Commentaria in Numeros
WATCH YE IN THE CHARGE OF THE SANCTUARY, AND IN THE MINISTRY OF THE ALTAR: LEST THERE RISE INDIGNATION UPON THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.—Note: God here threatens to avenge upon the people the neglect of sacred things and of the priests, because the people together with the priests make one body and commonwealth, and it belongs to the people to support the priests, and so to see that the sacred things are duly performed by them. It belongs, then, to the priests to handle the sacred things rightly, and so to place themselves as mediators between God and the people, and to turn away from them the wrath of God.
Let Christians and the priests of the New Testament hear this,
Verse 4.
Verse 6.
Verse 7.
and that which follows: “Thou and thy sons, keep your priesthood, and all things that belong to the service of the altar.” Hence St. Paul rightly says: “No man being a soldier to God entangleth himself with secular business,” 2 Tim. ii. 4, much less with idleness, ambition, sloth and pleasures. Let vain, idle and effeminate clerics hear the reproach which St. Bernard directs at them, writing to Pope Eugenius: “Thou seest,” he says, “the zeal of some in the Church all on fire to maintain dignity; to dignity everything is given, to holiness little or nothing. Amid these things thou, O Pastor, goest about surrounded by variety, and meanwhile what do the sheep? This, indeed, I confess: they are the pastures of devils, not of men.”
Let them hear Cardinal Hugh on Genesis xlviii, thundering from St. Bernard against soft clerics, who draw to themselves the delights of all states but the burdens and labours of none: “All the offices of men,” he says, “have something of labour and something that delights. Observe the shrewdness of certain men, who, running about amid these with a novel artifice, choose and embrace all that delights, and flee and shun what is irksome. With soldiers they share the pride of display, a large retinue, trappings, hawks, dice and the like. From little women they borrow furs of mice hanging from the neck, adorned chambers, baths and every softness. They carefully shun the weight of the cuirass, sleepless nights in the camp, and the uncertain perils of war; and they decline womanly modesty and discipline, and whatever toil that sex has. When men shall begin to rise again in their order, where thinkest thou this generation will be placed? If they wish to turn aside to the soldiers, these will repel them because they bore with them none of their labours and dangers; so the husbandmen, so the vinedressers and the rest. What remains, then, but that every order expels and accuses them, so that they obtain that place where no order but everlasting horror dwells?” St. Paul said, from Moses: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox”; what ox? One that plays? one that frolics? one that lies idle? By no means, but one “that treadeth out the corn,” that labours on the floor; for, as he says in 2 Thess. iii: “If any man will not work, neither let him eat.” Let clerics who gather the fruits of the Church and spend no labour for the Church read St. Bernard on the text, “Behold we have left all things”; for these are the words of the Lord, who here, after the Hebrew manner, speaks of himself in the third person.
7. ALL THINGS THAT ARE WITHIN THE VEIL SHALL BE ADMINISTERED BY THE PRIESTS.—“Within the veil,” that is, within the Holy, and within the Holy of Holies. For there was a twofold veil: one dividing the Holy from the court; the other dividing the Holy from the Holy of Holies. The Levites, therefore, are here barred from entrance into both the Holy and the Holy of Holies (1).
8. BEHOLD I HAVE GIVEN THEE (O AARON) THE CUSTODY OF THE FIRST-FRUITS—“First-fruits,” that is, oblations; for the word first-fruits is often taken for these, both by the Septuagint and by our Interpreter. Hence follows, by way of explanation: “All the things that are sanctified by the children of Israel,” that is, all things that are set apart and offered to me. For the Hebrew is: I have given thee the custody of my oblations, namely of all the holy things, that is, of the things sanctified by the children of Israel, that thou mayest keep them, that is, command them to be kept, and have the care of all that the children of Israel offer and consecrate to God; but with the limitation and determination that follows, namely that thou divide and distribute them among thy sons, that is, among the lesser priests.
BY A PERPETUAL ORDINANCE—namely that they fall to thee and thy priests, as dues and rights owed to thee and the priests by perpetual law; hence the Hebrew has: by law, or by eternal statute.
9. EVERY OBLATION, AND SACRIFICE, AND WHATSOEVER IS RENDERED TO ME FOR SIN AND FOR TRESPASS, AND COMETH (is wont and ought to come) TO THE HOLY OF HOLIES, SHALL BE THINE AND THY SONS’—as if to say: Whatever is offered and sacrificed to me, and is therefore a holy of holies, that is, most holy, shall fall to the priests alone, not to the Levites.
This is the first law and the first gift, as it were the first stipend assigned by God to the priests, namely any victims and sacrifices offered according to the prescription of the law.
10. IN THE SANCTUARY (in the court of the sanctuary or tabernacle, by the altar of holocausts) SHALT THOU EAT IT.—For all sacrifices or victims had to be eaten in the court of the tabernacle; but other gifts or oblations, such as first-fruits and tithes, might be eaten at home.
ONLY THE MALES SHALL EAT OF IT—namely of the sacrifice for sin and trespass which immediately preceded, and which, as has been said, is a holy of holies, that is, most holy.
For of the peace-offering women also ate, as is plain from Levit. x, 14.
BECAUSE IT IS CONSECRATED TO THEE.—The Hebrew is: It shall be holiness to thee, that is, this oblation shall be set apart for thee and shall belong to thee, as holy to one holy, that is, consecrated to God.
11. BUT THE FIRST-FRUITS WHICH THEY HAVE VOWED AND OFFERED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, I HAVE GIVEN TO THEE, AND TO THY SONS.—“First-fruits,” that is, oblations; for so the Hebrew has: The oblation of their gift, all the oblations which the children of Israel shall have offered, I have given to thee (2); as if to say: I have given thee also, O Aaron, and thy sons the priests, whatsoever the children of Israel shall have given and offered for immolation as a gift. For that sacrifices are here treated of is plain from this, that in verse 7 it is said: I have given your priesthood as a ministry, or a work of singular gift, that is, by singular grace I have endowed you with the office of the priesthood; for of first-fruits, tithes and other things offered of free will but not immolated, even the unclean might eat. This is the second law, and the second gift assigned by God to the priests, namely all victims offered of free will.
12. ALL THE BEST OF THE OIL, AND OF THE WINE, AND OF THE WHEAT, WHATSOEVER THEY OFFER OF THE FIRST-FRUITS TO THE LORD, I HAVE GIVEN TO THEE.—“The best,” in Hebrew the fat, as if to say: What is richest and best among the grain, the wines of the fruits and the oil, I have given thee. For the Hebrews were to offer for first-fruits not the worst but the best, as is commanded in verses 29 and 30. This is the third law and the third gift of the priests, namely the first-fruits of the crops. Note that first-fruits are distinguished from tithes; for first-fruits are the first produce, tithes are the tenth part of the produce: the former are offered immediately to God in thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth; the latter are given directly to the priests as a stipend for their support, for the ministry wherewith they serve the Church and the temple. Note secondly: By natural law neither Jews nor Christians are bound to give first-fruits, any more than tithes, except so far as they are necessary for the support of the ministers of the Church. The Jews, therefore, were bound to first-fruits and tithes by divine law, which is ordained both here and in the last chapter of Leviticus; Christians, however, are bound to tithes by canon law. Note thirdly: The payment of first-fruits, like that of tithes, is nevertheless very agreeable to natural law and reason. For natural reason dictates that it is fitting we offer to God the first of everything. Hence also among the ancient Romans, they did not taste the new fruits or wines before the priests had made an offering of the first-fruits, as Pliny says, bk. xviii, chap. ii. In like manner the heathen paid tithes. See Pliny, bk. xix, chap. xiv, and Plutarch in his Lucullus, and in the Problems, chap. xvi. I shall show the same at greater length at the end of the chapter. Hence also before the law Abraham, by an instinct of God and of nature, gave tithes to Melchisedech, Gen. xiv; and Jacob vowed the tithes of all that he should receive, Gen. xxviii. For right reason dictates that a just and fitting portion of goods be offered to God; and such is the tenth. To this add a symbolic reason: the number ten signifies perfection, for it is the limit of the simple numbers, containing them all; the others are composed of it, repeated once or oftener, and of another simple number. Therefore he who pays a tenth to God in his ministers, keeping nine for himself, signifies that he is imperfect and awaits perfection from God through his ministers. Note fourthly: The Jews paid a fourfold first-fruits: first, the first-fruits of the ears on the second day of the unleavened bread, Levit. xxiii, 10; secondly, the first-fruits of the loaves at Pentecost, Levit. xxiii, 17; thirdly, the first-fruits of the loaves which they baked weekly, as I said at Num. xv, 21; fourthly, in the seventh month, namely at the feast of Tabernacles, when all the fruits, both of the harvest and of the grapes, were gathered in, they gave the first-fruits of them all: and this fourth kind is everywhere understood when Scripture mentions first-fruits.