and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the LORD, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD.
The exiles are home in a ruined Jerusalem, and their first move is not to build but to restore the altar and its sacrifices. So why did worship come first, and what does an uncommanded gift add to a schedule God Himself fixed?
The continual burnt offering
The daily sacrifice here was never meant to stop. Its subject is one thing: a life given up to God in death. One writer explains what it meant, and what it secured:
Edward DennettIts meaning is His devotedness to death. In the place of sin and for God's glory, He proved His obedience to the very end, even to being made sin for His people. So the altar consumed it all, and it went up as a sweet aroma to the Lord. This offering never stopped. By it God laid a foundation on which Israel could stand, accepted in all its fragrance. It becomes a clear picture of the believer's position, and shows the ground of his acceptance in the Beloved.
The word "continual" carries weight here. What the returned people started, they kept up:
William KellyThere was no weariness of it: it was no passing act. There was the daily offering. This is a very important thing.
Why the new moon matters here
The month they started in carried its own message. The moon has no light of its own, and it pictures Israel here:
H. L. RossierIsrael had lost divine blessing through their own fault. The people ought to have reflected the light of the glory of the Lord, just as the moon reflects the sun. That light had gone out. But now the new moon, an image of the restored people, had begun to reappear. Its full splendour was not yet visible. Yet this first quarter moon pointed ahead to the coming display of the glory of the people of God.
Nothing invented, everything written
Every item in this verse was already written down. What the exiles had practised in Babylon did not come home with them:
Edward DennettThe striking feature of all their proceedings was that they now ordered everything according to the word of God. Whatever they had practised in Babylon, whatever their old rites and customs had been, they left it all behind in the land of their captivity. Now, delivered and brought back, nothing could satisfy them short of the authority of the written Word.
The freewill offering
The verse does not end with the calendar. It ends with people who simply wanted to give:
The Christian's FriendThe record does not note only the new moons and the set feasts. It adds, "and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD." When God's Spirit is acting in power, He fills the hearts of many of His people to overflowing. The vessel cannot hold the blessing, and it runs over in thanksgiving and praise to God. This is the secret both of devotedness and worship.
Worship prompted by a recent kindness fades with the memory of it. A voluntary gift is different:
C. H. MackintoshWhen the soul goes out to God in a voluntary act of worship, that worship comes from a larger measure of spiritual energy. It is more than worship that only springs from some special mercy felt at the time. But where the Holy Spirit leads the heart out in some voluntary or deliberate expression of praise, it will be of a more lasting character.
God's response, and the warning
God watched all of it, and He credits what His own grace produced:
The Christian's FriendIt was welcome to the heart of God to see His people return to Himself. They owned His claims and the only ground of their acceptance. It shows us how much notice He takes of what His own people do, and that He takes pleasure in their approach and worship. Producing these fruits by His grace in their hearts, with the same grace He puts them to their account.
Yet the altar was only a start. A right beginning can become a resting place:
The Bible TreasuryIn faith they built and used the altar without delay, and that was good. It was better still to lay the foundation, and not to settle for that beginning — informal, yet acceptable and right.
Summary
- Continual — the daily burnt offering pictures Christ's devotedness to death. It never stopped, so the ground of the believer's acceptance never shifted.
- Written — the exiles brought no Babylonian habits home. Every offering named here was already commanded in Scripture.
- New moon — the seventh month opened with the new moon. Israel's light, long dark, had begun to reappear, with fuller glory still ahead.
- Willing — the closing clause is the overflow. When the Spirit fills a heart, the vessel cannot hold the blessing, and praise runs over.
- Onward — God credits such worship to His people. But a right beginning is not a place to stop; the foundation still had to be laid.