Comentários bíblicos

Chapters 28, 29. P

The amounts of public offerings at the sacred seasons

The following are the seasons for which offerings are enjoined:—(1) every morning and evening (Numbers 28:3-8), (2) the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9 f.), (3) the first day of each month (Numbers 28:11-15) [the Passover is mentioned Numbers 28:16), but no offering is commanded], (4) the seven days of Unleavened Cakes (Numbers 28:17-25), (5) the Feast of Weeks (Numbers 28:26-31), (6) the first day of the sacred seventh month, i.e. the Feast of Trumpets (Numbers 29:1-6), (7) the tenth day of the seventh month, i.e. the Day of Atonement (Numbers 29:7-11), (8) the fifteenth to the twenty-first day of the seventh month, i.e. the seven days of the Feast of Booths (Numbers 29:12-31), (9) the additional, eighth, day of the Feast of Booths (Numbers 29:35-38). Nos. (7) and (9) shew that the list is post-exilic, for neither was observed before the time of Ezra.

The offerings are of four kinds:—burnt-offerings (the flesh of animals), meal-offerings (meal and oil), drink-offerings or libations (wine), and sin-offerings (one he-goat). Similar lists, not, however, so complete and systematic, are found in the Law of Holiness (Leviticus 23) and Ezekiel 45:18 to Ezekiel 46:15. The amounts of the meal-offerings and libations have already been given in Numbers 15:1-16. The animals to be offered are as follows:—4 lambs for a burnt-offering on the Sabbath, and 2 on each of the other days in the week; on all the holy-days except the Sabbath one he-goat for a sin-offering; and in addition to these the following animals:

  Lambs  Rams  Bullocks

1st day of each month  7  1  2

Each of the 7 days of Unleavened Cakes  7  1  2

Feast of Weeks  7  1  2

1st day of 7th month  7  1  1

10th day of 7th month  7  1  1

Each of the 7 days of the Feast of Booths also 13 bullocks on the 1st day, and decreasing by one on each succeeding day.  14  2  

8th day of the Feast of Booths  7  1  1