Chapter 28 is the daily, weekly, and monthly food offerings for the Lord (which, if you recall, are eaten by the priests). Each day, the priests the Lord gets a pair of lambs, focaccia, and wine. On Saturday, it’s four lamb with extra flour and wine. On top of at, there’s a monthly pair of bulls, a goat, and seven lambs. Plus bread and wine.

The rest of the chapter and the next He describes twenty-two days of festivals, on which even more food is offered. Now we know why there are so many Jewish holidays: more food for the priests. It reminds me of an old Woody Allen joke:

I once got a job on Madison Avenue to sit at a desk and look Jewish. They had to let me go because of all the holidays I took.

In Numbers 27, we saw a dim glimmer of feminism. Numbers 30 shut that down quick. It has one verse that says a man’s word must be his bond. The other fourteen verses describe in detail exactly which man can break a woman’s vow at what time. “And I believe you should put a woman on a pedestal… high enough so you can look up her dress.” (Old Steve Martin monologue)

Next: Numbers 31-32