Numbers 29:12-40--Offerings for the Feast of Booths

Numbers 29:12-40
English Standard Version

Offerings for the Feast of Booths
12 “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall keep a feast to the LORD seven days. 13 And you shall offer a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD, thirteen bulls from the herd, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old; they shall be without blemish; 14 and their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, three tenths of an ephah for each of the thirteen bulls, two tenths for each of the two rams, 15 and a tenth for each of the fourteen lambs; 16 also one male goat for a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering.

17 “On the second day twelve bulls from the herd, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without blemish, 18 with the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 19 also one male goat for a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

20 “On the third day eleven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without blemish, 21 with the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 22 also one male goat for a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering and its grain offering and its drink offering.

23 “On the fourth day ten bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without blemish, 24 with the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 25 also one male goat for a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering.

26 “On the fifth day nine bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without blemish, 27 with the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 28 also one male goat for a sin offering; besides the regular burnt offering and its grain offering and its drink offering.

29 “On the sixth day eight bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without blemish, 30 with the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 31 also one male goat for a sin offering; besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offerings.

32 “On the seventh day seven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old without blemish, 33 with the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 34 also one male goat for a sin offering; besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering.

35 “On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly. You shall not do any ordinary work, 36 but you shall offer a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD: one bull, one ram, seven male lambs a year old without blemish, 37 and the grain offering and the drink offerings for the bull, for the ram, and for the lambs, in the prescribed quantities; 38 also one male goat for a sin offering; besides the regular burnt offering and its grain offering and its drink offering.

39 “These you shall offer to the LORD at your appointed feasts, in addition to your vow offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your grain offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings.”

40  So Moses told the people of Israel everything just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

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This is the last of the feasts that has required sacrifices, and this one has a lot of required sacrifices.  This feast commemorated the fact that God took Israel from being sojourners who lived in tents and temporary dwellings (both in the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but especially during this point where they are wandering in the wilderness), but He would fulfill His promise to them to bring them into the Land and give them houses and cities.  This feast was to commemorate this time in their lives so that they would never forget and their children would ask why they did this thing and the previous generation would be able to pass along the story to the next generation.  So then these feasts acted much like the altars, wells, and other markers that we studied in the book of Genesis.  They were meant to be a permanent marker to look back on and remember who God is and what He has done for His people.

The first day of the feast required more sacrifices than any other day.  The people would offer a burnt offering, a food offering, thirteen bulls, two rams, and fourteen male lambs that were a year old--all without blemish and and all with their accompanying grain offerings (it does not appear that any drink offerings were offered with these sacrifices).  There was also to be one male goat offered as as sin offering with it's accompanying grain offering and drink offering.

On days two through seven the number of bulls offered each for those days would decrease by one each day so that twelve bulls were offered on day two all the way to seven bulls on day seven.  They continued to offer two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old each day for days two through seven as well (again, all the bulls, rams, and male lambs that were one-year old needed to be without blemish), and they offered the accompanying grain and drink offerings for these sacrifices in their prescribed quantities for these days.  They would also offer a male goat as a sin offering along with its prescribed grain and drink offerings.  The only difference was the number of bulls offered each day.

When they were done with the feast, 70 bulls would have been offered, 14 rams, 98 male lams a year old, and 7 male goats.  Again, I'm really not sure, but it seems as if these instructions are given to the individuals themselves, not to the priesthood to give these on behalf of the entire nation, so if each person is offering this much in required sacrifices, that's a lot of sacrifices for each person and a lot of sacrifices to be made by the priest on each day.

The day after the seven days of sacrifices ended was a solemn Sabbath day of rest (as was the first day of the Feast).  They were also to have a solemn assembly/convocation on both those days.  On this eighth day they would only offer one bull, one ram, seven male lambs a year old (all without blemish) and their accompanying grain and drink offerings.  They would also offer a male goat as a sin offering.  See how the pattern for the number of bulls, rams, and male lambs offered has changed?

All these sacrifices were to be considered to be required and were in addition to the offerings made for vows (the topic of the next passage) and the freewill offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings and peace offerings that the people would offer.  I wish I could count all of these sacrifices and put a value on them for you, but honestly there are too many--I think that's the point.  In the United States today, you may hear us talk about a made-up day on our individual calendars (different for each person) called "Tax Freedom Day" in which we celebrate the day if we had taken every dollar that we made up to that point in the year and put it towards paying our various taxes, we would actually start getting to keep some of the money for ourselves.  Now imagine this for this culture where they were still very agrarian and a man's wealth was often measured by the size of his herds and flocks (take note for instance of Abraham, Jacob and Job and how their wealth is measured).  Now see that God is requiring the people to not only pay these sacrifices, but to give the offerings of their firstfruits as well as tithes and their various other kinds of offerings required by the Law mentioned above and it may seem as if there never was any "Tax Freedom Day" for the nation of Israel as it may have seemed like they were always working just to provide enough grain, wine and livestock for these sacrifices.  We're talking huge percentages of their income and they had to trust the LORD to provide this for each and every one of them, and now we can possibly understand why there was a booming business of selling animals without blemish to those who did not farm or those who had to travel from far away during the time of Jesus.  The cost of keeping the Law was very high indeed.

I don't want to make this about "tithing" or economics or government.  Instead, look at what this says about how great the people needed to believe God is and how worthy He was according to the cost of their worship.  Would we too like David refuse to offer a sacrifice to the LORD which cost us nothing?


2 Samuel 24:18-25
English Standard Version

David Builds an Altar
18 And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up at Gad's word, as the LORD commanded. 20 And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. 21 And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be averted from the people.” 22 Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23 All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.” 24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25 And David built there an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.