Numbers 28

2.2 liters.

Israelites followed a lunar calendar, with every month starting at the first tiny crescent after the new moon. A new moon is when the moon is hidden behind earth’s shadow for one day. The sun, moon, and earth are aligned, with earth in the middle.

A “burnt offering” is the most common of the sacrifices. It’s one that consumes the entire animal and pays the price for sin, atoning for sin, and getting people back on good terms with God. Laws related to the burnt offering are in Leviticus 1.

Six dry quarts of flour is about 6.6 dry liters, which would be about an eight-pound bag of flour (3.6 kg).

4.4 dry liters.

A sin offering refers to something the people of Israel brought to God after they realized they had accidentally broken one of God’s laws earlier. Some scholars say a better translation is the opposite of “sin” because the sacrifice is intended to “un-sin” people, to purify them. So those scholars call it a “purification offering.”

The Hebrew word is pesach (PAY sock). It refers to the annual Passover meal today called a seder (SAY dur), which means “order.” That’s a reference to the fact that the Passover meal is eaten as a meticulously detailed ritual of reading, remembering, and prayer. The word “Passover” comes from the story of God or one of his angels killing the Egyptian firstborn, but “passing over” Hebrew homes with animal blood on the doorframes. See Exodus 12.

The month is Nisan. The Israelite calendar was based on the cycles of the moon. Passover falls on March-April. Jewish holidays begin at sundown. So, the week-long Passover celebrations begin at sundown on day 14 and ends at sundown on day 21.

This was to help the Israelites remember the rushed way their ancestors left Egypt and slavery. There was no time for yeast to raise the bread dough. They ate flat bread in their last meal as slaves. Then on the rush out of the country, “the Israelites scooped up their bread dough without yeast. They stashed it in their kneading bowls, which they wrapped in cloaks they carried on their shoulders….For food, they stopped and baked the yeast-free bread dough they carried with them. They made flat cakes of yeast-free bread because they didn’t have yeast. When Pharaoh ordered them to leave, they didn’t have time to do much of anything but close the door on their way out” (Exodus 12:34, 39).

The Festival of the Yeast-free Bread is more widely known as the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For a week, the Israelites didn’t eat bread made with yeast. Observant Jews today don’t eat anything made with yeast. Some also remove from their houses any trace of yeast or of food made with yeast.