Moses, saying, dicendo:
JOHN CALVIN
if this sense is preferred, the expression must be taken by synecdoche for anything unclean. My own opinion however, is, that under this particular head all things are included which have a shew of piety. The burial of the dead was a praiseworthy office and a religious exercise; 565 so that it might afford a colorable pretext for peculiar laxity; in this word, therefore, God would have the Israelites declare, that they offered no excuse if they had misemployed any of the consecrated things.
15. Look down from thy holy habitation. Whilst they are commanded to offer their prayers and supplications, that God would bless the land, on this condition, that they had not defiled themselves by any sacrilege, at the same time they are reminded, on the other hand, that God's blessing was not else to be hoped for. Meanwhile the expression is remarkable, "Bless the land which thou hast given us, a land that floweth with milk and honey:" for we infer from hence that the land was not so much fertile by nature, as because God daily watered it by His secret blessing to make it so.
Numbers 18
Numbers 18:25-32
25. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
25. Loquutus est Jehova ad Mosen, dicendo:
26. Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe.
26. Praeterea ad Levitas loqueris: et dices eis, Quum acceperitis a filiis Israel decimas quas vobis ab illis dedi in haereditatem vestram, tunc offeretis ex illis oblationem Jehovae decimas ex decimis.
"Telle apparence pouvoit enhardir les gens a y employer les offertes deues a Dieu:" this pretext might embolden the people to employ upon it the offerings due to God. — Fr.