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.Of the first of your dough shall ye give unto the Lord,.... As an acknowledgment of his being the sovereign Lord and possessor of heaven and earth, and of his being the owner and proprietor of the land of Canaan; and by way of thankfulness to him for the plenty of bread corn he had given them; and wherefore this cake was to he heaved or lifted up towards him in heaven, as follows: an heave offering in your generations: for this respected not only the first time of their entrance into the land of Canaan, but was to be observed every year when they made their first dough, and was to continue as long as the ceremonial law lasted: this cake was anciently given to the priest, which is meant by giving it to the Lord, but now the Jews take it and cast it into the fire and burn it (s) the apostle seems to allude to this cake of the first dough in Romans 11:16. (s) Buxtorf. ut supra, (Synagog. Jud. c. 34. p. 602.) & Leo Modena, History of the present Jews, par. 2. c. 9. |