Numbers 15:5-25

5 With each lamb for the Whole-Burnt-Offering or other sacrifice, prepare a quart of oil and a quart of wine as a Drink-Offering.

6 "For a ram prepare a Grain-Offering of four quarts of fine flour mixed with one and a quarter quarts of oil

7 and one and a quarter quarts of wine as a Drink-Offering. Present it as a pleasing fragrance to God.

8 "When you prepare a young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering or sacrifice for a special vow or a Peace-Offering to God,

9 bring with the bull a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour and two quarts of oil.

10 Also bring two quarts of wine as a Drink-Offering. It will be a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to God.

11 "Each bull or ram, each lamb or young goat, is to be prepared in this same way.

12 Carry out this procedure for each one, no matter how many you have to prepare.

13 "Every native-born Israelite is to follow this procedure when he brings a Fire-Gift as a pleasing fragrance to God.

14 In future generations, when a foreigner or visitor living at length among you presents a Fire-Gift as a pleasing fragrance to God, the same procedures must be followed.

15 The community has the same rules for you and the foreigner living among you. This is the regular rule for future generations. You and the foreigner are the same before God.

16 The same laws and regulations apply to both you and the foreigner who lives with you."

17 God spoke to Moses:

18 "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter the land into which I'm bringing you,

19 and you eat the food of that country, set some aside as an offering for God.

20 From the first batch of bread dough make a round loaf for an offering - an offering from the threshing floor.

21 Down through the future generations make this offering to God from each first batch of dough.

22 "But if you should get off the beaten track and not keep the commands which God spoke to Moses,

23 any of the things that God commanded you under the authority of Moses from the time that God first commanded you right up to this present time,

24 and if it happened more or less by mistake, with the congregation unaware of it, then the whole congregation is to sacrifice one young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a pleasing fragrance to God, accompanied by its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering as stipulated in the rules, and a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering.

25 The priest is to atone for the entire community of the People of Israel and they will stand forgiven. The sin was not deliberate, and they offered to God the Fire-Gift and Absolution-Offering for their inadvertence.

Numbers 15:5-25 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 15

In this chapter the children of Israel are instructed about the meat offerings and drink offerings, and the quantities of them, which were always to go along with their burnt offerings and peace offerings they should offer when they came into the land of Canaan, Nu 15:1-12; and they are told that the same laws and ordinances would be binding equally on them that were of the country, and on the strangers in it, Nu 15:13-16; and an order is given them to offer a cake of the first dough for an heave offering, Nu 15:17-21; and they are directed what sacrifices to offer for sins of ignorance, both of the congregation and particular persons, Nu 14:22-29; but as for presumptuous sinners, they were to be cut off, Nu 14:30,31; and an instance is recorded of stoning a sabbath breaker, Nu 14:32-36; and the chapter is concluded with a law for wearing fringes on the borders of their garments, the use of which is expressed, Nu 14:35-41.