Numbers 15:1–16, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Numbers 15:1–16
Future Land Offerings Include One Law for the Resident
After refusal of the land, the LORD speaks as if they will still offer there
The LORD tells Moses to speak to Israel: When you be come into the land of your habitations, which I give you, and will make an offering by fire, burnt or vow or freewill or in appointed feasts, there shall be a meat offering of flour and oil, and wine for a drink offering, scaled to the animal. A lamb has one tenth of flour and a quarter hin of oil and wine; a ram, two tenths and a third hin; a bullock, three tenths and half a hin.
The future is spoken while carcasses have just been sentenced to the wilderness. Grain and wine beside meat are how land worship will look when eating and offering are no longer manna and emergency. The quantities are liturgy, not a prosperity recipe.
One statute for the native and the stranger who sojourns
All that are born of the country shall do these things, and a stranger sojourning or in your generations who offers an offering by fire shall do as you do. One ordinance, one law, one manner for you and for the stranger. The ritual door is the same.
One offering law does not erase every other inequality, force outsiders to stop being themselves, or turn the stranger into a prop. It does say that when a resident comes to this altar with a gift, the scale is not a two-tier price.
How this should shape us
Keep a future open for people who have just failed, and when they worship, do not run a separate price list for the outsider. Equal ritual law is not the whole of justice, but it is a real refusal of a two-class altar.
Teach it back
Explain Numbers 15:1–16 in your own words. Include its place in Numbers' movement from Sinai to Moab, both movements within this thought unit, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one use the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters debate ritual function, chronology, source layers, historical performance, symbolic systems, and the relationship among Torah calendars. The recorded sequence is firm; reconstructed origins and universal symbolism are not. For “Future Land Offerings Include One Law for the Resident,” confidence is strongest in the received unit's stated sequence and literary function; source, date, demography, geography, mechanism, archaeology, and historical reconstruction remain probable, plausible, or uncertain as the evidence warrants.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Numbers 15:1–16, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 15:1–16
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 15:1–16
Supports: Final-form movement, wilderness setting, census and camp, complaint, leadership, composition, and ethical framing.
Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 1, complete study guide sections “Introduction,” “At Sinai (1:1–10:10),” “From Sinai to Moab (10:11–22:1),” and “Composition,” applied to Numbers 15:1–16
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Numbers 15:1–16, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Numbers
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project
Open Scriptures, release 2.2, 2021
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 15:1–16
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Numbers with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, source files dated 2026-08-08
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 15:1–16
Open source ↗modern critical open study guide
Numbers Part 1
Yale Bible Study
Yale Divinity School, 2023 course edition
Supports: Final-form movement, wilderness setting, census and camp, complaint, leadership, composition, and ethical framing.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 1, complete study guide sections “Introduction,” “At Sinai (1:1–10:10),” “From Sinai to Moab (10:11–22:1),” and “Composition,” applied to Numbers 15:1–16
Open source ↗