Catholic Commentary
Day 2: Offering of Nethanel of Issachar
18On the second day Nethanel the son of Zuar, prince of Issachar, gave his offering.19He offered for his offering: one silver platter, the weight of which was one hundred thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a meal offering;20one golden ladle of ten shekels, full of incense;21one young bull, one ram, one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;22one male goat for a sin offering;23and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two head of cattle, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs a year old. This was the offering of Nethanel the son of Zuar.
Numbers 7:18–23 records the offering presented by Nethanel, prince of Issachar, on the second day of the tribal dedication ceremonies, consisting of a golden ladle of incense, burnt and sin offerings, and peace offerings. The passage demonstrates the theological principle that all gifts ultimately originate from God and return to God in worship, with the peace offerings signifying restored fellowship and covenant relationship.
The second day's offering is recorded with the same precision as the first because repetition in worship isn't monotony—it's fidelity, where each act of giving is both universal and irreplaceably personal.
Commentary
Numbers 7:18 — "On the second day Nethanel the son of Zuar, prince of Issachar, gave his offering." The repetition of the formula "on the second day" is not merely administrative record-keeping; it signals a liturgical sequence deliberate in its structure. The twelve days of offerings (Num 7:10–83) correspond to the twelve tribes, with each tribal prince presenting an identical set of gifts on successive days. Nethanel ("God has given") son of Zuar ("smallness") heads Issachar, the tribe associated in Genesis with the reward of labor (Gen 49:14–15). His name — a theophoric declaration that the gift ultimately comes from God — sets the theological key for interpreting what follows: the offering is his, but its substance is divine gift returning to God.
Verses 19–20 — "one golden ladle of ten shekels, full of incense" The golden ladle (kaph, literally "palm" or "hand") weighing ten shekels is the first and most distinctive element. Gold speaks to the preciousness and permanence of what is offered; the kaph evokes the human hand extended in reverent gift. The ten shekels may carry the resonance of the Decalogue — the fullness of the Law given and now returned in worship. The incense itself, specified as filling the ladle to the brim, is consistently associated throughout the Old Testament with prayer rising before God (cf. Ps 141:2; Rev 8:3–4). The Fathers read incense typologically as the sweet fragrance of prayer and, ultimately, of the sacrifice of Christ whose oblation is a "fragrant offering" (Eph 5:2).
Numbers 7:21 — "one young bull, one ram, one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering" The burnt offering ('olah), wholly consumed on the altar, signifies total self-donation to God — nothing is retained for the offerer. The ascending sequence of animals (bull, ram, lamb) spans the range of sacrificial livestock, suggesting the comprehensiveness of the gift: great and small, powerful and meek, all surrendered. Catholic tradition reads the totality of the burnt offering as a figure of Christ's complete self-oblation on the Cross, wherein he holds nothing back.
Numbers 7:22 — "one male goat for a sin offering" The ḥaṭṭā't (sin offering) is the only element of the cluster that acknowledges human failure. Even the prince of Issachar, approaching the altar at the height of Israel's consecration, comes as a sinner in need of atonement. This is theologically significant: no amount of civic honor or religious rank exempts a person from the need for expiation. The Catechism teaches that the sacrifice of Christ is the one, definitive sin offering that fulfills and surpasses all these animal rites (CCC 614, 1366).
Numbers 7:23 — "two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs a year old, for peace offerings" The šělāmîm (peace offerings or "well-being offerings") are notably the most abundant element of the presentation, and uniquely, they were shared: portions went to God, to the priests, and to the offerer in a communal sacred meal. This communion dimension is crucial. Where the burnt offering signifies gift, and the sin offering signifies atonement, the peace offering signifies restored fellowship — the feast of reconciled relationship. The number five recurs three times (five rams, five goats, five lambs), possibly echoing the five books of Torah, the fullness of the covenant. The closing formula — "This was the offering of Nethanel the son of Zuar" — is both a legal seal and an act of memorial: this person, this tribe, this day, stands recorded before God.
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition illuminates this passage in at least three interlocking ways.
The Eucharistic Type. The threefold structure of Nethanel's offering — burnt offering (total oblation), sin offering (expiation), and peace offering (communion feast) — maps strikingly onto the threefold meaning of the Eucharist as taught by the Council of Trent and the Catechism: the Mass is sacrifice of praise, propitiatory sacrifice for sins, and the banquet of communion with God and one another (CCC 1366–1397; Trent, Session 22). St. Thomas Aquinas, synthesizing the Fathers, identified the Eucharist as the fulfillment of all Old Testament sacrifices precisely because it unites in one act what Israel's liturgy distributed across many rites (ST III, q. 73, a. 6).
Ordered Worship and the Church's Liturgy. The repetition of identical offerings across twelve days is not monotony but liturgical theology. Origen (Homilies on Numbers, Hom. 17) observed that the sameness of the offerings declares the equality of the tribes before God, while the succession of days declares that worship is not a single heroic act but a sustained, ordered, corporate life. The Second Vatican Council's Sacrosanctum Concilium (§10) teaches that the liturgy is "the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed" — an ordered, repeated, universal act in which each local church and each individual brings the same gifts yet participates personally and distinctly.
The Named Offerer and Personal Accountability. The closing formula — "This was the offering of Nethanel son of Zuar" — names the individual within the corporate act. The Catechism insists that worship, while communal, requires personal engagement: "Liturgy is also a participation in Christ's own prayer" (CCC 1073). No one's offering is absorbed into anonymity; each is received and remembered by God.
For Today
Contemporary Catholics can feel that liturgical repetition dulls meaning — the same Mass, the same prayers, week after week. Nethanel's offering challenges that assumption directly. Here is the second of twelve leaders performing the identical ritual. Scripture records it with the same care as the first, the same detail, the same closing seal of identity. The message is that repetition in sacred worship is not redundancy but fidelity — each Mass is simultaneously the same sacrifice of Christ and this community's, this day's, this person's participation in it.
Practically, this passage invites an examination of how personally we bring our offering to the Eucharist. Do we arrive as princes of our tribe — intentionally, with a prepared heart, consciously uniting our work, sufferings, and joys to the altar? The three-part structure of Nethanel's gift (oblation, atonement, communion) mirrors the invitation of every Mass: to offer ourselves wholly, to seek forgiveness, and to be restored to communion. The golden ladle "full of incense" is a useful image for personal prayer: not a half-hearted gesture but a hand extended to God, brimming over.
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