Numbers 15:19

Then it shall be, that, when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall offer up an heave offering unto the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Numbers 15:19-20. When ye eat — When you are about to eat it; for before they eat it, they were to offer this offering to God. The bread of the land — That is, the bread-corn. The threshing-floor — That is, of the corn in the threshing-floor, when you have gathered in your corn.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-21 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The general principle which includes the ordinance of this and the three verses following is laid down in Exodus 22:29; Exodus 23:19.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall offer up an heave offering—The offering prescribed was to precede the act of eating.

unto the Lord—that is, the priests of the Lord (Eze 44:30).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

When ye eat, i.e. when you are about to eat it; for before they did eat it, they were to offer this offering to God.

Of the bread, i.e. the bread-corn, as that word is used. Job 28:5 Psalm 104:15 Isaiah 28:22.

Unto the Lord, i.e. to the priest of the Lord, as appears from Ezekiel 44:30.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then it shall be, that when ye eat of the bread of the land,.... Of the land of Canaan; when they were about to eat of it, before they actually did; when they were preparing for it, had ground their corn into flour, and had mixed it with water and kneaded it into dough, in order to bake it and make it fit for food; by bread is meant bread corn, such as was the old corn of the land the Israelites first ate of when they entered into it, Joshua 5:11; the Targum of Jonathan adds,"not of rice, or millet, or pulse,''but what was made of corn used for bread; and the Jews say (n), there were five things only they were obliged to make the cake of, wheat, barley, "cusmin" or rye, fox ear (barley), and oats; and this is to be understood only of dough made for men's bread, and not for dogs or any other beast (o):

ye shall offer up an heave offering unto the Lord; and what that is, is expressed in Numbers 15:20.

(n) Misn. Challah, c. 1. sect. 1.((o) Schulchan Aruch, ut supra, (par. 2.) c. 330. sect. 8, 9.

Geneva Study Bible

Then it shall be, that, when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall offer up an heave offering unto the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. an heave-offering] a contribution. See on Numbers 15:9.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - When ye eat of the bread of the land. A thing which the younger Israelites, few of whom had ever tasted bread, must have eagerly looked forward to (see on Joshua 5:11, 12). An heave offering. See on Exodus 29:27; Leviticus 7:14. The dedication of first-fruits had been ordered in general terms in Exodus 22:29; Exodus 23:19. Numbers 15:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"As for the assembly, there shall be one law for the Israelite and the stranger,...an eternal ordinance...before Jehovah." הקּהל, which is construed absolutely, refers to the assembling of the nation before Jehovah, or to the congregation viewed in its attitude with regard to God.

A second law (Numbers 15:17-21) appoints, on the ground of the general regulations in Exodus 22:28 and Exodus 23:19, the presentation of a heave-offering from the bread which they would eat in the land of Canaan, viz., a first-fruit of groat-meal (עריסת ראשׁית) baked as cake (חלּה). Arisoth, which is only used in connection with the gift of first-fruits, in Ezekiel 44:30; Nehemiah 10:38, and the passage before us, signifies most probably groats, or meal coarsely bruised, like the talmudical ערסן, contusum, mola, far, and indeed far hordei. This cake of the groats of first-fruits they were to offer "as a heave-offering of the threshing-floor," i.e., as a heave-offering of the bruised corn, in the same manner as this (therefore, in addition to it, and along with it); and that "according to your generations" (see Exodus 12:14), that is to say, for all time, to consecrate a gift of first-fruits to the Lord, not only of the grains of corn, but also of the bread made from the corn, and "to cause a blessing to rest upon his house" (Ezekiel 44:30). Like all the gifts of first-fruits, this cake also fell to the portion of the priests (see Ezek. and Neh. ut sup.).

To these there are added, in Numbers 15:22, Numbers 15:31, laws relating to sin-offerings, the first of which, in Numbers 15:22-26, is distinguished from the case referred to in Leviticus 4:13-21, by the fact that the sin is not described here, as it is there, as "doing one of the commandments of Jehovah which ought not to be done," but as "not doing all that Jehovah had spoken through Moses." Consequently, the allusion here is not to sins of commission, but to sins of omission, not following the law of God, "even (as is afterwards explained in Numbers 15:23) all that the Lord hath commanded you by the hand of Moses from the day that the Lord hath commanded, and thenceforward according to your generations," i.e., since the first beginning of the giving of the law, and during the whole of the time following (Knobel). These words apparently point to a complete falling away of the congregation from the whole of the law. Only the further stipulation in Numbers 15:24, "if it occur away from the eyes of the congregation through error" (in oversight), cannot be easily reconciled with this, as it seems hardly conceivable that an apostasy from the entire law should have remained hidden from the congregation. This "not doing all the commandments of Jehovah," of which the congregation is supposed to incur the guilt without perceiving it, might consist either in the fact that, in particular instances, whether from oversight or negligence, the whole congregation omitted to fulfil the commandments of God, i.e., certain precepts of the law, sc., in the fact that they neglected the true and proper fulfilment of the whole law, either, as Outram supposes, "by retaining to a certain extent the national rites, and following the worship of the true God, and yet at the same time acting unconsciously in opposition to the law, through having been led astray by some common errors;" or by allowing the evil example of godless rulers to seduce them to neglect their religious duties, or to adopt and join in certain customs and usages of the heathen, which appeared to be reconcilable with the law of Jehovah, though they really led to contempt and neglect of the commandments of the Lord.

(Note: Maimonides (see Outram, ex veterum sententia) understands this law as relating to extraneous worship; and Outram himself refers to the times of the wicked kings, "when the people neglected their hereditary rites, and, forgetting the sacred laws, fell by a common sin into the observance of the religious rites of other nations." Undoubtedly, we have historical ground in 2 Chronicles 29:21., and Ezra 8:35, for this interpretation of our law, but further allusions are not excluded in consequence. We cannot agree with Baumgarten, therefore, in restricting the difference between Leviticus 4:13. and the passage before us to the fact, that the former supposes the transgression of one particular commandment on the part of the whole congregation, whilst the latter (Numbers 15:22, Numbers 15:23) refers to a continued lawless condition on the part of Israel.)

But as a disregard or neglect of the commandments of God had to be expiated, a burnt-offering was to be added to the sin-offering, that the separation of the congregation from the Lord, which had arisen from the sin of omission, might be entirely removed. The apodosis commences with והיה in Numbers 15:24, but is interrupted by מעי אם, and resumed again with ועשׂוּ, "it shall be, if...the whole congregation shall prepare," etc. The burnt-offering, being the principal sacrifice, is mentioned as usual before the sin-offering, although, when presented, it followed the latter, on account of its being necessary that the sin should be expiated before the congregation could sanctify its life and efforts afresh to the Lord in the burnt-offering. "One kid of the goats:" see Leviticus 4:23. כּמּשׂפּט (as in Leviticus 5:10; Leviticus 9:16, etc.) refers to the right established in Numbers 15:8, Numbers 15:9, concerning the combination of the meat and drink-offering with the burnt-offering. The sin-offering was to be treated according to the rule laid down in Leviticus 4:14.