Commentaries:
No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for Numbers 15:19.
Numbers 15:17-21
Excerpted from: The Doctrine of Israel (Part Nine): Romans 11Instead he tells them they need to be thankful and reverence God for allowing them to partake of the blessings that should have gone to Israel. Which he calls here, the fatness of the tree, all the blessings. He is talking about olives and obviously the fatness of an olive is its oil and all the wonderful things that can come from the use of the olive oil. He says in his extended metaphor that they now enjoy all those blessings, but they should not get a big head about it. Because they are there by God's sufferance, His grace. He allowed them, He gave them favor. He condescended to them and brought them in, and so they should instead be grateful, be thankful, and joyous that they have this position and not feel any way superior. So he employs this metaphor of root and branch to explain how it is, how it works.
Interestingly, he starts it out with another metaphor, this allusion to the offering of the firstfruits of grain, which is mentioned in Numbers 15:17-21. When the Israelites harvested their grain from the field, they were supposed to, of course, take it and grind it down in the meal. But they were supposed to give a firstfruits offering to God from this. And so what they would do is that they would take some of this meal and they would make it into a loaf, a lump that was going to be made into bread. They would fire it up into bread. But before they did that, they were supposed to take some of that out and give it to the priest as an offering to God as the firstfruit.
So Paul says, "Okay, if that lump that they gave to the priest as a firstfruit is holy, doesn't that mean that the original large lump that they took it out of is also holy?" Because it is part of the firstfruits offering, they just gave part of it to the priest as an act of offering, of sacrifice. And so he said the same thing is working here in this metaphor of a plant. If the root is holy, then the branches are holy, or if the branches are holy, the root is holy. So we have got to understand that he is making this big metaphor about the whole being holy as well as the smaller part.
This sets up the teaching that he is going to give us there at the end of chapter 11. The root he refers to, of course, is Israel, but it may be much more specific. Some people say that the root is all the Old Testament saints combined, they are the root of this tree. But it is probably even more specific than that because he goes on in verse 28 (which we have not gotten to), to mention the fathers. Probably he means Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and if we are going to bring it down to one person in particular, that is, the root other than Jesus Christ, it would be Abraham.
This is backed up by chapter 4, verse 16. We will not go there. I will just mention that Paul writes in that place that Abraham, who is the father of us all, meaning he is the father of the faithful. As a matter of fact, in the Old Testament, we are told to go back to the stone that we were hewn from and he mentioned specifically there, Abraham and Sarah. So the root idea may be Abraham himself. That is from whom all Israel sprang, if we want to use that part of the metaphor.
So he is saying the Gentiles enjoy their place now, only because of the foundation set by the root of Israel. And secondly, because of the iniquity and unbelief of most Israelites. The Gentiles have only been given this great opportunity because Abraham was faithful and because most of Israel was unfaithful. It is kind of an interesting way of of talking about it and making them understand that it is because of both good and bad things that they were given this opportunity.
But he goes on to warn them that now, even though they are in this good position under God, they are actually in a very precarious position under God, because they must maintain their belief or God will break them off the root too, just like He did Israel. So if they want to continue in God's goodness, they must endure in faith to the end, otherwise they … . . .
Numbers 15:17-21
Excerpted from: Was Joshua Required to Offer the Wavesheaf?This “when you come into the land” instruction is incredible in its implications. The heave offering mentioned here is not the same as the Wavesheaf, though there are similarities. Like the Wavesheaf, this offering is a “when you come into the land” instruction. And like the Wavesheaf, this offering must be performed in conjunction with eating the grain of the land. We know Israel ate from the land in Joshua 5, but this heave offering, like the Wavesheaf, is not mentioned as being made. But what is critical is that if we apply the same reasoning to this offering that the new view applies in assuming the Wavesheaf was offered in Joshua 5, we end up with a real problem.
Consider all the work that this offering required. There was the labor of reaping the grain. The threshing floor is mentioned, and threshing is certainly labor intensive. Then there was the work of grinding the grain, which is even more work. But before grinding comes the work of winnowing to get out all the chaff. This is what we miss by being so far removed from agriculture. If we assume that the Israelites waved the sheaf in Joshua 5 on the First Day of Unleavened Bread, then we must also assume that they performed all of this reaping, threshing, winnowing, and grinding on the same holy day when they ate of the bread of the land. Those assumptions have serious implications because they suggest that the sanctity of a holy day is of no account. So, either the Israelites performed all this work on the First Day of Unleavened Bread when they also (allegedly) waved the sheaf, or else they refrained because the conditions were not right, and thus, there is no example of a Wavesheaf on the First Day of Unleavened Bread.
It is worth remembering that Israel went into captivity in large part for defiling God’s Sabbaths—for not keeping them holy—so it’s no wonder that all the Jewish groups steered clear of starting the harvest and the corresponding count on an annual Sabbath.
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