Leviticus 24:5 Ulasan

In this chapter we have, I. A repetition of the laws concerning the lamps and the show-bread (Lev 24:1-9). II. A violation of the law against blasphemy, with the imprisonment, trial, condemnation, and execution, of the blasphemer (Lev 24:10-14, with Lev 24:23). III. The law against blasphemy reinforced (Lev 24:15, Lev 24:16), with sundry other laws (Lev 24:17, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 24 This chapter treats of the oil for the lamps, and the ordering of them, Lev 24:1; of the making of the shewbread cakes, and the setting of them on the table, Lev 24:5; and an Israelite having blasphemed the name of the Lord, and inquiry being made what should be done to him, he, and so any other person guilty of the same, is ordered to be stoned to death, Lev 24:10; on occasion of which several laws are repeated concerning killing a man or a beast, or doing injury to any man, Lev 24:17.

And thou shalt take fine flour,.... Of wheat, and the finest of it: and bake twelve cakes thereof; answerable to the twelve tribes, as the Targum of Jonathan, which were typical of the spiritual Israel of God: two tenth deals shall be in one cake; that is, two tenth parts of an ephah, which were two omers, one of which was as much as a man could eat in one day of the manna: so that one of these cakes was as much as two men could eat of bread in one day; each cake was ten hands' breadth long, five broad, and seven fingers its horns, or was so high (g). (g) Menachot, c. 11. sect. 4.

The Old Covenant had its loaves of proposition, but they, as belonging to that covenant, have come to an end. The New Covenant has its heavenly bread and cup of salvation to sanctify both body and soul. For as the bread is for the body, the Word suits the soul.

The twelve loaves on the table of the tabernacle then are the twelve apostles and all those in the church who follow their teaching. Since until the end of time they do not cease to renew the people of God with the nourishment of the word, they are the twelve loaves of proposition which never depart from the table of the Lord. And those same loaves are properly ordered to be made not from just any flour but from the finest wheat, doubtless because all those who minister the word of life to others must first devote themselves to the fruits of virtue. [Thus] they may commend by their actions those things that they counsel in their preaching, being conformed to the example of him who says concerning himself, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.” Those same loaves are also properly commanded to be set on the table in two rows of six for the sake of concord (that is to say, charity and fellowship), for the Lord is also said to have sent his disciples out to preach two by two. This suggests figuratively that the holy teachers never disagree with one another in either their defense of truth or their ardor for love.

In the first place, the figure of the twelve apostles is clearly foretold here in the very number of the loaves, for when the Lord appeared in flesh he chose them to be the first of those by whose ministry he gave the food of life to all nations. And then to these same disciples of his (that is, to our apostles), he says in reference to the multitudes hungering in the wilderness, “You give them something to eat.” And when five thousand men had been satisfied from the five loaves, they “gathered twelve baskets of fragments,” doubtless because those sacraments of the Scriptures which the multitudes are not able to receive belong to the apostles and the apostolic men.

Pure olive oil must be provided for the lamps, Lev 24:1, Lev 24:2. Aaron is to take care that the lamps be lighted from evening to morning continually, Lev 24:3, Lev 24:4. How the shew-bread is to be made and ordered, Lev 24:5-8. Aaron and his sons shall eat this bread in the holy place, Lev 24:9. Of the son of Shelomith, an Israelitish woman, who blasphemed the name, Lev 24:10, Lev 24:11. He is imprisoned till the mind of the Lord should be known, Lev 24:12. He is commanded to be stoned to death, Lev 24:13, Lev 24:14. The ordinance concerning cursing and blaspheming the Lord, Lev 24:15, Lev 24:16. The law against murder, Lev 24:17. The lex talionis, or law of like for like, repeated, Lev 24:18-21. This law to be equally binding both on themselves and on strangers, Lev 24:22. The blasphemer is stoned, Lev 24:23.

Bake twelve cakes - See the whole account of the shew-bread in the notes on Exo 25:30 (note); and relative to the table on which they stood, the golden candlestick and silver trumpets carried in triumph to Rome, see the note on Exo 25:31.

OIL FOR THE LAMPS. (Lev. 24:1-23) Command the children of Israel--This is the repetition of a law previously given (Exo 27:20-21). pure oil olive beaten--or cold-drawn, which is always of great purity.

take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes--for the showbread, as previously appointed (Exo 25:30). Those cakes were baked by the Levites, the flour being furnished by the people (Ch1 9:32; Ch1 23:29), oil, wine, and salt being the other ingredients (Lev 2:13). two tenth deals--that is, of an ephah--thirteen and a half pounds weight each; and on each row or pile of cakes some frankincense was strewed, which, being burnt, led to the showbread being called "an offering made by fire." Every Sabbath a fresh supply was furnished; hot loaves were placed on the altar instead of the stale ones, which, having lain a week, were removed, and eaten only by the priests, except in cases of necessity (Sa1 21:3-6; also Luk 6:3-4).

The directions concerning the oil for the holy candlestick (Lev 24:1-4) and the preparation of the shew-bread (Lev 24:5-9) lose the appearance of an interpolation, when we consider and rightly understand on the one hand the manner in which the two are introduced in Lev 24:2, and on the other their significance in relation to the worship of God. The introductory formula, "Command the children of Israel that they fetch (bring)," shows that the command relates to an offering on the part of the congregation, a sacrificial gift, with which Israel was to serve the Lord continually. This service consisted in the fact, that in the oil of the lamps of the seven-branched candlestick, which burned before Jehovah, the nation of Israel manifested itself as a congregation which caused its light to shine in the darkness of this world; and that in the shew-bread it offered the fruits of its labour in the field of the kingdom of God, as a spiritual sacrifice to Jehovah. The offering of oil, therefore, for the preparation of the candlestick, and that of fine flour for making the loaves to be placed before Jehovah, formed part of the service in which Israel sanctified its life and labour to the Lord its God, not only at the appointed festal periods, but every day; and the law is very appropriately appended to the sanctification of the Sabbaths and feast-days, prescribed in ch. 23. The first instructions in Lev 24:2-4 are a verbal repetition of Exo 27:20-21, and have been explained already. Their execution by Aaron is recorded at Num 8:1-4; and the candlestick itself was set in order by Moses at the consecration of the tabernacle (Exo 40:25).

The preparation of the shew-bread and the use to be made of it are described here for the first time; though it had already been offered by the congregation at the consecration of the tabernacle, and placed by Moses upon the table (Exo 39:36; Exo 40:23). Twelve cakes (challoth, Lev 2:4) were to be made of fine flour, of two-tenths of an ephah each, and placed in two rows, six in each row, upon the golden table before Jehovah (Exo 25:23.). Pure incense was then to be added to each row, which was to be (to serve) as a memorial (Azcarah, see Lev 2:2), as a firing for Jehovah. על נתן to give upon, to add to, does not force us to the conclusion that the incense was to be spread upon the cakes; but is easily reconcilable with the Jewish tradition (Josephus, Ant. iii. 10, 7; Mishnah, Menach. xi. 7, 8), that the incense was placed in golden saucers with each row of bread. The number twelve corresponded to the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. The arrangement of the loaves in rows of six each was in accordance with the shape of the table, just like the division of the names of the twelve tribes upon the two precious stones on Aaron's shoulder-dress (Exo 28:10). By the presentation or preparation of them from the fine flour presented by the congregation, and still more by the addition of incense, which was burned upon the altar every Sabbath on the removal of the loaves as azcarah, i.e., as a practical memento of the congregation before God, the laying out of these loaves assumed the form of a bloodless sacrifice, in which the congregation brought the fruit of its life and labour before the face of the Lord, and presented itself to its God as a nation diligent in sanctification to good works. If the shew-bread was a minchah, or meat-offering, and even a most holy one, which only the priests were allowed to eat in the holy place (Lev 24:9, cf. Lev 2:3 and Lev 6:9-10), it must naturally have been unleavened, as the unanimous testimony of the Jewish tradition affirms it to have been. And if as a rule no meat-offering could be leavened, and of the loaves of first-fruits prepared for the feast of Pentecost, which were actually leavened, none was allowed to be placed upon the altar (Lev 2:11-12; Lev 6:10); still less could leavened bread be brought into the sanctuary before Jehovah. The only ground, therefore, on which Knobel can maintain that those loaves were leavened, is on the supposition that they were intended to represent the daily bread, which could no more fail in the house of Jehovah than in any other well-appointed house (see Bhr, Symbolik i. p. 410). The process of laying these loaves before Jehovah continually was to be "an everlasting covenant" (Lev 24:8), i.e., a pledge or sign of the everlasting covenant, just as circumcision, as the covenant in the flesh, was to be an everlasting covenant (Gen 17:13).