Commentary - Numbers 29:26-28

Bird's-eye view

In this portion of Numbers, we are in the thick of the liturgical calendar for Israel. God is not a God of vague generalities; He is a God of glorious and painstaking detail. This chapter outlines the offerings for the seventh month, a month packed with high holy days, culminating in the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles. What we are reading here is not a dry list for some ancient quartermaster, but rather the rhythmic heartbeat of Israel's covenant life. The sheer volume of sacrifices can be overwhelming to the modern reader, but we must resist the temptation to let our eyes glaze over. This is the worship of God, and worship is the engine of the world. These verses in particular detail the offerings for the fifth day of this great feast, and they are saturated with gospel truth. They show us the lavishness of God's provision, the unbending standard of His holiness, and the all-encompassing nature of true worship.

The structure of the Feast of Booths involves a descending number of bulls offered each day, starting with thirteen and ending with seven. This numerical pattern is not accidental. It is part of the divine pedagogy, teaching Israel something about God's ways. In the midst of this meticulous repetition, we see the constant elements: the rams, the lambs, the grain and drink offerings, and the goat for a sin offering. Each element has its place, its meaning, and its purpose, all pointing forward to the one who would be the final and ultimate sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not just about ritual; it is about redemption.

Outline

Context In Numbers

Numbers 29 comes after the account of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) and the instructions for the Feast of Trumpets (Numbers 29:1-6) and the Day of Atonement again (Numbers 29:7-11). The chapter is entirely dedicated to the public, corporate offerings to be made in the seventh month. This is the climax of Israel's worship year. The seventh month is a sabbath month, a time of rest, remembrance, and feasting before the Lord. The Feast of Booths itself was a week-long celebration commemorating God's provision for Israel during their forty years in the wilderness. They were to live in temporary shelters to remember their pilgrim status and their utter dependence on God.

The detailed list of sacrifices underscores the centrality of worship in their national life. Their calendar, their economy, and their social lives all revolved around the tabernacle and its prescribed rituals. This chapter serves as a divine commentary on the first and great commandment: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might. How is that love expressed? It is expressed through glad-hearted, meticulous, and sacrificial obedience in worship.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 26 ‘Then on the fifth day: nine bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old without blemish;

We come here to the fifth day of the Feast of Booths. The modern mind, accustomed to novelty and entertainment, might find this repetition tedious. Day four had ten bulls, day five has nine. But the sinful mind thinks repetition is a signal to stop thinking. The wise know that repetition is the very grammar of worship. The sun rises every day, and it does not do so with a sigh. God is teaching His people through this rhythm. The number of bulls is decreasing, a countdown to the end of the feast. This is a structured, disciplined, and ordered approach to God. Worship is not a free-for-all.

The animals themselves are significant. Bulls represent strength and service. Rams represent leadership and consecration. Lambs, of course, point to innocence and substitution. And notice, there are fourteen male lambs, a double portion of seven, the number of perfection. This is a picture of lavish abundance in worship. God does not ask for our leftovers; He requires a feast.

And crucially, they must be without blemish. This is not a throwaway line. This is the heart of the matter. God's holiness demands perfection. An animal with a defect, a spot, or a broken limb would not do. This requirement was a constant, nagging reminder to the Israelites that their own efforts were blemished. They could not produce the perfection God required. Every single one of these perfect animals was a stand-in, a substitute, pointing to the truly unblemished Lamb of God who would one day take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

v. 27 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams and for the lambs, by their number according to the legal judgment;

Worship is not just about the bloody sacrifice; it is all-encompassing. Here we have the grain and drink offerings. The grain offering, made of fine flour and oil, represents the dedication of one's labor, the fruit of the ground. The drink offering, wine poured out, represents joy and fellowship. You cannot separate the bloody sacrifice from the dedication of your life's work and the overflow of your joy. It all belongs to God.

These offerings were to be presented by their number according to the legal judgment. The phrase means according to the prescribed ordinance or rule. God has laid out the specifics elsewhere (see Numbers 15). There is a right way to do this. We are not in charge of inventing a worship service that we think God might like. He wrote a book. He tells us. This meticulous obedience is the framework within which true worship flourishes. It is not legalism; it is the trellis that supports the vine. Freedom is found within the structure God provides, not in its demolition.

v. 28 and one male goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering and its grain offering and its drink offering.

In the midst of this great celebration, this feast of joy and remembrance, we are brought up short. A sin offering. A male goat is brought to have the sins of the people laid upon it, and it is killed. Why? Because even in their most joyous worship, in their most careful obedience, sin is still present. The people are still sinners. The continual burnt offering, the daily sacrifice, was not enough. Even the massive number of bulls, rams, and lambs for the feast was not enough to deal with the root problem. Sin had to be dealt with directly, every single day.

This is a profound dose of realism. We cannot worship God rightly without acknowledging our sin. We do not come to God because we are cleaned up; we come to God to be cleaned up. This goat is a picture of propitiation. It dies so the people do not have to. And of course, it is a bloody foreshadowing of Christ, who became our sin offering (2 Cor. 5:21). This daily reminder of sin and the need for a substitute was meant to cultivate humility and a deep-seated gratitude for the grace of God. Without the sin offering, all the other offerings were just so much smoke.

The Glory of Repetition

The structure of Numbers 29, with its day-by-day, sacrifice-by-sacrifice listing, can feel monotonous to us. We want the highlight reel, the executive summary. But God gives us the full liturgical script. Why? Because He wants to drill into us the glory of routine. The thing which keeps us from exulting in repetitive actions is sin. We are called to a life of cycles, and this is to be our glory.

The daily, weekly, and yearly patterns of sacrifice in Israel were the very rhythm of their covenant life. It taught them that faithfulness is found in the long obedience in the same direction, not in sporadic bursts of enthusiasm. Our worship today is the same. We gather each Lord's Day to do many of the same things, again. We confess our sins, again. We sing psalms, again. We hear the Word, again. We come to the Table, again. This repetition is not a sign that God is boring, but rather that we are forgetful and leaky vessels. A hungry man does not complain about the repetitive nature of eating. These rituals are food for our souls.

Application

So what does a passage about nine bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs have to do with us? Everything. First, it teaches us that worship costs something. Our worship is not to be casual or cheap. It cost these Israelites a significant portion of their wealth to worship God rightly. Our worship should cost us our time, our attention, our resources, and our whole-hearted engagement.

Second, it reminds us of the perfection of Christ. Every "without blemish" animal was a placeholder for Him. Because His sacrifice was truly perfect, it was once for all. We do not have to offer bulls and goats. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1), empowered by the one who sacrificed Himself for us. Our confidence is not in the perfection of our worship, but in the perfection of our Mediator.

Finally, it shows us the integration of all of life under God. The burnt offering for atonement, the grain offering for our work, the drink offering for our joy, and the sin offering for our constant failures, it is all there. God is not interested in one slice of your life called "religion." He claims all of it. The way you work, the way you celebrate, and the way you repent are all acts of worship. This passage invites us to see our entire lives as an offering, laid on the altar of the one true God, acceptable to Him through Jesus Christ.