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24. Oil and Bread Before the Lord

¹ The LORD said to Moses, ² “Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually. ³ Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the LORD from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. ⁴ The lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the LORD must be tended continually.

⁵ “Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using two-tenths of an ephah That is, probably about 7 pounds or about 3.2 kilograms for each loaf. ⁶ Arrange them in two stacks, six in each stack, on the table of pure gold before the LORD. ⁷ By each stack put some pure incense as a memorial Or representative portion to represent the bread and to be a food offering presented to the LORD. ⁸ This bread is to be set out before the LORD regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant. ⁹ It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the LORD.”

A Blasphemer Put to Death

¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. ¹¹ The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) ¹² They put him in custody until the will of the LORD should be made clear to them.

¹³ Then the LORD said to Moses: ¹⁴ “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. ¹⁵ Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; ¹⁶ anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.

¹⁷ “‘Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. ¹⁸ Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution—life for life. ¹⁹ Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. ²¹ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. ²² You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.’”

²³ Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the LORD commanded Moses.

40. And ye shall take you on the first day. By this symbol the Jews were instructed that this day was to be celebrated with joy and gladness; for it was not only a memorial of the favor which He had graciously bestowed on their fathers in the desert, when they were exposed to all the vicissitudes of heaven, ³⁵⁶³⁵⁶ “De pluyes, de gresles, de froid, et de chaud.” — Fr. and He cherished them under His wings as an eagle does her brood; but it was also an act of thanksgiving, because He had provided them so commodious a reception in the Promised Land; thus, by carrying the boughs, they proclaimed their joy and triumph as it were. Nor would it have been reasonable that they should go into the booths in sorrow and sadness, since they represented visibly to them both the former and present goodness of God, and at the same time gave them a foretaste of the life of heaven, inasmuch as they were but sojourners on earth. Some suppose הדר, hadar, ³⁵⁷³⁵⁷ “The Jews limit this to the citron; but this is a mere tradition of men. The words mean any tree whatsoever that was attractive and goodly. Jahn says, ‘Any noble tree, such as the palm, or the malum Punicum.’ So Rosenmuller.” — Bonar in loco. to be a proper name, but since it everywhere means “comeliness,” I have been unwilling to depart from its ordinary sense; nor do I curiously insist on the words, except so far as it is necessary to ascertain the actual substance.