Literatura do Segundo Templo sobre Números 15:19

IV. The introduction of the subject of Abel’s offering of the first-born of his sheep is immediately followed by a quotation of the directions with regard to the offering of the first-born in Exod. 13:11–13, and the sections 90–117 are almost entirely short homilies on the different parts of this passage. Thus (a) the time of the offering is put at the entrance to Canaan, the “wavering reasoning” from which God means us to escape (90); (b) we have then an apologetic discussion of the words “God sware,” showing that such expressions are a concession to the human tendency to anthropomorphism (91–96); (c) by reading an “if” into the words “and shall give thee,” he draws his favourite moral that we can only give what God has given (97); (d) dwelling on the words “thou shalt set apart” or “separate,” he argues that the ideas of God which we offer to Him must be kept apart from lower and profane conceptions of Him (98–101); (e) “the males to the Lord” means that while the male offspring of the soul are the virtues, those of the “beasts” or senses are such as are kept under control of the mind (102–106); (f) we have an illustrative digression on the similar command in Numb. 15:19–20, to make offering from the “mixture,” i.e. our compound being, and a contrast with the offerings of perfection, in which there is no setting apart (107–112); (g) on the last verse of Exod. 13:11–13, “all that openeth the womb of the ass, thou shalt exchange it for a sheep, but if thou dost not exchange it, thou shalt redeem it,” we are told that the ass is labour, the sheep progress, and that labour, at least in the case of things indifferent, is futile, unless it brings progress, and if futile must be “redeemed,” i.e. set free (112–116).

[107] Again we are bidden to set apart not only from these but from the “whole mixture.” The words of the commandment are as follows, “and it shall be that when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall set apart a portion marked out for the Lord: a loaf as the first offering of your mixture, ye shall set it apart as a portion. As ye do with a portion from the threshing-floor, so shall ye set it apart” (Numb. 15:19–20).