Numbers 29 Bible study: Seventy bulls, then one

Leviticus 23 had already set these days in the seventh month. For the first day it said only, "You shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD" (Leviticus 23:25), and when it summed up the feasts it said their offerings were brought "each on its own day" (Leviticus 23:37), without listing them. For the seventh month, Numbers 29 lists them day by day. The first day: "one young bull, one ram, seven male lambs a year old without defect" (29:2), with flour for each (29:3-4), "and one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you" (29:5). The tenth day has the same animals (29:8-11). The feast that begins on the fifteenth has its own number for each of its seven days (29:13-34), and then comes the eighth day (29:35-38). Numbers gives the days by their dates: "the first day of the month" (29:1), "the tenth day of this seventh month" (29:7), "the fifteenth day of the seventh month" (29:12). The names "the day of atonement" and "the feast of booths" come from Leviticus (Leviticus 23:27, 23:34).

Numbers 29:12→leads toJohn 7:14-16

Numbers sets the offerings for "a feast to the LORD seven days" from "the fifteenth day of the seventh month" (29:12), the feast Leviticus calls "the feast of booths" (Leviticus 23:34). John writes, "Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand" (John 7:2). Jesus told his brothers, "You go up to the feast" (John 7:8), and when they had gone, "then he also went up" (John 7:10). "When it was now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught" (John 7:14), and said, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (John 7:16). John doesn't cite Numbers or mention its offerings, so setting the two side by side is a reading: some see Jesus here inside the feast this chapter sets, teaching in the temple in the middle of its seven days (John 7:14); others read the feast only as the setting John gives for Jesus' words about the one who sent him (John 7:16).

מִסְפָּרmisparsay mis-PAR

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "number, tale". Strong's: "a number, definite (arithmetical) or indefinite". The first day of the feast spells out the flour for every animal (29:14-15). From the second day on, the chapter says instead that the meal offerings and drink offerings go with the animals "according to their number, after the ordinance" (29:18), seven times in all (29:18, 29:21, 29:24, 29:27, 29:30, 29:33, 29:37). It is the census word that opens the book: "according to the number of the names" (Numbers 1:2).