Numbers 15:20

20 From your first batch of dough you shall present a loaf as a donation; you shall present it just as you present a donation from the threshing floor.

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 ) .


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 Israelites and say to them: After you come into the land to which I am bringing you,
19 whenever you eat of the bread of the land, you shall present a donation to the Lord.
20 From your first batch of dough you shall present a loaf as a donation; you shall present it just as you present a donation from the threshing floor.
21 Throughout your generations you shall give to the Lord a donation from the first of your batch of dough.
22 But if you unintentionally fail to observe all these commandments that the Lord has spoken to Moses—
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.