2 "Command the children of Israel, and tell them, 'My offering, my food for my offerings made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to me, you shall observe to offer to me in their due season.'
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
My offering, and my bread - Or, my offering, even my bread, etc. Offering is here קרבן qorbân (compare Leviticus 1:2; Mark 7:11), a term in itself of quite general import, but often especially applied, as apparently in this instance, to the meat-offering which accompanied the sacrifices. This meat-offering connected itself, from its very nature, with the life of the Israelites in Canaan, not with their life in the wilderness; and it was annexed to the animal sacrifices as a token that the people must dedicate to God their property and the fruits of their labor as well as their own persons. See Numbers 15:2 note and Leviticus 21:6.
Command the children of Israel, etc. - It is not easy to account for the reason of the introduction of these precepts here, which had been so circumstantially delivered before in different parts of the books of Exodus and Leviticus. It is possible that the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly services had been considerably interrupted for several years, owing to the unsettled state of the people in the wilderness, and that it was necessary to repeat these laws for two reasons:
1. Because they were now about to enter into the promised land, where these services must be established and constant.
2. Because the former generations being all dead, multitudes of the present might be ignorant of these ordinances.
In their due season - Moses divides these offerings into: -
1. Daily. The morning and evening sacrifices: a lamb each time, Numbers 28:3, Numbers 28:4.
2. Weekly. The Sabbath offerings, two lambs of a year old, Numbers 28:9, etc.
3. Monthly. At the beginning of each month two young bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs of a year old, and a kid for a sin-offering, Numbers 28:11, etc.
4. Annual.1. The passover to last seven days; the offerings, two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs of a year old, and a he-goat for a sin-offering, Numbers 28:16, etc. 2. The day of First-Fruits. The sacrifices, the same as on the beginning of the month, Numbers 28:26, etc.
With these sacrifices were offered libations, or drink-offerings of strong wine, Numbers 28:7, Numbers 28:14, and minchahs, or meat-offerings, composed of fine flour mingled with oil, Numbers 28:8, Numbers 28:12, etc. For an ample account of all these offerings, see the notes on Leviticus 7 (note) and Exodus 12 (note).
Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, [and] (a) 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.
(a) By bread he means all manner of sacrifice.
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 meant in general all sacrifices which were offered to the Lord, and by his command; and more especially the burnt offering, which was wholly and peculiarly his, and is after explained by sacrifices made by fire, and it is chiefly of burnt offerings this chapter treats; and by "bread" may be meant either the shewbread, which was set upon a table before the Lord continually, as his bread; so the Targum of Jonathan,"my oblation, the bread of the order of my table, shall the priests eat, but what ye offer on the altar no man has power to eat;''or else the meat offering, or rather, as it may be called, the bread offering, which always went along with burnt offerings; though the copulative "and", which is not in the text, may be omitted, and both may signify the same, "my offering", that is, "my bread"; for the sacrifices were the food of God, the provisions of his house, of which there were all sorts in the sacrifices, flesh, bread, and wine; particularly the daily sacrifice was his food every day, and the fat of sacrifices burnt is called the food of the offering made by fire, Leviticus 3:16, so Jarchi interprets it, "my offering", this is the blood; "my bread", the "amurim", or fat that covereth the inward parts, which were burnt on the altar:
for my sacrifices made by fire for a sweet savour unto me; which respects burnt offerings, wholly consumed by fire, and were entirely the Lord's, and which he smelled a sweet savour in, or were acceptable to him: these the children of Israel were
to observe to offer unto him in their due season; the daily sacrifice, morning and evening; not before morning, nor after evening, as Aben Ezra observes; and so all the rest at the proper time fixed, whether weekly, monthly, or yearly. The Jews, from this phrase, "observe to offer unto me", conclude the necessity of fixing stations, or stationary men, as Jarchi notes; so the tradition is,"these are the stations, as it is said, "command the children of Israel, &c." but how can the offering of a man be offered, and he not stand by it? wherefore the former prophets appointed twenty four courses, and to every course there was a station at Jerusalem of priests, Levites, and Israelites; and when the time of each course came to go up, the priests and Levites went up to Jerusalem, and the Israelites who belonged to that course went into their cities, and read the history of the creation (d):''now these stations, or stationary men, were substitutes for, or representatives of all Israel, and stood by the sacrifices when they were offered, in which all Israel were concerned, as particularly in the daily sacrifice, which is here first taken notice of.
(d) Taanith, c. 4. sect. 2.
OFFERINGS TO BE OBSERVED. (Numbers. 28:1-31)
Command the children of Israel, and say unto them--The repetition of several laws formerly enacted, which is made in this chapter, was seasonable and necessary, not only on account of their importance and the frequent neglect of them, but because a new generation had sprung up since their first institution and because the Israelites were about to be settled in the land where those ordinances were to be observed.
My offering, and my bread--used generally for the appointed offerings, and the import of the prescription is to enforce regularity and care in their observance.
Numbers 28:2 contains the general instruction to offer to the Lord His sacrificial gift "at the time appointed by Him." On corban, see at Leviticus 1:2; on "the bread of Jehovah," at Leviticus 3:11; on the "sacrifice made by fire," and "a sweet savour," at Leviticus 1:9; and on "moed," at Leviticus 23:2, Leviticus 23:4.
Command the children of Israel - God here repeats some of the former laws about sacrifices, not without great reason, partly because they had been generally discontinued for thirty eight years together; partly because the generation to which the former laws had been given about these things was wholly dead, and it was fit the new generation should be instructed about them, as their parents were; partly to renew their testimonies of God's grace and mercy, notwithstanding their frequent forfeitures thereof by their rebellion: and principally because they were now ready to enter into that land, in which they were obliged to put these things in practice.
*More commentary available at chapter level.