Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 15:32 - 15:32

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 15:32 - 15:32


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The History of the Sabbath-Breaker is no doubt inserted here as a practical illustration of sinning “with a high hand.” It shows, too, at the same time, how the nation, as a whole, was impressed with the inviolable sanctity of the Lord's day. From the words with which it is introduced, “and the children of Israel were in the wilderness,” all that can be gathered is, that the occurrence took place at the time when Israel was condemned to wander about in the wilderness for forty years. They found a man gathering sticks in the desert on the Sabbath, and brought him as an open transgressor of the law of the Sabbath before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation, i.e., the college of elders, as the judicial authorities of the congregation (Exo 18:25.). They kept him in custody, like the blasphemer in Lev 24:12, because it had not yet been determined what was to be done to him. It is true that it had already been laid down in Exo 31:14-15, and Exo 35:2, that any breach of the law of the Sabbath should be punished by death and extermination, but the mode had not yet been prescribed. This was done now, and Jehovah commanded stoning (see Lev 20:2), which was executed upon the criminal without delay.