Then let them take a young bull and its cereal offering of fine flour mixed with oil: Next the Levites must bring a young bull with its grain offering. Verse 12 indicates that this bull must be sacrificed as a burnt offering. For a young bull (literally “a young bull, son of a cow”), see 7.15; for cereal offering (“grain offering” in Good News Translation), see 4.16; and for fine flour mixed with oil, see 6.15 and 7.13.

And you shall take another young bull for a sin offering: The Hebrew pronoun for you is singular, so it seems that Moses alone must bring this second bull. However, it is more likely that Moses had to instruct the Levites to bring this bull also. If a literal rendering of this clause is misunderstood as referring only to Moses, translators may use a second person plural pronoun to refer to Moses and the Levites, or the pronoun “they” (Contemporary English Version) to refer to the Levites. For sin offering, see 6.11. The priests also had to sacrifice a young bull as a sin offering when they were consecrated (see Exo 29.1, 10-14; Lev 8.2, 14).

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .