Numbers 6:12

12 and separate themselves to the Lord for their days as nazirites, and bring a male lamb a year old as a guilt offering. The former time shall be void, because the consecrated head was defiled.

Numbers 6:12 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 6:12

And he shall consecrate unto the Lord the days of his
separation
He was to begin his account again, from the time of his shaving his head, and devote as many days to the service of the Lord as what he had vowed before:

and shall bring a lamb of the first year for a trespass offering;
we see how much trouble and expense were brought by a single act of pollution, and that involuntary too; how much more need is there of an atoning sacrifice for the sins of men, even for all of them, and for which only the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient?

but the days that were before shall be lost;
which were before the pollution, how near soever the time of Nazariteship being at an end was, whether his vow was for thirty days, or a hundred, or a whole year; be it what it will, and the pollution happened on the last of those days, all were lost; he was obliged to begin again, and go through the whole time he at first vowed; and this was the case if he drank the least quantity of wine, or shaved ever so little of the hair of his head, or was any ways polluted by the dead; and this severity, as it may seem, was used to make him cautious that he broke not his vow by any means:

because his separation was defiled;
in the case instanced in, by the dead, but it was the same if he broke the law of Nazariteship in any of the other articles of it.

Numbers 6:12 In-Context

10 On the eighth day they shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting,
11 and the priest shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, and make atonement for them, because they incurred guilt by reason of the corpse. They shall sanctify the head that same day,
12 and separate themselves to the Lord for their days as nazirites, and bring a male lamb a year old as a guilt offering. The former time shall be void, because the consecrated head was defiled.
13 This is the law for the nazirites when the time of their consecration has been completed: they shall be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting,
14 and they shall offer their gift to the Lord, one male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering, one ewe lamb a year old without blemish as a sin offering, one ram without blemish as an offering of well-being,

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. That is [those separated] or [those consecrated]
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.