Numbers 15:31

31 because they have rejected what the Lord said and have deliberately broken one of his commands. They are responsible for their own death.

Numbers 15:31 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 15:31

Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath
broken his commandment
That is, has broken it through contempt of it, despising it as a command of God, paying no regard to it as a law of his; otherwise such who sin ignorantly break the commandment of God:

that soul shall be utterly cut off;
or "in cutting off shall be cut off" ^F21; most certainly cut off and entirely ruined and destroyed in this world and in that to come, as the Targum of Jonathan; and Maimonides ^F23 understands it of such a cutting off, that the soul itself perishes and is no more; but such annihilation the Scripture nowhere gives us any reason to believe:

his iniquity [shall be] upon him;
the punishment of it, no atonement being made for it by sacrifice; it shall be upon him and him only, or be "in him" ^F24, not repented of and not forgiven.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (trkt trkh) "excidendo excidetur", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius.
F23 In Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 1.
F24 (hb) "in ea", Montanus, Junins & Tremellius, Drusius; "in ipso", Piscator.

Numbers 15:31 In-Context

29 The same regulation applies to all who unintentionally commit a sin, whether they are native Israelites or resident foreigners.

30 But any who sin deliberately, whether they are natives or foreigners, are guilty of treating the Lord with contempt, and they shall be put to death,

31 because they have rejected what the Lord said and have deliberately broken one of his commands. They are responsible for their own death.

32 Once, while the Israelites were still in the wilderness, a man was found gathering firewood on the Sabbath.

33 He was taken to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community,