Numbers 28:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Numbers 28:2
Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and my bread for my sacrifices made by fire, for a sweet savour unto me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season.
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
savour
רֵ֚יחַRei.ach
H7381
odor (as if blown) · noun, common masculine singular construct
observe
תִּשְׁמְר֕וּtish.me.Ru
H8104
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
offer
לְהַקְרִ֥יבle.hak.Riv
H7126
to approach (causatively · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct
season
בְּמוֹעֲדֽוֹbe.mo.'a.Do
H4150
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 3:11 And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imag…
Exodus 23:15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of th…
Exodus 29:18 And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto…
Leviticus 1:9 But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made b…
Leviticus 1:13 But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrific…
Leviticus 1:17 And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood t…
Leviticus 21:6 They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Numbers 28:1-8
Here is, I. A general order given concerning the offerings of the Lord, which were to be brought in their season, Num 28:2. These laws are here given afresh, not because the observance of them was wholly disused during their thirty-eight years' wandering in the wilderness (we cannot think that they were so long without any public worship, but that at least the daily lamb was offered morning and evening, and doubled on the sabbath day; so bishop Patrick conjectures); but that many of the sacrifices were then omitted is plainly intimated, Amo 5:25, quoted by Stephen, Act 7:42. Did you offer unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? It is implied, "No, y…
Command the children of Israel, and say unto them,.... For what follows concerned them all; namely, the offering of their daily, weekly, monthly, and anniversary sacrifices, which were not for private persons, but for the whole congregation; and these might be considered by them not merely as commands and duties to be observed, but as tokens of the divine favour to them, that notwithstanding all their rebellions and provocations in the wilderness, sacrifices for sin were ordered, continued, and accepted of by the Lord; and his acceptance of them, and well pleasedness in them, may easily be observed in the expressions used concerning them:
my offering, and my bread; by "offering" may be mean…
Numbers 28:1-15
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
1. Et loquutus est Jehova ad Mosen, dicendo:
2. Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and my bread for my sacrifices made by fire, for a sweet savour unto me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season.
2. Praecipe filiis Israel, et dic eis, Oblationem meam, panem meum in oblationibus meis ignitis in odorem quietis meae custodietis, ut offeraris mihi tempore suo.
3. And thou shalt say unto them, This is the offering made by fire which ye shall offer unto the LORD; two lambs of the first year without spot day by day, for a continual burnt offering.
3. Dices praeterea illis, Haec est oblatio i…
The Church Fathers
Therefore, we know that above all faith should commend us to God. When we have faith, let us strive for our works to be perfect. For this is a full and perfect sacrifice, as the Lord himself teaches us, saying: 'You shall offer to me your gifts and offerings on my feast days, without detracting or dividing them; but offering them in full, intact, and perfect.' Now, the feast day of the Lord is where the grace of perfected virtues resides. Those who are truly perfect are those whose mind, having conquered the allurements of worldly anxieties and bodily pleasures, is free from the world and dedicated to God, not diminishing anything from the straight path of their direct intention, nor dividing the times of their own affections now to luxury, now to labor. Therefore, only the wise celebrate this solemnity, no one else. For it is difficult to find a soul immune to such passions.
If the observance of the sacrifices and the legal ordinances, which were given to the people of Israel as a figure, could have stood firm right up to the present time, they would without doubt have shut out the faith of the Gospel, through which, from the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the nations are converted to God. For there was in those things which were then observed a certain magnificent religion, full of every reverence, which even at the very first glance would astonish the beholder. For who, seeing that which was called the sanctuary or holy place, and gazing upon the altar, and upon the priests standing by to complete the sacrifices, and beholding the whole order by which all these things were carried out, would not have supposed this to be a most complete rite by which God the Creator of all ought to be worshipped by the human race? But thanks be to the coming of Christ, who, tearing our souls away from this spectacle, has brought them over to the consideration of the heavenly and to the contemplation of spiritual things, and has indeed destroyed those things that seemed great upon the earth, and has transferred the worship of God from the visible to the invisible and from the temporal to the eternal. But in truth the Lord Jesus Christ himself requires both ears that may hear these things and eyes that may see them. Hence we too, now having in our hands the law given through Moses, and wishing to show that it is a spiritual law, require from you such ears and such eyes as look not to those things that have been destroyed, but that seek these things there where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and that savor the things which are above, not the things which are upon the earth. Let it suffice, then, that these things have been set forth by us in the place of a preface for the things that are to be said.
Dictionary and topics
Festivals, Religious — There were daily (Lev. 23), weekly, monthly, and yearly festivals, and great stress was laid on the regular observance of them in every particular (Num. 28:1-8; Ex. 29:38-42; Lev. 6:8-23; Ex. 30:7-9;…
Pentecost — I.e., “fiftieth”, found only in the New Testament (Acts 2:1; 20:16; 1 Cor. 16:8). The festival so named is first spoken of in Ex. 23:16 as “the feast of harvest,” and again in Ex. 34:22 as “the day…
Sin-offering — (Heb. hattath), the law of, is given in detail in Lev. 4-6:13; 9:7-11, 22-24; 12:6-8; 15:2, 14, 25-30; 14:19, 31; Num. 6:10-14. On the day of Atonement it was made with special solemnity (Lev. 16:5,…
Bread · Offered with sacrifices — Offered with sacrifices
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Num 28:2 contains the general instruction to offer to the Lord His sacrificial gift "at the time appointed by Him." On corban, see at Lev 1:2; on "the bread of Jehovah," at Lev 3:11; on the "sacrifice made by fire," and "a sweet savour," at Lev 1:9; and on "moed," at Lev 23:2, Lev 23:4.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Numbers 28:2
they are my food: See study notes on Exod 29:18; Deut 8:2.
Rashi on Numbers 28:2
צו את בני ישראל COMMAND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL — What is said above? Moses said, “Let the Lord set [a man over the congregation]” (Numbers 27:16). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, “Instead of giving Me a command regarding My children, command My children regarding Me!” A parable! It may be compared to the case of a princess who was departing this world and gave her husband charge concerning her children, etc., as it is related in Sifrei Bamidbar 142:1.
קרבני MY OFFERING — this refers to the blood.
לחמי MY FOOD — this refers to the fat-portions, and so it states, (Leviticus 3:16) “And the priest shall burn them (the fat-portions) on the altar, it is the food of the fire-offerings”…
But now let us come at last to the things that are written. "And the Lord spoke to Moses," it says, "saying: Command the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: My offerings, my gifts, my victims, for an odor of sweetness, observe to offer them to me on my feast days. And thou shalt say to them: These are my victims, which you shall offer to the Lord." No one offers anything of his own to God, but what he offers is the Lord's, and a man does not so much offer his own things as render back to Him the things that are His own. Therefore, wishing to write laws concerning the sacrifices and gifts to be offered to Him by men, the Lord first of all discloses the true nature of those very things that were to be offered, and says: "My offerings, my gifts, my sacrifices, for an odor of sweetness, observe to offer to me on my feast days." "These offerings," He says, "concerning which I am about to command you that you offer them to me on my feast days, are my gifts," that is, they are given to you by me; for from me the human race receives all that it has. Therefore, lest anyone in offering gifts should believe that he confers some benefit upon God, and through this become impious in the very act in which he seemed to worship God — for what is so impious as for a man to think that he bestows something upon God as upon one in need? — of necessity, as we have said, He first teaches man, so that he may know that whatever he offers to God he rather renders back to Him than offers. But let us also see how He says: "which you shall offer to me on my feast days." Does God, then, have His feast days? He does. For to Him human salvation is a great festivity. I think that through each and every one of the believers, through each one who is converted to God and advances in faith, a festivity arises for God. How greatly, do you think, does it gladden Him when he who had been unchaste becomes chaste, and he who had been unjust cultivates justice, and he who had been impious is made pious? All these conversions of each individual generate festivities for God. Nor is there any doubt that our Lord Jesus Christ also, who for our salvation poured out even his own blood, keeps the greatest festivity when He sees that it was worth the labor that He humbled Himself and, taking the form of a servant, became obedient even unto death. The Holy Spirit likewise keeps festival, when He…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
