Commentaria in Numeros
Note: This goat for sin was not burned outside the camp (for nothing of the kind is said here), like that calf of Leviticus iv, because the blood of this goat was not carried into the Holy of Holies, as the blood of that calf was carried. Only the fat of this goat, therefore, went to God, and was burned to him, but the flesh went to the priest: for so it was done in the other sin-offerings, according to the law of Leviticus vi, 26.
Verse 24. “And the sacrifice thereof and libations (by sacrifice understand the meal-offering: for the Hebrew is mincha; the libations are the libations of oil and wine, which were offered with the calf and the goat), as the ceremonies (here prescribed by me) require.”
Verse 25. “Because they sinned not willingly.” For if anyone sinned willingly, and through pride despising the precept of God, this sacrifice did not expiate that fault, but he was punished by the judge, if the matter was evident; but if not, he was punished and slain by God, as is plain from verse 31.
“Nevertheless they must offer burnt offering to the Lord,” as if to say: The sin will be forgiven them, because it was committed through ignorance; yet so that they nevertheless offer “incense,” that is, the sacrifice or victim already prescribed, which is burned and offered by fire to God. This is plain from the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. For “incense,” or as it is in Hebrew “ignition,” is often taken in Leviticus not for incense, but for the sacrifice and the victim burned.
Septuagint and Chaldee: because he has provoked the Lord.
Verse 31. “And made void his commandment,” not as to the obligation of the precept, but as to its end and use, which is to obey the precept. So the Hebrews often say: He made the law void, that is, he transgressed the law, violated it, and was disobedient to it; for such a one, as far as in him lies, breaks, destroys and makes void the law itself.
Verse 32. “And it came to pass, when, etc., they had found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.”
Hence it is plain that the sabbath was kept in the desert, although the Hebrews did not keep there the other ceremonial observances: because the sabbath had been promulgated to the whole people by the voice of God on Sinai, Exodus xx, 8. The Hebrews kept the sabbath, therefore, in the desert, as to rest from works, but not as to the sacrifices, namely that on the sabbath they should offer two lambs, one in the morning, the other in the evening; for after the departure from Sinai they did not sacrifice, except in Chanaan.
Verse 34. NOT KNOWING WHAT THEY OUGHT TO DO WITH HIM.—In Hebrew, ki lo parash, that is, because it had not been declared, or, as the Septuagint has it, decreed, what should be done to him. For although in Exodus xxxi, 14 the penalty of death was laid down against the violator of the sabbath, yet the Hebrews did not know whether for so slight a work, such as gathering sticks, God wished any one to be punished with death; and if he wished it, they did not know with what kind of death he desired him to be afflicted. God therefore here commands him to be stoned. See here how rigidly and severely God commands his precepts and feasts to be kept.
Violators of feasts are punished. Gregory of Tours, book I On the Glory of the Martyrs, chap. xv, relates that the hand of a woman kneading bread on the Lord’s day was forthwith set on fire by divine fire.
Roderic of Toledo, part IV of the History of Spain, relates that John, king of Castile, a victorious king, when on the Lord’s day before dinner he was devoting himself to riding, was thrown by his horse stumbling and was trampled to death, that we may learn to give the feast day to God, not to hunting or vain games. In the Life of St. Austregisilus, Archbishop of Bourges, which is in Surius, 20 May, chap. ix, it is related that when a miller named Monulphus was repairing his mill on the Lord’s day, the handle of his instrument so stuck to his hand that no one could remove it from it. Blood also burst out between his fingers, which, putrefying, moved all to nausea by its stench. But he was healed by St. Austregisilus touching his hand. Eucherius in the Life of St. Maurice and his companion Martyrs writes that a certain pagan goldsmith, because he worked at home on the Lord’s day, was beaten by the Theban Martyrs, and was moved by that terror to become a Christian.
Verse 38. FRINGES IN THE CORNERS OF THEIR CLOAKS.—In Hebrew, “that they make themselves fringes at the wings,” that is, at the extremity of garments, namely the outer ones, which are called cloaks: on these, then, the Hebrews are commanded to sew or weave in fringes thread by thread, so that they stand out in the way in which we see fringes, or the remaining threads, stand out at the edges of webs.
Hence the Pharisees, as Christ testifies, Matthew xxiii, 5, in order to seem more religious than others, enlarged these fringes: nay, Christ himself, after the custom of his nation, wore these fringes, as is plain from Luke viii, 44, where the woman with the issue of blood is said to have touched the hem of Christ’s garment and to have been healed at once. Upon these fringes the Jews put and extended round about a thread, or ribbon, or blue band, both for the sake of distinction, that by this sign they might be told apart from the Gentiles, and for the sake of piety, that this might be as it were a memorial of the commandments of God.
Moreover, these fringes were hyacinth-coloured, that is, violet and of a heavenly colour, to signify by this that the conversation and hope of the Jews ought to be in heaven, so that, having their thought with God, they should always have the fear and presence of God before their eyes; for this is what follows: “That when they shall see them they may remember all the commandments of the Lord.”
The Jews, even at this time, use this ceremony in their synagogues. For they have among their other garments one like a breastplate, except that it lacks sleeves, which they use daily in their prayers, and put on over all their other garments, and they call it arba kanphoth, that is, the four-cornered; for it has four wings or corners, from which hang the zizioth, that is, those twisted threads or fringes, which they commonly call zotten, and they say that they have a peculiar force against evil concupiscence, from what is added here: “And not follow their own thoughts and eyes going astray divers ways.” Wherefore those among them who are more religious, or rather more superstitious, are always clothed with this fringed garment under their other garments, says Oleaster and others. St. Jerome on Matthew xxiii adds that the Jews inserted very sharp thorns into these fringes, that as they walked they might by their pricking be always admonished of the divine law. What, then, shall we do? How shall we strive that the law of God be continually before our eyes?
Verse 39. “And not follow their own thoughts and eyes going astray divers ways.” In Hebrew, that ye search not, or look, or investigate after your heart and after your eyes, after which you go a whoring; as if to say: Wear these fringes, that, admonished by them of the law of God, you follow not your thoughts, and, as the Chaldee renders hirhur, the impious curiosity of your heart and the concupiscence of your eyes, following which you stray from the precepts of God, and, like fornicators with what is another’s, pollute yourselves with the love of things coveted, and with sins, says Vatablus.
Fringes, in French houppes.
Verse 39. In the Hebrew it is, “and it shall be to you for a sight,” that is, for looking at and seeing them. That the verb has also acquired the signification of looking forth is plain from Canticles ii, 9.