Ye shall offer the burnt offering. The festal sacrifice here prescribed is exactly the same as for the days of Mattsoth and for the feast of the new moon. It is not the same as that prescribed for the same day in Leviticus 23:1-44, and it is difficult to determine whether it was meant to supersede the previous ordinance, or to be distinct and additional. The fact that no notice is taken of the sacrifice already ordered would seem to point to the former conclusion; but the further fact that no mention is made of the offering of wave-loaves, with which the sacrifices in Leviticus were distinctively connected, seems to show that the two lists were independent (cf. Josephus, ‘Ant.,' 3.10, 6). The fact seems to be that throughout this section no sacrifices are mentioned save such as formed a part of the system which is here for the first time elaborated.
Numbers 29:1.—In the seventh month, on the first day of the month. The month Ethanim had been already specially set apart for holy purposes beyond all other months (Le Numbers 23:23 sq.).
Ye shall offer a burnt offering. Such an offering had been commanded (Le Numbers 23:25), but not specified. It comprised one bullock less than the new moon offering, but the reason of the difference is wholly unknown, unless it were in view of the large number of bullocks required at the feast of tabernacles.
On the tenth day. The great day of atonement (Le Numbers 16:29; Numbers 23:27 sq.).
On the fifteenth day. The first day of the feast of tabernacles, which commenced at sunset on the fourteenth (Le 23:35).
Ye shall offer a burnt offering. This also was ordered, but not prescribed, in Leviticus 23:1-44. As it was the feast of the ingathering, when God had crowned the year with his goodness, and filled the hearts of men with food and gladness, so it was celebrated with the greatest profusion of burnt offerings, especially of the largest and costliest kind. Thirteen young bullocks. The number of bullocks was so arranged as to be one less each day, to be seven on the seventh and last day, and to make up seventy altogether. Thus the sacred number was studiously emphasized, and the slow fading of festal joy into the ordinary gladness of a grateful life was set forth. It seems quite fanciful to trace any connection with the waning of the moon. The observance of the heavenly bodies, although sanctioned in the case of the new moon feast, was not further encouraged for obvious reasons.
On the eighth day. On the twenty-second day of Ethanim (see on Le 23:36). The offering here specified returns to the smaller number ordered for the first /rod tenth days of this month. The feast of tabernacles ended with sundown on this day.
These things shall ye do, or "sacrifice." תַּעֲשׂוּ. Septuagint, ταῦτα ποιήσετε (cf. Luke 22:19). Beside your vows, and your free-will offerings. These are treated of in Le Numbers 22:18 sq.; Numbers 15:3 sq. The words which follow are dependent upon this clause. All the offerings commanded in these chapters amounted to 1071 lambs, 113 bullocks, 37 rams, 30 goats, in the lunar year, together with 112 bushels of flour, more than 370 gallons of oil, and about 340 gallons of wine, supposing that the drink offering was proportionate throughout.
HOMILETICS
THE PERFECT SYSTEM OF SACRIFICE
We have in this section the round of sacrifice—daily, weekly, monthly, and annual—drawn out in all its completeness and in all its symmetry. There were indeed other sacrifices ordained, such as those of the goat for Azazel and of the red heifer, which find no place here; but these were essentially (as it would seem) of an exceptional nature, and stood out against the unvarying background of the sacrificial routine here depicted. No longer left to be gathered from scattered enactments, it is here ordained as a system, pervaded and inspired by certain definite and abiding principles. That those principles were not read into a fortuitous assemblage of ancient rites by the pious ingenuity of a later and more self-conscious age, but underlay those rites from the beginning, and determined their character and mutual relation, can hardly be doubted by any one who believes the system to have been of Divine origination; and this, again, can hardly be doubted by any one who recognizes the profound congruity between the sacrificial system of Moses and the sacrificial aspect of Christianity. It is this congruity which gives a living interest, because an abiding truth, to the sacrifices of the law. They were not merely shadows to amuse the childhood of the world; they were shadows of coming realities, the most tremendous and of the profoundest moment. It is true that the inspired writers of the New Testament dwell rather on the contrast than on the correspondence between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifices of the law; but they do so just because they took the correspondence for granted, not because they ignored it. The correspondence, in fact, was so obvious and so strong that it was necessary to emphasize the points of contrast, lest they should be overlooked. He that magnifies the substance above the shadow does not thereby deny that the shadow owes both its existence and its form to the substance. If we follow up the Pauline image of body and shadow (Colossians 2:17, where the reference is to this very round of festivals), we shall get at the truth of the matter. The relation of the shadow to the body is not one of simple resemblance, even of outline (except in one particular position), but it is one of certain correspondence. Given the position of the light, and the form of the surface on which the shadow falls, the shadow itself can be precisely determined from the outline of the body, and vice versa Now the light in our case is the twilight of the Divine revelation as it veiled its brightness to shine in part upon a darkened world; the surface on which it shone was formed by the crude religious ideas and half-barbarous morals of the chosen race—a race whose hearts were hard, and whose eyes were dim, and whose rugged nature of necessity distorted any spiritual truth which came to them. Such was the light shining upon such a surface; the body was "of Christ," i.e; was the solid and enduring fullness of his salvation; and the shadow which it threw before was the sacrifical system of the Jews. We should therefore expect from analogy to find
a likeness mingled with distortion, as in the shadows cast upon a rugged slope by the rising sun. This is exactly what we do find, comparing the substance of the gospel with the shadows of the law. No human art could have constructed the Christian scheme from the fore-shadows which it threw, because no human skill could have allowed for the peculiarities of the Jewish dispensation. But, on the other hand, we can trace along the entire outline of the substance a correspondence to the shadow which cannot be due to chance. It is of course possible to admit the fact of this analogy, and to explain it by the assumption that Christianity itself was the creation of minds saturated with Jewish ideas, and habituated to the Jewish system of sacrifices. But if this had been the case, the correspondence had surely been more direct, and much less oblique than it is, much less subtle in parts and less unequal as a whole. It would seem as much beyond the practical powers of man to translate the types of the law into the substantial and consistent beauty of the gospel, as to reduce the irregularity and distortion of a shadow to the regular symmetry of the unseen human form. We have, therefore, in accordance with apostolic teaching, to regard the daily offerings, the sabbaths, the new moons, the sacred months and annual festivals of the Jews, as so many shadows which are of interest only as they in part resemble, and therefore in part illustrate, the body, the reality, which belongs to Christ, and so to us. Consider, therefore, with respect to this system as a whole—
I. THAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO CONSECRATE WITH BURNT OFFERINGS AND OBLATIONS THE WHOLE ROUND OF THE JEWISH CALENDAR. It formed a complete system, combining variety with regularity, under which every day by itself, every week in its seventh day, every month in its first day, every year in its seventh month and in its great festivals, was consecrated by the shedding of blood, by the acknowledgment that their lives were forfeit, by vicarious death, and by vicarious dedication of self to God. Even such is the pervading meaning and purpose of Christianity; that our whole life from end to end should be consecrated to God by the blood of Christ, offered for us on the one hand, and on the other dedicated to God by a voluntary and perfect self-surrender. As the Jewish year was hallowed by an endless round of sacrifice, so the Christian life is sanctified by a never-exhausted self-sacrifice—the self-sacrifice of Christ wrought for us on the cross, the self-sacrifice of Christ wrought in us by his Spirit.
II. THAT THE WHOLE SYSTEM RESTED UPON THE DAILY SACRIFICE, WHICH WAS NEVER OMITTED, TO WHICH ALL OTHER SACRIFICES WERE SUPERADDED. Not even the triumph of the passover or the affliction of the day of atonement affected the daily sacrifice. Even so in Christ does all religious life rest upon the hallowing of each day, as it comes and goes, by the blood of the Lamb. Whatever special observance may be given to sacred days and seasons, or reserved for times of special grace, yet such only is true religion which is daily renewed and daily practiced. And note that the daily use taking precedence of all additional observances testified even to the Jews of the underlying equality of all days as holy to the Lord. Since each day was essentially sacred, it followed that all distinctions of days were arbitrary and transitory. And this was undoubtedly what St. Paul desired to see realized in the Church of Christ (Romans 14:5, Romans 14:6; Galatians 4:10, &c.).
III. THAT UPON THE DALLY USE A SABBATIC USE WAS RAISED UP WITH EXTREME CARE; not only the seventh day of every week, hut also the seventh month of every year, being made festal and marked by special sacrifices. This was in truth arbitrary to the Jewish apprehension, although it was mystically connected with the relation between God and the world (Exodus 20:11), and historically associated with the deliverance from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15); but it served to keep the Jew in mind of, and bring him into connection with, an order of things above and beyond the labour and gain and profit and loss of this world. Even so, while the sacredness of the sabbatic number (in days or months or years) is vanished in Christ, yet the meaning' of the number, the sabbath or rest of the soul in God, the rest from sin, from self, and from sorrow, is the dominant idea which we find in Christ first and last. This is his first invitation (Matthew 11:28), and this his last promise (Revelation 3:21).
IV. THAT TO THE DAILY AND SABBATIC USE WAS ADDED THE NEW MOON FESTIVAL WITH GREAT HONOUR IN THE WAY OF SACRIFICES; and this although the festival was one of natural, and not of sacred, origin. This may have been partly from a wise caution lest superstition should usurp what religion left unoccupied, but more because the God of grace is the God of nature, and he who made the Church made the moon to rule the night. Even so it is the will of God that all natural turning-points and periods in our lives should be consecrated by religion and hallowed with the blood of Christ; for our whole body, soul, and spirit are his. Religion does not war against nature, but takes nature under her patronage. Whatever springs naturally out of our physical and social life (not being evil of itself) may be and should be connected with religious sanctions, and adorned with holy gladness as before God.
V. THAT TO THE DALLY, SABBATIC, AND NEW MOON USE WAS ADDED THE OBSERVANCE OF THE THREE FESTIVALS WHICH WERE ASSOCIATED AT ONCE WITH THE FACTS OF PAST DELIVERANCE AND OF PRESENT PLENTY. For the passover itself, which was mainly a commemoration, also marked the first beginning of the harvest; and the feast of weeks, which was essentially a harvest festival, recalled also the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Even so in Christ, besides the other elements of religion, the sanctification of daily life, the hallowing of natural changes and outward events, the ceaseless seeking for rest in God, there must be found prominently the devout and grateful celebration of the great triumphs of redemption in the past, and of the abounding blessings of grace in the present. And note that none of these may be absent without grievous toss. The new moon feasts, which seemed so wholly secular, and would not keep time with the sabbaths of Divine obligation, were as much honoured as the days of passover. And so a religion which does not blend itself with and twine itself about the secular joys and interests of our natural life is wanting in a most important point, and is not perfect before God.
Consider again, with respect to the ordered sacrifices—
I. THAT THE DAILY OFFERING, WHICH NEVER VARIED, WAS ONE LAMB. Even so the Lamb of God is the one sacrifice, εἰς τὸ διηνεκές, by which each day is sanctified—a continual burnt offering acceptable to God.
II. THAT THE LAMB WAS OFFERED BOTH MORNING AND EVENING. Even so the Lamb of God was in a manner doubly offered: in purpose and will "from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8), but in outward act only "in these last days" (Hebrews 1:2), i.e; in the morning and the evening of the world.
III. THAT WHILE OTHER SACRIFICES WERE MOSTLY CONFINED TO THE MORNING HOURS, THE DAILY LAMB WAS OFFERED AT MORN AND EVE. Even so each day of life is to be sanctified by prayer at its opening and its close—prayer which is based upon the sacrifice of Christ.
IV. THAT THE LAMB, ALBEIT THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SACRIFICE, WAS NEVER PRESENTED WITHOUT ITS ACCOMPANYING MEAT AND DRINK OFFERINGS; and these considerable in quantity and value. Even so, while we plead the sacrifice of Christ, which alone is meritorious, we must offer with it the tribute of good works, such as are the result and outcome (like the flour and oil and wine) of human toil and industry making the most of Divine gifts; "for with such sacrifices," when sanctified and sustained by the one offering, "God is well pleased" (Hebrews 13:16). See above on Numbers 15:1-41. And note that the flour, the oil, and the wine, which made up the meat and drink offerings, may be typical of Christian labour, Christian suffering (cf. Gethsemane, the oil-press), and Christian gladness respectively (see on Psalms 4:7; Psalms 104:15; Zechariah 9:17).
V. THAT THE SPECIAL OFFERING FOR THE SABBATH MORN WAS ALSO THE SACRIFICE OF A LAMB, ONLY DOUBLED. Even so there is nothing in the devotions of the Lord's day different from those of any other day, save that we are to seek God through Christ with redoubled ardour.
VI. THAT THE NEW MOON FEAST CALLED FOR A LARGER NUMBER OF BURNT OFFERINGS THAN THE ORDINARY DAY OR THE SABBATH. Even so days of natural joy and festivity need to be more carefully and earnestly dedicated to God by supplication and by self-surrender than days of secular work or of religious rest.
VII. THAT A SIN OFFERING WAS ADDED TO THIS FEAST, AS WELL AS TO THE GREAT FEASTS OF THE SUMMER SEASON. Even so there is almost always sin in times of excitement—not only of secular excitement, but of religious excitement too. There is always occasion in them to seek forgiveness for sins of ignorance and negligence.
VIII. THAT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES IN THE AUTUMN WAS ELEVATED BY A SPECIALLY ELABORATE RITUAL ABOVE ALL OTHER FEASTS; possibly because it foreshadowed the incarnation (see on John 1:14), but probably because it marked the consummation of the year, and so was typical of the gathering together in one of all things in Christ, and of the fullness of joy in heaven (Acts 3:21; Ephesians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:1; Revelation 14:15, compared with Revelation 15:3). Even so, whatever glories and gifts the gospel has for the present, its chiefest blessings are reserved for the end of all things.
IX. THAT THE CEREMONIAL OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES WAS ORDERED ON A SLOWLY DECREASING SCALE THROUGHOUT. Even so the law itself, like all things transitory and preparatory, was in its nature evanescent and doomed to dwindle. So again are all things ordered,in the predestination of God, that the sabbatic number ("on the seventh day seven") may be finally fulfilled in the rest of heaven.
X. THAT IN ALL THESE SACRIFICES GOD SPAKE OF "MY OFFERING" AND "MY BREAD FOR MY SACRIFICES." Even so all cur devotions and our worship are not ours, but God's. They are his because due to him; his because of his own do we give unto him; ours only because we are privileged to render them unto him. Here is the rebuke of all pride and self-esteem in what we offer unto God. "Nemo suum offert Dec, sod quod offert, Domini est cui reddit quae sua sunt" (Origen). On the typical significance of the three feasts see on Exodus 12:1-51, and above, Exodus 9:1-35; Exodus 23:1-33; Leviticus 23:1-44; Deuteronomy 16:1-22.
HOMILIES BY E.S. PROUT
THE LESSONS OF THE DAILY BURNT OFFERING
In Numbers 29:1 and Numbers 29:2 we have a general statement respecting offerings to God, reminding us
(2) the promptness and punctuality needed in meeting those claims ("in their due season"). Then follow directions as to the most frequent of these offerings—the daily burnt offering, which suggests lessons derived from—
I. ITS CHARACTER;
II. ITS CONTINUANCE.
I. It consisted of two parts:
We see here—
1. Expiation. This we need every morning, for we awake and leave our beds sinful, and requiring an atonement that we may be able to present acceptable service during the day. And we need it every evening that daily sins may be forgiven, and that we may rest at peace with God, "clean every whir" (John 13:10).
2. Dedication. In the burnt offering, as distinguished from the trespass offering, expiation by blood-shedding is taken for granted, but the burning, as the symbol of entire surrender to God, is the culminating point. The various parts of the burnt offering may be regarded as typical of our surrender to God of all the varied powers and gifts he has bestowed. (Illustrate from Romans 12:1-21) As Christ presented himself in complete sacrifice to God, so should we (Ephesians 5:2, &c.).
II. "A continual burnt offering" (Numbers 29:3). So constant must the Christian's self-surrender be. With each morning comes the summons "Sursum corda," and the appeal, Romans 12:1. Evening brings rest from earthly toil, but no cessation from a renewed, continual dedication to God. We should desire no exemption from this continual offering of ourselves when we remember the motives to it.
1. We ourselves and all we have are God's.
2. We have enjoyed expiation through the perfect sacrifice of Christ. The law of the daily offering is urged because "ordained in Mount Sinai" (Romans 12:6). The law of Christian self-sacrifice was published by deed, and not by word, at Calvary (1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 3:18).
3. Such sacrifice is pleasing, a sweet savour unto God "the Lord" (Romans 12:6).
4. Such acts insure Divine manifestations. See Exodus 29:38-43, which suggests that the neglect of the daily offering would interrupt communion with God.
5. Thus complete self-surrender brings us into the fullest sympathy with God, and thus into the most perfect liberty (Psalms 119:45; John 8:36, &c.).—P.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
THE DAILY OFFERING
I. THE PROPRIETY OF THE DAILY OFFERING. All the offerings were to be made in their due season, and every day that passed over the head of the Israelite people was a due season to make offerings to Jehovah in connection with the daily manifestations of his goodness. As what might be called the ordinary and common gifts of God came day by day, so it was appropriate for Israel to make ordinary and common offerings day by day. We must remind ourselves continually of the unfailing goodness of God. Whatever the special mercies in each individual life, there are certain great common mercies for us all, always something, in acknowledging which every one can join. We know that to God the mere offering was nothing, apart from the state of mind in which it was made. God gave the form, and it was required of the people that they should fill it with the spirit of acceptance, appreciation, and gratitude. We have, indeed, no command for daily offering now, no stipulation of times and seasons; but how shall we utter the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread," unless we feel that the bread is a daily gift? This one petition implies that petition, and therefore all the constituents of prayer, must belong to our life every day. There must be the feeling that although the actual production of the bread is spread over a long time, we have to take it in daily portions; and our physical constitution is in itself the witness to the daily duty of making an offering to God in return. We can store up grain for months, for the seven years of famine if need be, but we cannot store up thus the strength of our own bodies. Man is not a hibernating animal. "Give us this day our daily bread" implies daily strength to work for it, daily power within to assimilate it when eaten. And since spiritual supplies and strength are meant to be received in like fashion, an acknowledgment of these should be a principal thing in our daily offering. Considerations drawn from the thought of God's daily gifts, both for natural life and spiritual life, should be beautifully blended in our daily approaches to him. Notice that these daily offerings were appropriately mentioned here at a time when the camp relation (Numbers 2:1-34) was about to be dissolved. Israel was soon to be distributed, not only from Dan to Beersheba, but on both sides of Jordan. Hence the daily offering would be very serviceable in helping to manifest the unity of the people, and to preserve the feeling of it. It was also especially needful to be reminded of this national duty of daily offering after the humiliating apostasy to idols while Israel abode in Shittim (Numbers 25:1-18). The only guarantee against the soul lapsing into idolatrous offerings is to be continually engaging in hearty and intelligent offerings to God.
II. IT MUST BE A MORNING AND EVENING OFFERING. To make a daily offering was not enough. Israel was not left to its own will as to the time of day for the offering. The sustaining of life is indeed going on all day long, by the secret and unfailing power of God, and the recognition of this power is always meet at any hour of day or night. But the day has its own peculiar blessings, and also the night, and they are to be made special in our thoughts, as they are made special in our experience. The dawn and the twilight bring each their own associations. In the morning we look back on the rest, the sleep, and the protection of the night, and forward into the work, the duties, the burdens, and the needs of the day. Similarly evening will have its appropriate retrospect and anticipation. That is no true thanksgiving which does not discriminate, marking the difference between thanksgivings which may be offered at any hour, and those which are peculiar to the morning and evening. The very recollection of the gradual regular changes in the time of sunrise and sunset should impart an ever-freshening sense of the faithfulness of God, and of how orderly and exact all his arrangements are.
III. THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE OFFERING. The lambs, the flour, the oil, the wine. These were parts of the actual product of Israelite industry. In presenting the lamb there was the thought that Israel had shepherded it, had watched over the little creature from the day of its birth, and taken all care to obtain the unblemished yearling for the burnt offering. All the shepherd's thoughtfulness, vigilance, and courage are represented in the offering. And mark, these, not as the qualities of one man, but of all Israel. The service of the particular man is merged in the shepherd-service of Israel as a whole. So with the offering of the flour; in it there is the work of the ploughman, the sower, the reaper, the miller. The oil is there because the labour of the olive has not failed, and the wine because men have obeyed the command, "Go work today in my vineyard." In presenting so much of the result of its work, Israel was thereby presenting part of the work itself. But these offerings were not only the result of work, they were also the sustenance of Israel, and the preparation for future work. The lambs, the flour, the oil, the wine were taken out of the present food store of Israel. The Israelites were therefore presenting part of their own life. If these things had not been taken for offerings they would soon have entered into the physical constitution of the people. The acceptability of the offering lay to a great extent in this, that it was from Israel's daily ordinary food. There would have been no propriety in making an offering from occasional luxuries. The significance of the unblemished lamb thus becomes obvious. The lamb for God was to be unblemished; but surely this was a hint that all the food of Israel was to be unblemished, as far as this could be attained. The presumption was that if Israel would only give due attention, there would be much of the unblemished and the satisfying in all the products of the soil. We are largely what we eat, and unblemished nutriment tends to produce unblemished life. The constituents of this offering further remind us of the great demand on us as Christians. It is the weighty and frequent admonition of Paul that we are to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. The offering is no longer one of dead animals, grain, &c; mere constituents of the body, and still outside of it. We are to offer the body itself, made holy and acceptable to God. We must so live then, we must so eat and drink, we must so order habit and conduct, that all the streams from the outside world which flow into us may contribute to the health, purity, and effective service of the whole man. Let everything be tested according to its ability to make us better Christians, and therefore better men. In relation to this great offering which is asked from us, let us ponder earnestly these typical offerings of ancient Israel, and set ourselves to fulfill the law connected with them. Here almost more than anywhere else let it be true of us that we are advancing
"From shadowy types to truth, from flesh to spirit,
From imposition of strict laws to free
Acceptance of large grace, from servile fear
To filial, works of law to works of faith."
Let life be an offering to God, and it will be hallowed, beautified, and glorified as it cannot otherwise be.—Y.
THE SABBATH OFFERING
I. THE LESSON ON THE SPECIAL OFFERING. Special blessings belonged to the sabbath, over and above those of the ordinary day, and it became a duty to recognize them. The sabbath offerings represented what Israel had gained by the rest of the sabbath. We make our gains not only by the food we eat and the work we do, but also by the intervals of rest in the midst of labour. Moreover, by this offering God indicated that the sabbath was to have its own appropriate occupation. Most emphatically, by precept (Exodus 20:10), and by punitive example (Numbers 15:32-36), God had commanded to Israel the cessation from ordinary work. Here he indicates that the most effectual way of providing for cessation is to find a holy work to do. We cannot be too earnest in finding such a positive use of the day of rest as will please God and promote our own spiritual advancement. Surely, in the judgment, many who have reckoned themselves Christians will be convicted of a sore misuse of the weekly opportunity. We may be very precise and even punctilious in our abstentions, but what will this avail by itself? The mind that is not earnestly and comfortably occupied with Divine things will assuredly be occupied in thinking of things that belong to the ordinary day. As it is now, instead of the Sunday casting its brightness on the week-day, the weekday too often casts its shadow on the Sunday. God is able to make the appropriate occupation of his day, if we enter on it in a right spirit, a joy all the day long. In the world, and through the week, we have to deal with all sorts of men. There is the strain, the discord, and the suspicion that must belong to all human relations in this mixed and sinful state. The week-day is the world's day, wherein we cannot get away from the world. The Lord's day ought to be what the name suggests, the day for us to feel that we have not only to do with the hard conditions of a selfish world, but with One in heaven, who is most considerate, and most able to satisfy us with all good things.
II. THE LESSON OF THE DAILY OFFERING WHICH WAS NOT TO BE OMITTED. The sabbath, in respect of God's gifts and dealings in nature, was the same as an ordinary day, and therefore had to be acknowledged as such. So far as God's operations in nature are concerned all goes on without a break, Sunday and week-day alike. The sun rises as on other days, the clouds gather and the rain falls, the rivers run, and the tides flow and ebb. It is as true, Sunday as week-day, that in God we live and move and have our being. The great difference is that while God in nature is making all to go on just as usual, man, if he be in harmony with the will of God in Christ Jesus, is resting from his toils. God needs not rest in the sense in which we need it. He rested from the exercise of his creative energy, but not because of exhaustion. We, who have to eat our bread in the sweat of our face till we return to the ground, need that regular and frequent interval of rest which he has so graciously provided. And thus, coming as we sometimes do to the close of the week, utterly spent and exhausted, ready to welcome the brief respite from toil, we have the joy of recollection, as we see God continuing on the sabbath his work in the natural world, that he is indeed the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, he who fainteth not, neither is weary. "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength" (Isaiah 40:28-31).—Y.
THE OFFERING AT THE NEW MOON
Here the services rendered to man by God in nature are once again linked in with the duties of religion. As God required offerings in the morning and evening of every day, so on the day when the new moon fell there was an additional and largely increased offering. Why should such special notice be taken of this occasion?
I. THE MOON IS OUR OWN SATELLITE AND PECULIAR SERVANT. It has evidently been given for our special benefit. The sun serves us with our share, as it does the other planets that circle round it, but the moon is peculiarly ours. When, therefore, it had passed through all its phases, it was well to mark the renewal of service by a special offering. If it be said that Israel was not aware of this nice distinction between the services of the sun and moon, the distinction is nevertheless real, was known then to God, and is known now to us. The commandments of God took into consideration not only what was known at the time of their announcement, but what would be further discovered in the progress of human inquiry. We can see a propriety in this ordinance of the monthly offering, as we think of the peculiar relation which the moon alone of all the heavenly bodies sustains to our earth.
II. THE MOON IS AN EMBLEM OF APPARENT CHANGE AND YET REAL STEADFASTNESS. Thus it is an emblem of the way in which God's dealings appear often to us. The Unchanging One looks like a changing one, and it takes all our faith to be sure of his faithfulness. We talk of the waxing and the waning moon, but we know that the moon itself remains the same, that the change of appearance arises from change of position, and depends on how it catches the light of the sun. When we do see it, we see the same face always turned towards us, and mysterious as its movements are to the ignorant and the savage, they are nevertheless so regular that all can be predicted beforehand. The moon therefore is a peculiar and suggestive emblem of constancy, if we look on it aright. Juliet, indeed, in her love-sick prattle says,
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb.
But appearance is one thing and reality is another, and we are reminded of one who found a very different emblematic value in the moon when he said, "They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations." The faithfulness of God is the same, even when his face is hidden, and when his mercy, like the waning moon, seems to diminish before our very eyes. The mysterious hindrances, sorrows, and gloomy peculiarities of our present life would be largely cleared up, if we only knew as much of the wheels within wheels of God's moral government, as we do of the wheels within wheels in the motions and relations of the heavenly bodies.
III. THE CONNECTION OF THE MOON WITH THE MONTH IS ALSO TO BE BORNE IN MIND. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, are. after all, vague terms. We mark the changing phenomena of the year far more accurately by the months than by the longer seasons. We speak of blustering March, showery April, chill October, drear December, and may we not suppose that the Israelites had somewhat of the same way of thinking with regard to their months?—each month with its own character and making its own contribution to the fullness of the year (Deuteronomy 17:3; Deuteronomy 33:14; 1 Samuel 20:5; 2 Kings 4:23; Psalms 81:1-4; Psalms 89:37; Isaiah 30:26; Isaiah 60:20; Galatians 4:10; Revelation 22:2).—Y.