Future Bread, Present Accountability, and a Visible Reminder

The chapter carries no date or place. Jewish commentators put it straight after the sentence of chapter 14, as the first words the LORD speaks once it is given. The same formula opens the chapter’s three separate laws, here and at verses 17 and 37.

“Your habitations” is moshvotekhem, settled dwellings as against the tents of the camp. “Which I give” is a participle in Hebrew, noten, “which I am giving”: the gift is spoken of as already in motion.

“Sweet savour” is reach nichoach, a soothing aroma, the phrase first used when Noah sacrificed after the flood (Genesis 8:21). “Performing a vow” is literally “making a vow special”, from pala, to set apart. Herd means cattle; flock means sheep and goats.

“Meat offering” is minchah, a grain offering: in 1611 “meat” meant food of any kind. A tenth deal is a tenth of an ephah, an omer, the daily manna ration by Exodus 16:36. A hin is often estimated at about a gallon, so a quarter hin is roughly a quart of oil.

Exodus 29:40 had required a quarter hin of wine with the daily lamb at the altar; here the drink offering is extended to every private burnt offering and sacrifice. The poured wine, nesekh, went on the altar; Sirach 50:15 describes it poured “at the foot of the altar”.

The ram brings twice the flour, two tenths, but only a third of a hin of oil rather than a half: the oil rises by a smaller step than the flour. The ram stands as the middle size of animal between the lamb and the bullock.

The wine matches the oil at each level, a quarter for the lamb and a third for the ram. “Sweet savour” is attached here to the drink offering itself, so the poured wine is counted with the smoke that rises.

The bullock, the largest animal, is given three uses: burnt offering, vow, or peace offerings. The peace offering, shelamim, was eaten by the worshipper as a meal after the fat was burned, so this grain and wine accompany a sacrifice people also shared.

Three tenth deals of flour with half a hin of oil. The flour climbs by one tenth at each step, one, two, three, while the oil moves by fractions. Leviticus 14:10 uses the same three tenths of flour for the offering of a cleansed leper.

“Offering made by fire” is isheh, usually explained from esh, fire, though some connect it with a word for gift. The bullock’s half hin of wine closes the table, the largest pouring in the chapter.

The list runs from largest to smallest and adds the kid, a young goat, not named above: goats take the lamb’s measure. The Hebrew “thus” fixes the pattern as a rule to be repeated without further instruction.

Chapters 28 and 29 apply this rule at the feasts, where the count runs high: thirteen bullocks on the first day of Tabernacles (29:13), each with its own flour, oil and wine. The arithmetic is left to the worshipper.

“Born of the country” is ezrach, a native, a word Psalm 37:35 uses for a tree rooted in its own soil, “a green bay tree”. Natives are named first so that the next verse can bring the resident stranger under the same terms.

“Stranger” is ger, a resident foreigner living among Israel without an inheritance of land. “Whosoever be among you in your generations” reaches past the first arrivals to later families settled in Israel.

The Hebrew for “as ye are, so shall the stranger be” is two words, kakhem kagger, literally “as you, as the stranger”, set side by side with nothing between. “Ordinance for ever” is chukkat olam, the fixed statute.

“Law” is torah, instruction, and “manner” is mishpat, rule or ruling. Leviticus 24:22 has the same principle for justice in the courts: “Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country.”

A new speech opens the chapter’s second law, only five verses long, the shortest of the three.

The wording shifts from verse 2. There the land was one “which I give unto you”; here it is one “whither I bring you”. The first speaks of possession, the second of the journey toward it, addressed to people just told they will die on the way.

“Bread of the land” is lechem haarets; Joshua 5:11–12 marks the day the manna stopped by saying they ate “of the old corn of the land”. “Heave offering” is terumah, from rum, to lift: a portion lifted off the whole and set apart.

“Dough” is arisah, a rare word, perhaps coarse meal or the kneading trough. The “cake” is challah, a pierced ring of bread, the name the Jewish Sabbath loaf still carries. The Mishnah tractate Challah later fixed the household portion at a twenty-fourth.

The command is repeated from verse 20 with one addition, “in your generations”. Ezekiel 44:30 assigns the portion to the priests: “ye shall also give unto the priest the first of your dough”.

“Erred” is shagah, to stray or go wrong without intending it, a verb used of a sheep that wanders. The case is failure to do what was commanded, a sin of omission, where Leviticus 4 dealt chiefly with doing what was forbidden.

The scope is stretched in time: “from the day that the LORD commanded Moses, and henceforward”. Any commandment from Sinai onward is in view, not only the offerings of this chapter.

“Without the knowledge of the congregation” is literally “from the eyes of the congregation”, hidden from its sight. In Leviticus 4:14 the congregation brings a bullock as a sin offering; here the bullock is a burnt offering and a goat is the sin offering.

“Atonement” is kipper. “It shall be forgiven” is nislach, the passive of the salach of 14:19–20, where Moses asked pardon and the LORD said, “I have pardoned.” “Ignorance” is shegagah, the noun of the verb in verse 22.

The stranger is placed inside the congregation’s forgiveness because “all the people” went astray together. The verse is recited three times at the opening of the Day of Atonement service, straight after the Kol Nidre.

“Any soul” is nefesh achat, one single person. In Leviticus 4:28 a common person also brings a female goat, while a ruler in 4:23 brings a male: the individual here is given the commoner’s offering.

The priest acts “before the LORD”, so a single person’s unintended sin is dealt with at the same place as the congregation’s. Atonement is named twice in the verse, before the promise of forgiveness closes it.

The native-born and the stranger return from verses 13–16, now under “one law” for unintended sin. The equality that governed bringing an offering governs the remedy as well.

“Presumptuously” is literally “with a high hand”, beyad ramah, the phrase Exodus 14:8 used for Israel leaving Egypt openly, “with an high hand”. “Reproacheth” is gadaf, to revile, the word 2 Kings 19:22 uses of Sennacherib’s blasphemy.

“Despised” is bazah, the verb of Genesis 25:34: “Esau despised his birthright.” “Utterly be cut off” doubles the verb in Hebrew, hikkaret tikkaret, as “surely die” doubles its verb: the sentence is stated at full force.

“In the wilderness” sets the case in the forty years, placed here after the law on the high hand. The verb for gathering sticks is qoshesh, used in Exodus 5:12 for the Hebrews scattered through Egypt “to gather stubble instead of straw”.

The men who found him bring him in person, as Deuteronomy 17:7 later requires the witnesses to be first in carrying out a sentence. He is brought before Moses, Aaron and the whole congregation at once.

“In ward” is mishmar, custody, the word used in Leviticus 24:12 for the blasphemer, the one other case in the Law where the people waited for a ruling. “Declared” is porash, made distinct or clear.

The sentence uses the fixed form of capital law, mot yumat, “dying he shall die”. Exodus 31:14–15 had already said that a Sabbath-breaker must die; what had not been declared, on Rashi’s reading, was the manner.

“Without the camp” is where Miriam was shut out in 12:14–15, and where the blasphemer was taken in Leviticus 24:23. “As the LORD commanded Moses” is the refrain that closed each stage of the tabernacle’s making in Exodus 39–40.

The chapter’s third law. This verse and the four that follow became the third paragraph of the Shema, recited morning and evening in Jewish prayer.

“Fringes” is tsitsit, a tassel or lock, the word Ezekiel 8:3 uses for a lock of hair. “Borders” is kanaf, a corner or wing: Deuteronomy 22:12 places them on the four corners. “Blue” is tekhelet, a blue-violet dye from a sea snail, the colour of the tabernacle’s hangings.

“Go a whoring” is zanah, the verb behind the “whoredoms” of 14:33, the heart and eyes pictured as leading a faithless spouse astray. In the KJV, “use to go” means “are in the habit of going”. The Hebrew calls the whole cord “a tsitsit” to be looked at.

“Be holy” is the charge of Leviticus 19:2: “Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.” “Remember” and “do” return from verse 39, now as “my commandments”, the LORD speaking of them in the first person.

“I am the LORD your God” opens and closes the verse, bracketing the exodus between the two. The words are the preface of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:2, placed here at the end of a chapter of law.