Numbers 15:32

32. While… in the wilderness This is one of Colenso’s texts for disproving the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. But his argument is not conclusive, since Moses was with Israel several months after leaving the wilderness in Edom and on the plains of Moab. Deuteronomy 32:48. See map.

A man that gathered sticks It is evident from the mention of this violation of the sabbath in immediate connexion with the foregoing high-handed sin that it is intended as an instance of this kind of offence. It was a man and not a child. In the sabbatic stillness of the camp he could not have been ignorant of the sacredness of the day. The act was not one of mercy or of necessity, such as the case of hunger, (Luke 6:1-4,) but of gross impiety against the supreme moral Governor and of rebellion against the theocratic King. The sabbath being a positive as well as a moral institution is well adapted to call out that opposition to God’s authority which regards his commands as unreasonable, and hostile to human happiness. No other one of the precepts or prohibitions of the decalogue affords so high a test of obedience to Jehovah’s authority, from the fact that the moral element in it which finds a response in the conscience and reason of men is not observable, being overshadowed by the positive element the divine authority.