Numbers 15:20

20 Ye shall offer your bread a heave-offering: as a heave-offering from the threshing-floor, so shall ye separate it,

Numbers 15:20 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 15:20

Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough [for] an
heave offering
Of the first dough made of the first corn that was threshed, winnowed and ground, they were to make a cake, and offer it an heave offering unto the Lord; the quantity of it is not expressed, but was left to the people's generosity; no stinted measure was fixed by the law; but according to the Scribes, or the traditions of the elders, the quantity of the cake was the twenty fourth part of the first dough that was kneaded; not the forty fourth, as Buxtorf ^F16 through mistake says; so the Targum of Jonathan,

``of the first of your dough, one out of twenty four (i.e. the twenty fourth part of it), ye shall separate a separation for the priests,''

with which agrees the Misnah ^F17, though according to that, if made to sell publicly it was the forty eighth part of it. Some, because ( Numbers 15:21 ) begins and ends with (m) , "mem", which numerically signifies "forty", think this is an instruction to a bountiful person to give the fortieth part ^F18:

as [ye do] the heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall ye
heave it;
as the two wave loaves and firstfruits of their harvest, ( Leviticus 23:16 Leviticus 23:17 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 Synagog. Jud. c. 34. p. 602.
F17 Challah, c. 2. sect. 7. so Schulchan Aruch, par. 2. c. 322. so Jarchi & Ben Gersom in loc.
F18 Baal Hatturim in loc.

Numbers 15:20 In-Context

18 Speak to the sons of Israel, and thou shalt say to them, When ye are entering into the land, into which I bring you,

19 then it shall come to pass, when ye shall eat of the bread of the land, ye shall separate a wave-offering, a special offering to the Lord, the first-fruits of your dough.

20 Ye shall offer your bread a heave-offering: as a heave-offering from the threshing-floor, so shall ye separate it,

21 even the first-fruits of your dough, and ye shall give the Lord a heave-offering throughout your generations.

22 But whensoever ye shall transgress, and not perform all these commands, which the Lord spoke to Moses;