Numbers 15:2

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-21 Full instructions are given about the meat-offerings and drink-offerings. The beginning of this law is very encouraging, When ye come into the land of your habitation which I give unto you. This was a plain intimation that God would secure the promised land to their seed. It was requisite, since the sacrifices of acknowledgment were intended as the food of God's table, that there should be a constant supply of bread, oil, and wine, whatever the flesh-meat was. And the intent of this law is to direct the proportions of the meat-offering and drink-offering. Natives and strangers are placed on a level in this as in other like matters. It was a happy forewarning of the calling of the Gentiles, and of their admission into the church. If the law made so little difference between Jew and Gentile, much less would the gospel, which broke down the partition-wall, and reconciled both to God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To the Israelites of the younger generation is conveyed the hope that the nation should yet enter into the land of promise. The ordinances that follow are more likely to have been addressed to adults than to children; and we may therefore assume that at the date of their delivery the new generation was growing up, and the period of wandering drawing toward its close. During that period the meat-offerings and drink-offerings prescribed by the Law had been probably intermitted by reason of the scanty supply of grain and wine in the wilderness. The command therefore to provide such offerings was a pledge to Israel that it should possess the land which was to furnish the wherewithal for them.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 15

Nu 15:1-41. The Law of Sundry Offerings.

1, 2. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel—Some infer from Nu 15:23 that the date of this communication must be fixed towards the close of the wanderings in the wilderness; and, also, that all the sacrifices prescribed in the law were to be offered only after the settlement in Canaan.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Will certainly give you notwithstanding this great provacation, and my unchangeable commination. And for their better assurance hereof, he repeats and amplifies the laws of sacrifices, whereby through Christ he was or would be reconciled to them and theirs upon their repentance.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,.... The younger sort of them, such as were under twenty years of age; for those of that age and upwards, who had murmured against the Lord, had been assured by him with an oath that they should die in the wilderness, and not see the land of Canaan, Numbers 14:29; whereas those Moses is here bid to speak to were such that should possess it:

when ye come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto,

you; the land of Canaan, the grant of which is here renewed to them, and an assurance given of their coming into it and settlement in it; and that they should have dwelling places there for their several tribes and families.

Geneva Study Bible

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the {a} land of your habitations, which I give unto you,

(a) Into the land of Canaan.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - When ye be come into the land. The same formula is used in Leviticus 23:10 concerning the wave-sheaf. It is only remarkable here because it tacitly assumes -

(1) that the burnt offerings and sacrifices mentioned would not be offered any more in the wilderness;

(2) that the nation to which it was spoken would surely enter into Canaan at last. Numbers 15:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Regulations concerning Sacrifices. - Vv. 1-16. For the purpose of reviving the hopes of the new generation that was growing up, and directing their minds to the promised land, during the mournful and barren time when judgment was being executed upon the race that had been condemned, Jehovah communicated various laws through Moses concerning the presentation of sacrifices in the land that He would give them (Numbers 15:1 and Numbers 15:2), whereby the former laws of sacrifice were supplemented and completed. The first of these laws had reference to the connection between meat-offerings and drink-offerings on the one hand, and burnt-offerings and slain-offerings on the other.