Numbers 16:38
In the deaths of the sinners: and let him beat them into plates, and fasten them to the altar, because incense hath been offered in them to the Lord, and they are sanctified, that the children of Israel may see them for a sign and a memorial.
Open Numbers 16:38 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- in mortibus peccatorum : producatque ea in laminas, et affigat altari, eo quod oblatum sit in eis incensum Domino, et sanctificata sint, ut cernant ea pro signo et monimento filii Israël.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ποίησον αὐτὰ λεπίδας ἐλατάς, περίθεμα τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ, ὅτι προσηνέχθησαν ἔναντι Κυρίου καὶ ἡγιάσθησαν, καὶ ἐγένοντο εἰς σημεῖον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Numbers 17:3
- אֵ֡ת מַחְתּוֹת֩ הַֽחַטָּאִ֨ים הָאֵ֜לֶּה בְּנַפְשֹׁתָ֗ם וְעָשׂ֨וּ אֹתָ֜ם רִקֻּעֵ֤י פַחִים֙ צִפּ֣וּי לַמִּזְבֵּ֔חַ כִּֽי הִקְרִיבֻ֥ם לִפְנֵֽי יְהוָ֖ה וַיִּקְדָּ֑שׁוּ וְיִֽהְי֥וּ לְא֖וֹת לִבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
Haydock's commentary
Sinners. These censers were sanctified or set apart for God's altar: 1. By the intention of those who used them, though contrary to his will; 2. by the exemplary vengeance which he exercised upon the rash pretenders to the priesthood; 3. by being a monument of their folly, and therefore placed, by God's order, upon the altar, to deter all others from imitating their conduct. Eleazar was commanded to take them up, and scatter the strange fire; that Aaron might not be defiled with touching the carcasses or ashes of the deceased, nor seem to exult in their death. (Calmet)
God was thus also pleased to manifest, that the children of Aaron, and not of the other Levites, should succeed him. (St. Augustine, q. 30.) (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.