Numbers15chapter 15

Numbers 15:1-5

The sentence at Kadesh has just fallen and the first words after it are about coming into the land. What follows ties a meat offering and a drink offering to every burnt offering, vow and freewill offering, where Exodus 29:40 had fixed flour, oil and wine for the daily lamb alone. Clarke reads the whole set as written for settled fields and vines rather than for a camp in the desert, since flour, oil and wine come from ploughed ground and planted vineyards.

Numbers 15:6-12

The accompaniment rises with the animal on a fixed scale: a lamb carries one tenth deal of flour with a fourth part of an hin of oil and as much wine, a ram two tenth deals with a third part of an hin, a bullock three tenth deals with half an hin. The proportion is set by the beast and not by the giver, and verse 12 orders the same measure repeated for however many are brought. Gill reckons the tenth deal at about three quarts of fine flour and the fourth part of an hin at rather more than a quart.

Numbers 15:13-16

One ordinance covers the homeborn and the stranger, and four verses say it three times over. Exodus 12:49 had given one law to the homeborn and the stranger for the passover, and here the same rule reaches every offering made by fire. Henry reads the words as an open door to the Gentiles, since Israel kept a difference in civil matters and kept none before the Lord.

Numbers 15:17-21

The first of the dough is claimed as a heave offering, so the demand moves from the threshingfloor to the household oven. Barnes traces the principle to Exodus 22:29 and 23:19, where the firstfruits of the field were already the Lord's, and this adds the loaf made out of them. Henry and others set Romans 11:16 beside the verse, where Paul argues that if the firstfruit be holy the lump is also holy, using the word for a lump of dough.

Numbers 15:22-26

The error in view is a national one, the whole congregation failing in some part of what was commanded by the hand of Moses without knowing it. Leviticus 4:13-21 had given a bullock as the sin offering for the assembly, and here the bullock is the burnt offering while a kid of the goats is the sin offering, a difference the text states and never explains. Barnes reads the placing of the law as an answer to fear, given to people who have just heard what one generation's disobedience cost. Verse 26 forgives the stranger along with them.

Numbers 15:27-31

One man's error is met with a she goat of the first year, and verse 29 puts the stranger under the same one law that verse 16 gave for the offerings. Verse 30 names a second kind of act and appoints no offering for it anywhere. The word rendered presumptuously is the Hebrew for a high hand, the phrase used of Israel's own departure from Egypt at Numbers 33:3, so what is described is a raised arm rather than a stumble. Henry and Clarke both set Hebrews 10:26 beside it, where there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins for the man who sins wilfully.

Numbers 15:32-36

Exodus 31:14-15 and 35:2 had already fixed death for breaking the sabbath, and verse 34 says exactly what was missing, that it was not declared what should be done to him. So the man is held while Moses waits for a ruling, which is the shape of the defiled men at 9:6-8 and of the daughters of Zelophehad at 27:1-11. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown observe that gathering sticks was lawful on any other day of the week, and that the day is the whole of what the case turns on. The narrative stands between the law of presumption and the fringes given to prevent forgetting.

Numbers 15:37-41

The fringes come with their reason attached, that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments, and Deuteronomy 22:12 repeats the command without repeating the reason. The verb behind seek not after your own heart and your own eyes in verse 39 is the verb used of the spies sent to search out the land at 13:2, which sets this rule two chapters from the search that ruined them. Matthew 9:20 has a woman touch the border of the Lord's garment and Matthew 23:5 has him charge the Pharisees with enlarging theirs. The chapter closes on the sentence that opened the ten commandments at Exodus 20:2, I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.