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Numbers 28

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1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,

2 Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, my bread for my offerings by fire of sweet odour to me, shall ye take heed to present to me at their set time.

3 And say unto them, This is the offering by fire which ye shall present to Jehovah: two yearling lambs without blemish, day by day, as a continual burnt-offering.

4 The one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb thou shalt offer between the two evenings;

5 and a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for an oblation, mingled with beaten oil, a fourth part of a hin:

6 [it is] the continual burnt-offering which was ordained on mount Sinai for a sweet odour, an offering by fire to Jehovah.

7 And the drink-offering thereof shall be a fourth part of a hin for one lamb; in the sanctuary shall the drink-offering of strong drink be poured out to Jehovah.

8 And the second lamb thou shalt offer between the two evenings; [with the] like oblation as that of the morning, and the like drink-offering, shalt thou offer it as an offering by fire of a sweet odour to Jehovah.

9 And on the sabbath day two yearling lambs without blemish, and two tenth parts of fine flour as an oblation, mingled with oil, and the drink-offering thereof:

10 it is the burnt-offering of the sabbath, for each sabbath besides the continual burnt-offering, and its drink-offering.

11 And in the beginnings of your months ye shall present a burnt-offering to Jehovah: two young bullocks, and one ram, seven yearling lambs without blemish.

12 And three tenth parts of fine flour as an oblation, mingled with oil, for one bullock; and two tenth parts of fine flour as an oblation, mingled with oil, for the ram;

13 and a tenth part of fine flour mingled with oil as an oblation for each lamb: [it is] a burnt-offering of a sweet odour, an offering by fire to Jehovah.

14 And their drink-offerings: half a hin of wine for a bullock, and the third part of a hin for the ram, and the fourth part of a hin for a lamb. This is the monthly burnt-offering for each month throughout the months of the year.

15 And a buck of the goats shall be offered, for a sin-offering to Jehovah, besides the continual burnt-offering, and its drink-offering.

16 And in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, is the passover to Jehovah.

17 And on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast; seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.

18 On the first day shall be a holy convocation: no manner of servile work shall ye do;

19 and ye shall present an offering by fire, a burnt-offering to Jehovah: two young bullocks, and one ram, and seven yearling lambs; they shall be unto you without blemish;

20 and their oblation shall be of fine flour mingled with oil: three tenth parts shall ye offer for a bullock, and two tenth parts for the ram;

21 one tenth part shalt thou offer for each lamb, of the seven lambs;

22 and a he-goat as a sin-offering, to make atonement for you.

23 Besides the burnt-offering of the morning, which is for a continual burnt-offering, shall ye offer this.

24 After this manner ye shall offer daily, seven days, the bread of the offering by fire of a sweet odour to Jehovah; it shall be offered besides the continual burnt-offering, and its drink-offering.

25 And on the seventh day ye shall have a holy convocation; no manner of servile work shall ye do.

26 And on the day of the first-fruits, when ye present a new oblation to Jehovah, after your weeks, ye shall have a holy convocation: no manner of servile work shall ye do.

27 And ye shall present a burnt-offering for a sweet odour to Jehovah: two young bullocks, one ram, seven yearling lambs;

28 and their oblation of fine flour mingled with oil, three tenth parts for one bullock, two tenth parts for the ram,

29 one tenth part for each lamb of the seven lambs;

30 [and] one buck of the goats, to make atonement for you.

31 Ye shall offer them besides the continual burnt-offering, and its oblation (without blemish shall they be unto you), and their drink-offerings.

   

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Wine

  

Wine played a key role in the ancient world, where safe, reliable water sources were scarce. It could be stored for long periods of time; if lightly fermented it was rich in sugar content; it was high in mineral content; it tasted good and generally had intoxicating qualities. Thus it was a valuable commodity and treated with reverence.

Wine is, of course, made from grapes. Grapes – sweet, juicy, nutritious and full of energy-rich fructose – represent the Lord's own exquisite desire to be good to us. That's powerful stuff! But grapes have a short shelf life; you might eat a bunch for a burst of energy, but you can't exactly carry them around with you for long-term sustenance. And so it is with desires for good: They tend to come to us in energizing bursts, but fade away fairly quickly. We need something more stable and lasting.

At some point in the distant past people figured out that if you squeeze the juice from the grapes and let it ferment, the result is a liquid that offers that stability: wine. The spiritual meaning works the same way; if we examine our desires for good, try to understand and think about how to apply them, what we will get are concepts about what good really is, how to recognize it and how to make it happen. And just like the wine, these ideas offer stability and portability. For instance, finding a wallet full of cash on the sidewalk might severely test our desire to be honest, but the idea that "you shall not steal" is pretty hard to shake.

Wine, then, on the deepest level represents divine truth flowing from divine goodness – the true principles that arise from the fact that the Lord loves us and desires everything good for us.

Wine comes in many varieties, though, and is used in many ways. Depending on context it can represent truth that arises from a desire for good on much more mundane levels. You want your children to be healthy so you make them brush their teeth even though they complain and it's a pain in the neck; the truth that brushing their teeth is good for them is wine on a very day-to-day level.

In some cases wine can also actually represent good things that arise from true ideas, something of a reverse from its inmost meaning. This happens when we are in transitional stages, setting higher ideas and principles above our less-worthy desires in an effort to reshape our actions. In that case our principles are the things being squeezed, with good habits the result.

There is also, of course, a darker side to wine. There is a good deal of debate about just how much alcohol wine had in Biblical times, and some of it may indeed have been more like concentrated grape juice. But there are also many references to wine and drunkeness, so some of it, at least, was fairly potent.

On a spiritual level, getting drunk on wine represents relying too much on our ideas, taking logic to such an extreme that we forget the good things we were trying to achieve in the first place.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Explained 376 [1-40], 1152; Apocalypse Revealed 316, 635; Arcana Coelestia 1071 [1-5], 1727, 3580 [1-4], 5117 [7], 6377, 10137 [1-10]; The Apocalypse Explained 329 [2-4]; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 219)