Matthew Henry on Numbers 29:12–end
Soon after the day of atonement, that day in which men were to afflict their souls, followed the feast of tabernacles, in which they were to rejoice before the Lord; for those that sow in tears shall soon reap in joy. To the former laws about this feast, which we had, Lev 23:34, etc., here are added directions about the offerings by fire, which they were to offer unto the Lord during the seven days of that feast, Lev 23:36. Observe here, 1. Their days of rejoicing were to be days of sacrifices. A disposition to be cheerful does us no harm, nor is any bad symptom, when it is so far from unfitting us for the duties of God's immediate service that it encourages and enlarges our hearts in them.…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 29:39
These things ye shall do unto the Lord in your set feasts--From the statements made in this and the preceding chapter, it appears that the yearly offerings made to the altar at the public expense, without taking into account a vast number of voluntary vow and trespass offerings, were calculated at the following amount:--goats, fifteen; kids, twenty-one; rams, seventy-two; bullocks, one hundred thirty-two; lambs, 1,101; sum-total of animals sacrificed at public cost, 1,241. This, of course, is exclusive of the prodigious addition of lambs slain at the passover, which in later times, according to JOSEPHUS, amounted in a single year to the immense number of 255,600.
Next: Numbers Chapter 30
John Gill on Numbers 29:40
And Moses told the children of Israel,.... All these things; repeated the several laws unto them concerning the above sacrifices, with the additions unto them, and explanations of them:
according to all that the Lord commanded Moses; being a faithful servant to the Lord in all his house, and in all things appertaining to it.
John Calvin on Numbers 29:12–end
And on the fifteenth, day. Amongst their festivals this last was the chief [240] in which they dwelt in tabernacles for seven days; for whereas in the Passover they commemorated the night in which they came forth free from the plagues of Egypt, by dwelling in tabernacles they embraced the whole forty years in which their fathers in the desert experienced the constant and consummate bounty of God. That solemn convention, too, availed for another present purpose, i.e., of thanksgiving to God for the ingathering of the harvest. Hence it was that they offered sacrifices every day and in greater number: on the first day, thirteen bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs; on the second, twelve bullo…
