Numbers Chapter 15 verse 32 Holy Bible

ASV Numbers 15:32

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks upon the sabbath day.
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BBE Numbers 15:32

Now while the children of Israel were in the waste land, they saw a man who was getting sticks on the Sabbath day.
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DARBY Numbers 15:32

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.
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KJV Numbers 15:32

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
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WBT Numbers 15:32

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath-day.
read chapter 15 in WBT

WEB Numbers 15:32

While the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.
read chapter 15 in WEB

YLT Numbers 15:32

And the sons of Israel are in the wilderness, and they find a man gathering wood on the sabbath-day,
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 32. - And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness. It is maintained by some that these words were intended to mark the contrast between the previous laws, which were only to be observed when the people came into their own land, and the law of the sabbath, which was strictly enforced during the period of wandering. There is no doubt that such a distinction existed in fact, but there is no reason to find the intentional assertion of it in this expression. The simpler and more natural, and therefore more probable, explanation is, that the incident was recorded after the people had left the wilderness. At the same time, there is nothing unreasonable in ascribing the narrative to Moses himself if we suppose him to have written it at the end of his life, when the people were encamped in the steppes of Moab. It seems probable that the record of the incident was inserted here as an example of a "presumptuous" sin, and of its punishment. A man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. This was clearly presumptuous, because the prohibition to do any work for oneself on the sabbath had been made so clear, and was so constantly forced upon their attention by the failure of the manna on that day, that ignorance could not possibly be pleaded here.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(32) And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness . . . --Better, Now the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and they found, &c. It is probable that the incident which is here recorded is designed to illustrate the presumptuous sins which were to be punished by death. The offence may have been committed shortly after the promulgation of the commandments contained in this chapter, but all that is certain is that it was committed "in the wilderness," i.e., according to Ibn Ezra, in the wilderness of Sinai, but more probably during the period of the wanderings in the wilderness after the arrival at Kadesh. No inference can be drawn from this verse as to the time at which the account was committed to writing. The observance of the Sabbath was obligatory in the wilderness as well as in the land of Canaan (comp. Exodus 16:27-30), and the punishment of death had already been denounced against those who profaned it by doing any work thereon (see Exodus 31:15; Exodus 35:2), but the manner in which death was to be inflicted does not appear to have been hitherto declared. The same verb which is here rendered "declared" occurs in the parallel case of the blasphemer in Leviticus 24:12, where it is rendered "shewed":--"And they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them." The punishment of death had already been denounced against those who cursed father or mother (Leviticus 20:9). It could hardly be thought that a lighter punishment was to be inflicted on one who blasphemed the name of Jehovah, but in that case, as in this, the mode of death does not appear to have been previously enjoined.