understanding that the Mass is simultaneously sacrifice and banquet — both the Lamb slain and the feast of the Kingdom. Pope Benedict XVI, in Sacramentum Caritatis (§70), emphasized that the Eucharistic celebration encompasses both penitence and festivity, sorrow for sin and eschatological joy.

For Today

The sixth day's offerings present a challenge to comfortable, casual Christianity. Israel did not celebrate Tabernacles with minimal effort — the quantities of animals, grain, and wine involved were staggering, representing real economic sacrifice from a pastoral and agricultural people. A contemporary Catholic might ask: what does my Sunday Mass cost me? Not merely in time, but in preparation, attention, and interior offering?

The structural inclusion of the sin offering within the feast is particularly instructive. Today's culture tends to separate celebration from penitence, treating confession as a wet blanket on joy. The Feast of Tabernacles refuses this separation. Catholics are invited to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation not as an interruption of spiritual joy but as its precondition and deepening. Approaching the Eucharistic feast without honest self-examination — as Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11:27–29 — is to miss what the feast is for. Let the sixth day's goat remind every Catholic: bring your sin to the altar. The feast is more joyful, not less, when it is honest.

Cross-References

Hebrews 9:11–14 commentary — Christ as the High Priest enters the true sanctuary once for all, offering his own blood — the perfect fulfillment of the daily and festal sacrifices prescribed in Numbers 29.
Exodus 12:5 commentary — The Passover lamb must be 'without blemish,' using the same Hebrew term (tamim) as the lambs required here, establishing the typological link to Christ the spotless Lamb.
1 Peter 1:18–19 commentary — Peter explicitly calls Christ a lamb 'without blemish or spot,' drawing on the sacrificial vocabulary of passages like this one to articulate the theology of redemption.
John 7:37–39 commentary — Jesus' proclamation of living water on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles situates his self-revelation directly within the liturgical context these offerings served.
Revelation 5:6–10 commentary — The Lamb standing as though slain before the heavenly throne is the eschatological fulfillment of every sin offering and holocaust offered across Israel's sacrificial calendar.
Numbers 28:3–8 commentary — The daily (tamid) burnt offering, referenced in v. 31, is prescribed here, underscoring that all festal sacrifices supplement but never replace the constant rhythm of daily worship.