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Exodus 30 · a question people ask

What does "cut off from his people" mean?

Interpretation

Twice this chapter says it: of anyone who makes oil like the holy oil or puts it on a stranger, and of anyone who makes incense like the holy incense "to smell of it" (30:38): "he shall be cut off from his people" (30:33, 30:38). Exodus has used the phrase before, for eating leavened bread at the Passover: "that soul shall be cut off from Israel" (12:15). The chapter doesn't say how it happens. Everyone agrees it is a serious penalty. Christians read it in more than one way.

How Christians read it

Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.

Put to death

Those who hold this view point to the Sabbath law in the next chapter, where the two stand side by side: "Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people" (31:14).

Exodus 31:14

God himself cuts off

Those who hold this view notice that the LORD sometimes says he will do it: "I also will set my face against that person, and will cut him off from among his people" (Leviticus 20:3).

Leviticus 20:3

Removed from the community

Those who hold this view read it as losing one's place among God's people, as in "that soul shall be cut off from among the assembly" (Numbers 19:20).

Numbers 19:20

The verses

““‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.”
Exodus 12:15 · World English Bible
“Whoever compounds any like it, or whoever puts any of it on a stranger, he shall be cut off from his people.’””
Exodus 30:33 · World English Bible
“Whoever shall make any like that, to smell of it, he shall be cut off from his people.””
Exodus 30:38 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Exodus 30

Exodus 30: A perpetual incense

The golden altar before the veil needed its own atonement "once in the year" (30:10). Every man counted paid the same half shekel, rich or poor, as "a ransom for his soul" (30:12), and that silver went into the sockets of the sanctuary and the veil (38:25-27).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions