Numbers 29:39
These things ye shall do unto the LORD in your set feasts, beside your vows, and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your meat offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings. These things ye shall do unto the LORD in your set feasts, beside your vows, and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your meat offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings.
These things are the burnt offerings and grain offerings and drink offerings and peace offerings appointed to be done unto the LORD in the set feasts, beside vows and freewill offerings. They are additional to the continual sanctuary ministration and to offerings made for particular persons, and the regular morning and evening sacrifices for the whole congregation continued every day and were not omitted when other offerings were made. This additional work for Sabbaths and new moons and set feasts belonged to the regular work of the daily ministration in the holy place, carried on through the year alongside the morning and evening burnt offering and the morning and evening burning of sweet incense. The yearly feasts set apart for these offerings and sacrifices were separate from the weekly Sabbath and ceased to be obligatory when the sacrificial system ended at the cross. The verse also presses whether vows to the LORD are being faithfully kept.
Feast Offerings Described
Numbers 29 deals with the offerings appointed for the set feasts, standing with chapters 28 and 30 concerning offerings and vows. The instructions include the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles held after the harvest as a national thanksgiving, and Numbers 29:12-40 describes the sacrifices required during that feast and its associated annual Sabbaths.
The verse lists burnt offerings and meat or grain offerings and drink offerings and peace offerings to be done unto the LORD in the set feasts. Those prescribed feast offerings are to be made beside or in addition to vows and freewill offerings. They are additional also to the continual sanctuary ministration and to offerings made for particular persons, alongside the regular daily and weekly services and what individuals brought.
The drink-offerings accompanied the burnt offerings and were poured out rather than drunk, which explains why wine is repeatedly mentioned in connection with the sanctuary service.
Sanctuary Service and Meaning
Besides individual offerings for sin there were daily sacrifices of a more general nature, including the regular morning and evening sacrifice, the morning and evening incense, and special offerings for the weekly Sabbath, the annual sabbaths, new moons, and feasts. The feast offerings were additional to the continual sanctuary ministration and to offerings made for particular persons. The prescribed offerings for the set feasts stood alongside vows and freewill offerings, as well as burnt, grain, drink, and peace offerings.
The additional work appointed for the Sabbaths of the Lord, annual sabbaths, new moons, and set feasts belonged to the regular work of the daily ministration in the holy place, carried on through the year by the Levitical order of priesthood. That work stood alongside the regular morning and evening burnt offering, the morning and evening burning of sweet incense on the golden altar, and the particular work for individuals as they presented their offerings. The appointed offerings for the set feasts are thus distinguished from vows and freewill offerings while listing burnt, grain, drink, and peace offerings.
The regular morning and evening sacrifices for the whole congregation continued every day and were not omitted when other offerings were made. They were part of the continual service of the earthly sanctuary, which is a figure or shadow of the ministration of the heavenly sanctuary. In that service individual offerings for sin transferred sin through blood to the sanctuary.
These prescribed feast offerings formed part of the special sanctuary service on the annual feasts. They were made in addition to the regular morning and evening offerings and to offerings brought by individuals. The yearly feasts set apart for various offerings and sacrifices were separate from the weekly Sabbath and ceased to be obligatory when the sacrificial system ended at the cross. The fact that sacrifices were offered on those feast days, as during the Feast of Tabernacles and its associated annual Sabbaths, does not make every day on which sacrifices were offered a Sabbath or a shadow of Christ.
The description of offerings on the tenth day of the seventh month does not say whether the burnt offerings and other offerings were made before or after the high priest's work in the most holy place. That silence leaves open that they were offered after he came out. Their timing therefore cannot establish that these offerings preceded the sanctuary's cleansing or that the cleansing began only after a long preliminary period. The verse also presses the personal question whether vows to the LORD are being faithfully kept, since the burnt, grain, drink, and peace offerings commanded for the set feasts are to be done beside vows and freewill offerings.