Of the first of your dough you shall offer up a cake for a wave offering. As the wave offering of the threshing floor, so you shall heave it.
Parallel translations
- KJV Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshingfloor, so shall ye heave it.
- BSB From the first of your dough, you are to lift up a cake as a contribution; offer it just like an offering from the threshing floor.
- NKJV You shall offer up a cake of the first of your ground meal as a heave offering; as a heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall you offer it up.
- NASB Of the first of your dough you shall lift up a loaf as an offering; as an offering of the threshing floor, so you shall lift it up.
- NLT Present a cake from the first of the flour you grind, and set it aside as a sacred offering, as you do with the first grain from the threshing floor.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A cake from the first of the dough was to be offered, like the wave offering from the threshing floor. God claims the firstfruits of even ordinary bread.
Overview
By dedicating the first of their dough, the Israelites consecrated their everyday food to the LORD, acknowledging him in the mundane rhythms of life. The firstfruits represented the whole harvest set apart as holy. This devotion of the first portion points to Christ, who as firstfruits sanctifies the whole (Romans 11:16).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Lev 2:14“‘If you offer a meal offering of first fruits to Yahweh, you shall offer for the meal offering of your first fruits grain in the ear parched with fire, bruised grain of the fresh ear.
- Deut 26:2–10that you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you shall bring in from your land that Yahweh your God gives you. You shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.
- Exod 34:26“You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
- Ezek 44:30The first of all the first fruits of every thing, and every offering of everything, of all your offerings, shall be for the priest: you shall also give to the priests the first of your dough, to cause a blessing to rest on your house.
- Lev 23:14–17You must not eat bread, or roasted grain, or fresh grain, until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God. This is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
- Neh 10:37and that we should bring the first fruits of our dough, our wave offerings, the fruit of all kinds of trees, and the new wine and the oil, to the priests, to the rooms of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground to the Levites; for they, the Levites, take the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.
- Lev 23:10“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you have come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap its harvest, then you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest:
- Prov 3:9–10Honor Yahweh with your substance, with the first fruits of all your increase:
- Exod 23:19The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
- Lev 23:20The priest shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering before Yahweh, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to Yahweh for the priest.
- Matt 6:33But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
- Jas 1:18Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
- Deut 14:22You shall surely tithe all the increase of your seed, that which comes out of the field year by year.
- Num 18:12“I have given to you all the best of the oil, and all the best of the vintage, and of the grain, the first fruits of them which they give to Yahweh.
- 1 Cor 15:20But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.
- Rom 11:16If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches.
- Rev 14:4These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, the first fruits to God and to the Lamb.
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Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 15:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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