🔢WEB · Numbers 15:12
What does Numbers 15:12 mean?
"According to the number that you shall prepare, so you shall do to everyone according to their number."
— Numbers 15:12 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
then shall he offer with the bull a meal offering of three tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with half a hin of oil:
and you shall offer for the drink offering half a hin of wine, for an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to Yahweh.
Thus shall it be done for each bull, or for each ram, or for each of the male lambs, or of the young goats.
According to the number that you shall prepare, so you shall do to everyone according to their number.
“‘All who are native-born shall do these things in this way, in offering an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to Yahweh.
If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you, or whoever may be among you throughout your generations, and will offer an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to Yahweh; as you do, so he shall do.
For the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who lives as a foreigner, a statute forever throughout your generations. As you are, so shall the foreigner be before Yahweh.
Explanation
Numbers 15:12 comes in the middle of a set of instructions God gave Moses concerning offerings that were to accompany Israel's sacrifices once the people entered the land of Canaan. The verse itself is a simple statement of proportional consistency: whatever quantity of grain, oil, or wine offering was prescribed for one animal (a bull, ram, or lamb), that same amount was to be multiplied and repeated for however many animals were being sacrificed. In other words, if someone offered five rams instead of one, they didn't offer a single "flat" grain and wine offering for the whole group — they multiplied the accompanying offering by five, matching the number of animals presented.
The immediate context is Numbers 15:1–16, where God, through Moses, lays out detailed rules for grain offerings (fine flour mixed with oil) and drink offerings (wine) that were required alongside burnt offerings and
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