Numbers 15:20

_YE SHALL OFFER UP A CAKE OF THE FIRST OF YOUR DOUGH FOR AN HEAVE OFFERING: AS YE DO THE HEAVE OFFERING OF THE THRESHINGFLOOR, SO SHALL YE HEAVE IT._ A cake of the first of your dough, х_ CHALAAH_ (H2471)] - a cake (2 Samuel 6:19) especially as offered in sacrifices (Leviticus 8:26; Leviticus 24:5). This law respecting chalaah was scrupulously obeyed; and it is still one of the only three mazowt duties which, according to rabbinical law, a woman has to perform. 'Though the Jews have neither temple nor priest, yet they strictly observe the offering of the first of their dough of the special loaves which they take for the Sabbath. These loaves are there

20._Ye shall offer up a cake. _Here another kind of first-fruits is required, to offer up sacred cakes of the first of their dough. First-fruits were offered of their fruits and ears of corn; but the representation was more lively in the bread itself; and, consequently, God would have them present tokens of their gratitude, not only from the barn, but from the mill, and the oven, so that whilst they eat their bread also, they might have Him before their eyes....

1-21 Full instructions are given about the meat-offerings and drink-offerings. The beginning of this law is very encouraging, When ye come into the land of your habitation which I give unto you. This was a plain intimation that God would secure the promised land to their seed. It was requisite, since the sacrifices of acknowledgment were intended as the food of God's table, that there should be a constant supply of bread, oil, and wine, whatever the flesh-meat was. And the intent of this law is to direct the proportions of the meat-offering and drink-offering. Natives and strangers are placed on a level in this as in other like matters. It was a happy forewarning of the calling of the Gentiles, and of their admission into the church. If the law made so little difference between Jew and Gentile, much less would the gospel, which broke down the partition-wall, and reconciled both to God....

Verse Numbers 15:20. _YE SHALL OFFER - THE FIRST OF YOUR DOUGH_] Concerning the offerings of _first-fruits_, Exodus 22:29....

DOUGH - “Coarse meal” Nehemiah 10:37; Ezekiel 44:30....

EXPOSITION VARIOUS LAWS OF SACRIFICE (Numbers 15:1). NUMBERS 15:1 THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES. IT must have been during the years of wandering, but within those limits it is impossible even to conjecture the probable date. There is no external evidence, and the internal evidence is wholly indecisive. Neither can it be reasonably maintained that these regulations were designed to revive the hope and sustain the faith of the rising generation. Incidentally they may have had some effect in that way, but it is evident that the primary object of their promulgation was simply to supply certain defects and omissions in the Levitical legislation. Why that legislation should have had the frag

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 p 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 q, though according to that, if made to sell publicly it was the forty eighth part of it. Some, because Number

5. VARIOUS LAWS, THE SABBATH-BREAKER, AND THE TASSELS ON THE GARMENTS CHAPTER 15 _ 1. Concerning offerings in the land (Numbers 15:1)_ 2. The second communication concerning offerings (Numbers 15:17) 3. The Sabbath-breaker (Numbers 15:32) 4. The tassels on the garments (Numbers 15:37) The historical account is here interrupted. What the critics have to say about this chapter speaking of it as an evidence of the patchwork of different persons, we care not to follow. Our space is too valuable for that. The chapter is beautifully in order at this point. God gave two communications to M

NUMBERS 15. A NUMBER OF DETACHED REGULATIONS (from P). NUMBERS 15:1. THE QUANTITIES OF FLOUR, OIL, AND WINE APPROPRIATE TO VARIOUS SACRIFICES. The practice of adding such accompaniments to flesh-offerings preserves the primitive idea that certain sacrifices were meals of which the deity partook (_cf._ Judges 9:13; 1 Samuel 1:24, Bel. 3- 6). The use of corn and wine in sacrifice could have come into vogue only after Israel had ceased to be a pastoral and had become an agricultural people. Wine probably replaced milk, which, though it does not occur among the offerings prescribed in the Jewish law, was offered by the Arabs, as also by the Carthaginians (a Phœ nician race). Milk formed the libation at the earl

CAKE. pierced cake. HEAVE OFFERING. See note on Exodus 29:27....