🔢WEB · Numbers 15:5
What does Numbers 15:5 mean?
"You shall prepare wine for the drink offering, the fourth part of a hin, with the burnt offering, or for the sacrifice, for each lamb."
— Numbers 15:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you have come into the land of your habitations, which I give to you,
and will make an offering by fire to Yahweh, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice, to accomplish a vow, or as a freewill offering, or in your set feasts, to make a pleasant aroma to Yahweh, of the herd, or of the flock;
then he who offers his offering shall offer to Yahweh a meal offering of one tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with the fourth part of a hin of oil.
You shall prepare wine for the drink offering, the fourth part of a hin, with the burnt offering, or for the sacrifice, for each lamb.
“‘Or for a ram, you shall prepare for a meal offering two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with the third part of a hin of oil;
and for the drink offering you shall offer the third part of a hin of wine, of a pleasant aroma to Yahweh.
When you prepare a bull for a burnt offering, or for a sacrifice, to accomplish a vow, or for peace offerings to Yahweh;
Explanation
Numbers 15:5 comes from a set of instructions God gave Moses to relay to the Israelites regarding the proper accompaniments to their sacrifices. In plain language, the verse specifies that whenever a lamb was offered as a burnt offering or as part of a sacrifice, the worshiper was also required to prepare a drink offering of wine — specifically a quarter of a hin, which was a measure of liquid volume, roughly equivalent to about a quart or a liter. This wine offering was not optional or incidental; it was a fixed, required component that had to accompany the animal sacrifice.
To understand the context, it helps to know that Numbers 15 as a whole addresses the Israelites' worship practices as they anticipated entering the Promised Land. The chapter opens with God telling Moses to instruct the people about offerings "when you have come into the land." This suggests these regulations were given to prepare Israel for a settled agricultural life in Canaan, where grain, oil, and wine would be produced and available for worship in ways that hadn't been as feasible during the wilderness wandering. The instructions detail specific proportions of flour, oil, and wine to accompany different animal sacrifices — lambs, rams, and bulls — with the amounts scaling up according to the size and value of the animal being offered.
Theologically, this verse reflects the comprehensive and detailed nature of worship under the Mosaic covenant. Sacrifice was never meant to be a bare, minimal transaction but a fuller expression of devotion involving multiple elements — meat
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