Numbers 15:31

31 Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has made void his commandment, that person shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.

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 Ye shall have the same law for the one that sins through ignorance, both for the natural born among the sons of Israel and for the stranger that sojourns among them.

30 But the person that does something consciously, whether they are natural born or a stranger, the same reproaches the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

31 Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has made void his commandment, that person shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.

32 And while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered firewood upon the sabbath day.

33 And those that found him gathering firewood brought him unto Moses and Aaron and unto all the congregation.