Moses, saying, Mosen, dicendo:
HARMONY OF THE LAW · VOLUME 1 have touched the consecrated meat, he should be cut off from the people. The cruelty or immoderate severity of this has induced some to think that to be "cut off" is nothing more than to be cast out of the camp. But it is not wonderful that God should have thus severely dealt with those who knowingly and wilfully contaminated what was holy; for if any one had sinned in error, he was not to receive this sentence, but only he who had betrayed his open contempt of God by impious profanation of sacred things.
23. Speak unto the children of Israel. Since in all sacrifices the fat was consecrated to God, and was burnt on the altar, God forbade His people to eat fat even in their ordinary meals, in order that they might cultivate piety even in their homes. For unquestionably this was an exercise of piety, that they who were far away from the temple should still accustom themselves in their daily meals to the service of God. Nor am I ignorant of the allegories 631 in which some interpreters indulge, but I willingly acquiesce in the reason which God reveals, viz., that the people was prohibited from eating fat, because He had assigned it to Himself. Nevertheless, the Law permits the fat of a carcase, 632 or of an animal torn (by beasts) to be applied to any use, provided they abstain from the fat of those animals which might be legally offered.
37. This is the law of the burnt-offering. In this conclusion Moses indicates that full provision had been made lest any addition should insinuate itself from man's inventions to vitiate the sacrifices. In the day, he says, that God appointed the sacrifices to be offered to Him on Mount Sinai, He omitted nothing which was to be observed, lest men should dare to introduce anything except what He prescribed. And surely, when He had thus carefully embraced all the ceremonies, we may easily infer from hence how earnestly we should avoid all temerity and audacity in invention. The design, therefore, of Moses was in this brief admonition to exhort the people to soberness, lest they should transgress the limits placed by God.
Numbers 15
Numbers 15:1-16
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
1. Loquutus est autem Jehova ad Mosen, dicendo:
Vide on Leviticus 3:16, ante, p. 334.
See Margin, A. V.