Numbers 15:20

20 as ye shall separate the first fruits of your cornfloors, (as ye shall set apart the first fruits from your threshing floors,)

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 thou to the sons of Israel, and thou shalt say to them, When ye come into the land which I shall give to you,
19 and ye eat of the loaves of that country, ye shall separate a little cake of your pastes to the Lord (ye shall set apart a little cake, as a contribution to the Lord);
20 as ye shall separate the first fruits of your cornfloors, (as ye shall set apart the first fruits from your threshing floors,)
21 so ye shall give the first fruits also of your sowls to the Lord. (so ye shall also give the first fruits of your dough to the Lord.)
22 That if by ignorance ye pass (over) any of those things which the Lord spake to Moses, (And if, by ignorance, ye forget to do any of these things which the Lord spoke to Moses,)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.