Numbers 15

Christ intercedes for the weakest believers (John 17:20), and for all the sins of believers. In the law there were some sins the High Priest was neither to offer sacrifice for, nor yet to offer prayer (Numbers 15:30). The soul that does ought presumptuously shall be cut off.

God will not have his day encroached upon, or defiled in the least thing. The man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath, God would have him stoned (Numbers 15). One would think that a small thing, to pick a few sticks to make a fire; but God would not have his day violated in the…

(2.) Such sins are more heinous that are committed presumptuously. Under the Law there was no sacrifice for presumptuous sins (Numbers 15:30). Question: What is it to sin presumptuously, which does heighten and aggravate sin, and make it more heinous?

It cannot stand with angelical obedience to leave the least iota of God's will unfulfilled: this is to do God's will as the angels, when we do all his will, quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit. This was God's charge to Israel (Numbers 15:40): Remember to do all my commandme…

And you shall write them on the posts of your house, and on your gate. Add hereunto the institution of fringes for a memorial of the commandments, which was one way of saying, Know the Lord (Numbers 15:38, 39). Two things may be considered in these institutions.

God alone by virtue of his sovereignty, could dispense with the execution of this sentence of the Law, as he did in the case of David (2 Samuel 12:13), but as to the people, they were prohibited on any account to dispense with it, or forbear the execution of it (Numbers 35:31).…

Indeed for involuntary surprises and unavoidable and lamented infirmities there is a pardon of course, but where is the promise to a daring sinner who sins upon a presumption of pardon? Pause a while, my soul, upon that Scripture — Numbers 15:27,30: 'And if a soul sin through ig…

A land is accepted, and a people's peace made with God, not by their repentance and humiliation, but by Christ believed on (Micah 5:5): This man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land. There were sin-offerings, and burnt-offerings appointed in the Law for…

The same sense is given by Lyranus, Cajetan, Oleaster, Tostatus, and Lorinus. And which is more to be thought of, Ainsworth himself expoundeth it so, and further sheweth that it cannot be meant of joyning to the faith and religion of Israel, or entering into the Church in that r…

The Prophet in the name of God proceeds to further threatening of Israel; and this in the 4th verse is a very dreadful one: They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord; neither shall they be pleasing to him. In their offerings there was wont to be wine and oil; to note cheer…

They suppose that this baptism of proselytes had its origin from another legal institution. For the same law applied to proselytes and to natives (Leviticus 11:49; Numbers 15:15) — that is, they were equally bound by the same law to the performance of the same duties. But all th…

Here is forbidden first, the want of these, and the contrary, as to waver or doubt (Psalm 13:1, 3; Psalm 88:15); to leave our hope (Hebrews 10:39); to despair (Genesis 8:13); impatience (Jeremiah 20:14, 18); to have trust in ordinary means, and to make flesh our arm, is forbidde…

David wept, and Paul was humbled for the sins of other men (Psalm 119:136; 2 Corinthians 12:21). Thirdly, we are here taught, not to give liberty to the best of our natural affections, as to zeal; but to mortify them, and to rule them by the word (Numbers 15:39); otherwise they…

He amplifies the crime of which he spoke before, that the people should not flatter themselves in their inventions. Now it is very likely that Isaiah alludes to Moses' words, wherein the Lord commanded that they should always have the Law before them: that they should fix it upo…

Hence, was the sanction of the transgressions of it, to be punished with death. So was it in particular, with respect to the Sabbath (Numbers 15:35), partly, that it might represent to them the original sanction of the whole law as a Covenant of Works, and partly to keep that st…

Moses did not so receive the Spirit of Prophecy, as that he could at his own pleasure reveal those things which were not discoverable but by that Spirit; or speak out the mind of God infallibly in any thing for the use of the Church without actual inspiration as to that particul…

For the word [in non-Latin alphabet], when it includes death, constantly denotes a poenal excision, or cutting off for sin. See Genesis 17:14; Exodus 12:15; Numbers 15:30. This the Jews themselves acknowledge to be the meaning of the word.

This about the borders of their garments, was an after institution, yet because of its answerableness to this, we may add it in this place. To this purpose, God gives his command (Numbers 15:38, 39, 40): Speak to the Children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes,…

14. To wear them on the arm, in the same place. 15. To make Fringes (Numbers 15:38, 39, 40). 16. To put Writings of the Scripture on the posts of our doors (Deuteronomy 6:9).

It is first mentioned (Genesis 17:14) in the matter of Circumcision. Sometimes emphatically (Numbers 15:31): [in non-Latin alphabet] Cutting off — that soul shall be cut off from among his people; and frequently afterwards (Exodus 12:15, 19; chapter 31:14; Leviticus 7:10; chapte…

Jacob offered a drink-offering, that is of wine, which was its primitive institution and practice. And it was always to be of wine (Numbers 15). This, chapter 28, verse 7, is called [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], Shechar, which although we generally translate strong drink, yet it ap…

"But if you will not hearken to me to hallow the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." Indeed, God was so exacting about this, that he descends to a particular prohibition of seve…

This sin of uncleanness does debase the spirit made at first after God's own image; defiles both soul and body, which should be the temple of the Holy Spirit; and renders men unfit for communion with a holy God, who is of such pure eyes that he cannot approve of the least iniqui…

In this corrupt state of man, [illegible] by looking we come to liking, and are brought inordinately to affect what we do behold. (Numbers 15:39) That you seek not after your own heart, and your own eyes, after which you use to go a whoring. (Job 31:7) If my step has turned out…

When they did but look into the Ark, it cost them dear (1 Samuel 6:19). Gathering of a few sticks on the Sabbath, was severely punished (Numbers 15:32-36). These seem small matters, but in sin we must not consider so much what is, as why it is forbidden, and who forbids it.

There is in the Scripture an express prohibition to the contrary; which is (as a learned interpreter has well and [illegible] observed) a clear demonstration that Solomon does not speak in earnest but ironically, when he bids young men walk in the ways of their heart and in the…

It is a [illegible] current of corruption and [illegible] impudence, to sin in the face of a command, and under the eye and check of conscience, therefore our Savior leaves a star as it were, a memorandum upon that part of the story: Remember Lot's wife, beware how you go agains…

The subject matter of this Scripture is not to inquire of the Priests whether this were a casual or a willful murder, and for them to tell who were the murderers that had slain this man (the resolution of which questions by the Priests might indeed imply some color for the Pries…

(3) Because, the Lord says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own wo…