How do the sacrifices in Numbers 28:20 relate to the concept of atonement? Context in Numbers 28 Numbers 28 catalogues Israel’s regular offerings: daily, Sabbath, monthly, and festal. Verses 16-25 address the Passover and the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. Verse 20 specifies the grain offering that accompanies the opening-day burnt offering: “Along with each bull prepare a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, with each ram two-tenths, and with each of the seven male lambs one-tenth” . The animals named in v.19 supply the blood; the grain/oil mixture in v.20 supplies the memorial element of consecration. Sacrificial Components and Atonement 1. Blood sacrifice (v.19) is substitutionary. Leviticus 1:4 ties the burnt offering to atonement (כָּפַר, kaphar, “covering”). 2. The grain offering (v.20) is non-bloody yet inseparable. Leviticus 2:3 calls it “most holy”; Leviticus 6:17 states it belongs to the priests “to make atonement for them.” Thus Israel’s atonement is pictured as both expiation (blood) and consecration (grain). Corporate Atonement During the Feast of Unleavened Bread the entire nation participates (Numbers 28:17). The multiplied animals and graded grain measures mirror Israel’s size and echo Exodus 12:47: “All the congregation of Israel must celebrate it.” Corporate sin demands corporate covering. Typological Trajectory to Christ • Unblemished bulls, rams, and lambs (Numbers 28:19) prefigure the sinless Messiah: “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). • Fine flour, sifted free of husks, pictures the purity of His humanity; oil points to the Spirit upon Him (Luke 4:18). • Hebrews 10:10 links the once-for-all offering of Christ to the inadequacy of repetitive Levitical gifts, showing v.20’s grain offering as a shadow of the perfect consecration achieved in Jesus’ self-offering. Scriptural Continuity Numbers 28:20 integrates with: • Leviticus 16—Day of Atonement blood application. • Isaiah 53—Servant offering “grain offering” language (אִם־תָּשִׂים אָשָׁם, v.10) pointing to Messiah. • Hebrews 7-10—Christ as high priest and sacrifice, completing what Numbers only initiated. Archaeological and Manuscript Corroboration • The Temple Scroll (11Q19) repeats Numbers 28 language, confirming first-century B.C. usage of the text. • Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls (7th century B.C.) bear the priestly blessing (Numbers 6:24-26), attesting to Mosaic material circulating centuries before Christ. • Tel Arad ostraca mention “house of YHWH” grain allocations, paralleling minḥâ practice. These finds verify that grain offerings functioned historically, not merely theoretically. Summary The sacrifices surrounding Numbers 28:20 present a unified atonement picture: blood that covers sin and grain that consecrates life. Both converge on the ultimate Passover, Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection secure definitive atonement and whose Spirit sanctifies believers, fulfilling in reality what the minḥâ only foreshadowed. |
    |