This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath, in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. Sermons
I. THE LESSON ON THE SPECIAL OFFERING. Special blessings belonged to the sabbath, over and above those of the ordinary day, and it became a duty to recognize them. The sabbath offerings represented what Israel had gained by the rest of the sabbath. We make our gains not only by the food we eat and the work we do, but also by the intervals of rest in the midst of labour. Moreover, by this offering God indicated that the sabbath was to have its own appropriate occupation. Most emphatically, by precept (Exodus 20:10), and by punitive example (Numbers 15:32-36), God had commanded to Israel the cessation from ordinary work. Here he indicates that the most effectual way of providing for cessation is to find a holy work to do. We cannot be too earnest in finding such a positive use of the day of rest as will please God and promote our own spiritual advancement. Surely, in the judgment, many who have reckoned themselves Christians will be convicted of a sore misuse of the weekly opportunity. We may be very precise and even punctilious in our abstentions, but what will this avail by itself? The mind that is not earnestly and comfortably occupied with Divine things will assuredly be occupied in thinking of things that belong to the ordinary day. As it is now, instead of the Sunday casting its brightness on the week-day, the weekday too often casts its shadow on the Sunday. God is able to make the appropriate occupation of his day, if we enter on it in a right spirit, a joy all the day long. In the world, and through the week, we have to deal with all sorts of men. There is the strain, the discord, and the suspicion that must belong to all human relations in this mixed and sinful state. The week-day is the world's day, wherein we cannot get away from the world. The Lord's day ought to be what the name suggests, the day for us to feel that we have not only to do with the hard conditions of a selfish world, but with One in heaven, who is most considerate, and most able to satisfy us with all good things. II. THE LESSON OF THE DAILY OFFERING WHICH WAS NOT TO BE OMITTED. The sabbath, in respect of God's gifts and dealings in nature, was the same as an ordinary day, and therefore had to be acknowledged as such. So far as God's operations in nature are concerned all goes on without a break, Sunday and week-day alike. The sun rises as on other days, the clouds gather and the rain falls, the rivers run, and the tides flow and ebb. It is as true, Sunday as week-day, that in God we live and move and have our being. The great difference is that while God in nature is making all to go on just as usual, man, if he be in harmony with the will of God in Christ Jesus, is resting from his toils. God needs not rest in the sense in which we need it. He rested from the exercise of his creative energy, but not because of exhaustion. We, who have to eat our bread in the sweat of our face till we return to the ground, need that regular and frequent interval of rest which he has so graciously provided. And thus, coming as we sometimes do to the close of the week, utterly spent and exhausted, ready to welcome the brief respite from toil, we have the joy of recollection, as we see God continuing on the sabbath his work in the natural world, that he is indeed the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, he who fainteth not, neither is weary. "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength" (Isaiah 40:28-31). - Y. 1. The great majority of every generation are uninventive, unaspiring, cringing, servile, thoughtless, ignorant. They not only walk in moral darkness, but lack the desire, if not the capacity, to struggle into the light of moral principles. 2. Clearly, then, they require spiritual leaders, men who shall point out to them the way of honesty, truth, purity, and holiness, marching before them in all the stateliness of the Christly morality. II. THE GENUINE TYPE OF SPIRITUAL LEADERS. 1. The true spiritual leader must be a man. Not an idiot, not a charlatan, not a functionary. A "man" is a person who has right convictions of moral duty, and honestly embodies them in his daily life. 2. The true spiritual leader must be a man inspired by God. No man can be a true moral leader of the people who has not within him, as the all-animating and directing force, an unutterable abhorrence of wrong and an invincible attachment to the right, whose whole nature does not beat and beam with the soul of Divine morality. III. THE DIVINE SUCCESSION OF SPIRITUAL LEADERS. They are all in the hands of God. 1. He takes the greatest spiritual leaders away by death. 2. He raises others to supply their place. One enters into another's labours. (Homilist.) 1. Called by God to His work. 2. Appointed by God to his sphere of work. II. THAT THE ORDINATION IS TO THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK. III. THAT THE ORDINATION SHOULD BE CONDUCTED BY TRIED MEN. IV. THE ORDINATION SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED WITH THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS. V. THAT THE ORDINATION SHOULD INCLUDE A CHARGE TO THE ORDAINED, "Give him a charge." The duties and responsibilities of the office should be laid before those who are being set apart to it; and the experience of godly and approved men should be made available for the direction of the inexperienced. What wise and inspiring things Moses would say to Joshua in this charge! What sage counsels drawn from his ripe experience! &c. VI. THAT THE ORDINATION SHOULD BE CONDUCTED IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PEOPLE. Moreover, such an arrangement — 1. Is more impressive to the person being ordained. There present with him are the immortal souls for whom he has to live and labour. 2. Tends to influence the people beneficially. As they hear of the important duties and solemn responsibilities of their minister, they should be awakened to deeper solicitude and more earnest prayer on his behalf, and to heartier co-operation with him. VII. THE ORDINATION SHOULD CONFER HONOUR UPON THE PERSON ORDAINED. VIII. THAT A PERSON SO CHOSEN OF GOD, SHOULD SEEK SPECIAL DIRECTION FROM HIM, AND SEEKING, SHALL OBTAIN IT. 1. A warning against self-sufficiency. 2. A source of encouragement and strength. (W. Jones.) 1. God imparts the powers of the spirit. We have nothing self-derived. 2. He claims the affections of the spirit. 3. He heals the disorders and sympathises with the sorrows of the spirit. 4. He alone can constitute the happiness of the spirit. 5. He will decide upon the future destiny of the spirit. II. THE MORAL USES OF THESE CONTEMPLATIONS. 1. Let them teach you reverence for the human mind. 2. Let them impress you with thoughts of the vast importance of personal religion. 3. Let them inspire you with practical efforts to benefit and bless society. By education-by missions, &c. 4. Let them kindle hope for the prospects of the human race. (S. Thodey.). After this manner ye shall offer daily. All these laws were in a manner before handled while the people abode at Mount Sinai. If any ask the question, why then they are here repeated? I answer, first, because they were now come to enter into the land, being in a manner upon the borders thereof (Numbers 27:12). God would therefore put them in mind of this that, when they should possess the land, they must be mindful of His worship and their own duty. Secondly, because few at this time remained alive which had heard, or if they had heard, could remember these laws that then were published. Thirdly, the ceremonial worship had been intermitted in the wilderness for many years, as circumcision (Joshua 5.) and many other like ordinances by reason of their continual journeys, or at least continual expectation of them. Lastly, God doth hereby comfort and confirm His people after their manifold provocations and murmurings, testifying thereby that as a merciful Father He is reconciled unto them, and the remembrance of their sins buried, and that He hath determined to do them good all the days of their life. Now, the first thing to be considered is the daily sacrifice, in which was to be offered, morning and evening, a lamb, fine flour, wine, and oil; these were to be offered continually as a burnt offering upon the altar, which law was not to take place until they came into the land, as we heard before in the like case (Numbers 15:2), because in the desert they wanted many things necessary (Deuteronomy 12:8) which was a sufficient dispensation for the omitting of them; for when God doth require anything He giveth means to perform it, and did never impute it as a sin unto them when an inevitable necessity did hinder them, and the desire to obey is no less accepted than obedience itself. Of this daily sacrifice with the rites thereof to be performed every morning and evening we read at large (Exodus 29:38), they must do it day by day continually. So 1 Kings 18., when Elijah convinced Baal's priests, there is mention made of their choosing, dressing, and offering a bullock in the morning (ver. 26), and of his doing the like "at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice" (ver. 36). Likewise "Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour" (Acts 3:1). This was the time, being three of the clock in the afternoon, when the evening sacrifice was wont to be offered, unto which prayer also was wont to be joined. We see their practice what it was daily ; now let us come to the uses toward ourselves.1. First, see from hence by consideration of this daily offering — "a lamb every morning and a lamb every evening" — a great difference between the Old and New Testament. 2. Secondly, we must understand from hence, that as all sacrifices under the law did as it were lead us to Christ, "who is the end of the law of righteousness to every one that believeth" (Romans 10:4); so did this daily sacrifice of "the two lambs offered morning and evening" most plainly. He is both the Altar and the Sacrifice (Hebrews 13:10). 3. Lastly, this daily sacrifice importeth the daily sacrifice of prayer which we ought to offer to God as our daily service due unto Him (1 Kings 18:36). And thus do the Hebrew doctors speak, "The continual sacrifice of the morning made atonement for the iniquities that were done in the night, and the evening sacrifice made atonement for the iniquities that were by day." It is there. fore required of us to pray unto God, not once in a month, or once a week, nor only upon the Sabbath day, or publicly in the assemblies of the faithful, but we must remember Him daily that remembereth us every hour. (W. Attersoll.) In the beginnings of your months. The moon is no unapt emblem of the Church, shining in borrowed splendour, and deriving all her light, even when clearest and full-orbed, from the sun, whose glory she reflects as she travels through the night. And very fitly she represents the economy of the law, at its highest attainments only a faint resemblance of the glory to come, and from which in reality all its own splendour was derived, sometimes only but partly shining on the Church, and often obscured and dim. The beginning of every month bespoke renewal and increase. Filling her horn night after night, and becoming larger and larger, she increases in brightness to full-orbed beauty. As the moon increased, so increased the sacrifices of the economy she was an emblem of. The natural divisions of time, days multiplying into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, became regulating signs to obligation and hope. But progress, as light increasing more and more, bespoke imperfection, and the repetition of every new moon, denoting inefficiency, waited for something to come. "It was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin." Had the offerings of holy times increased to ever such a number, and the cattle upon a thousand hills been sacrificed, all they could have affected would have been infinitely short of the results attributable alone to the death of Christ. Rivers of wine and oil could not be a libation ; neither was "Lebanon sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering." To redeem a soul, to cleanse from guilt and save from death, more than all the world is required, infinite excellence, Almighty love.(W. Seaton.). People Ephah, Israelites, MosesPlaces Jericho, Mount SinaiTopics Addition, Beside, Besides, Burned, Burnt, Burnt-offering, Continual, Drink, Drink-offering, Libation, Offering, Regular, Sabbath, ThereofOutline 1. Offerings are to be observed3. The continual burnt offering 9. The offering on the Sabbath 11. On the new Moons 16. At the Passover 26. In the day of the firstfruits Dictionary of Bible Themes Numbers 28:3-13Library Whether the Third Precept of the Decalogue, Concerning the Hallowing of the Sabbath, is Fittingly Expressed?Objection 1: It seems that the third precept of the decalogue, concerning the hallowing of the Sabbath, is unfittingly expressed. For this, understood spiritually, is a general precept: since Bede in commenting on Lk. 13:14, "The ruler of the synagogue being angry that He had healed on the Sabbath," says (Comment. iv): "The Law forbids, not to heal man on the Sabbath, but to do servile works," i.e. "to burden oneself with sin." Taken literally it is a ceremonial precept, for it is written (Ex. 31:13): … Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica Questions About the Nature and Perpetuity of the Seventh-Day Sabbath. Jesus Defends Disciples who Pluck Grain on the Sabbath. 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