Nasso - The Prophetic Gifts of Nahshon

Moshe set up the Tabernacle and consecrated it on the first day of Nisan. On this same day, the leaders over the twelve tribes offered gifts for the dedication of the altar. The word “nasi” (נשיא), which is usually translated to "prince" or, in Modern Hebrew, "president", is the word that is used in the Torah to refer to the leaders of the tribes. It says in Numbers 7:2 that the princes "were the leaders of the tribes; they were the ones who were over the numbered men."

Nahshon was one of the princes who offered gifts for the dedication of the altar. Nahshon was the prince of the tribe of Yehudah. His name appears in the genealogies of Yeshua in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 as one of the ancestors of David and the messianic line. According to Exodus 6:23, he was Aaron's brother-in-law:

Nahshon was the first prince to offer sacrifices, on the first day of the first month. In the following 11 days, a different prince brought the same gifts in the same amounts that Nahshon had brought them. The Torah repeats the exact same information twelve times, following a strict verbatim formula. Here’s an example taken from Numbers 7:18-30:

Nahshon’s introduction is different though. Every single leader was introduced as a “prince” except Nahshon. As it says in Numbers 7:12:

This seems all the more unusual since later on in Numbers 2:3 the Torah calls him the "prince of Yehudah." Why did the Torah leave out “prince” when it was introducing Nahshon when he brought the gifts? Perhaps it is because the Torah used this omission to hint that Nahshon is not the ultimate prince of Yehudah. Maybe it’s because the Torah was hinting towards the Messiah, who is called the Prince in the book of Ezekiel. It says in Ezekiel 34:24:

The fact that Nahshon offered gifts on the first day of the first month hints towards the inauguration of the Temple in the Messianic Era which, according to Ezekiel, will also happen on the first day of the first month. As it says in Ezekiel 45:18-19:

Nahshon was the one who offered the gifts on the first day of the first month. This points towards what Ezekiel says, in that the Prince will provide all of the required offerings and sacrifices for the festivals. As it says in Ezekiel 45:17:

It says in Colossians 2:16-17 that Messiah will supply the sacrifices "in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—things which are a shadow of what is to come.”

The Messiah's provision of sacrifices on behalf of all Israel symbolizes the greater, eternal responsibility stated in Revelations 13:8, where it says that the Prince is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," in Hebrews 2:17 where it says that he has made atonement "for the sins of the people," And in 1 John 2:2 where it says that Yeshua atoned "for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."

The gifts offered by every single prince of the twelve tribes is exactly the same. How is this so? One opinion says that the twelve tribal leaders agreed before how many gifts and what kinds of gifts to bring. Another opinion says that each tribal leader decided on an appropriate set of gifts on their own, but miraculously they all gave the same kind and same amount. Here is the gifts that were given:

1 silver dish weighing 130 shekels filled with flour mixed with oil.

1 silver bowl of 70 shekels filled with flour mixed with oil

1 gold pan weighing 10 shekels filled with incense

1 bull for a burnt offering

1 ram for a burnt offering

1 lamb for a burnt offering

1 goat for a sin offering

2 oxen for peace offerings

5 rams for peace offerings

5 goats for peace offerings

5 Iambs for peace offerings

One final opinion is that the other tribal princes decided to follow whatever Nahshon did and to give whatever he gave. The Midrash Rabbah offers a less than realistic explanation for why Nahshon gave what he gave. It explains that Nahshon chose each item to symbolize the destiny of his tribe and how the royal line of Israel was going to come from Yehudah. He offered the silver dish and bowl to symbolize how the line of David which was going to rule over both sea (the dish) and land (the bowl). The dish weighed 130 shekels because the Hebrew word for "seas" has a numerical value of 100 and because Solomon's bronze laver (sea) had a circumference of 30 cubits, and when the two were added together, the result was 130. The silver bowl symbolized land because the earth is round like a bowl. The bowl weighed 70 shekels to point towards the seventy nations of the world that King Messiah is destined to rule over. The flour filling the dish and bowl symbolized the gifts that the nations were destined to bring to King Solomon and to King Messiah in the future. Nahshon mixed the flour with oil to symbolize the anointing of the kings, as it says in Song of Solomon 1:3, "Your name is like oil poured out." The golden pan weighing 10 shekels symbolized the 10 generations from Perez to David. The incense symbolized the fragrance of the righteous deeds of those ten generations of David's ancestors. The bull symbolized Avraham who ran to the herd to prepare a young bull for the three strangers. The ram symbolized Yitzhak whose life was spared when Avraham offered a ram on the altar in his place. The lamb symbolized Jacob who separated the lambs when he cared for Laban's flocks. The goat for the sin offering symbolized Yehudah, who dipped his brother's coat in the blood of a goat. The two oxen for peace offerings symbolized David and Solomon, while the five rams, five goats, and five lambs corresponded to the succession of fifteen kings from Rehoboam to Zedekiah. The sheep, goats, and rams symbolize the three character-types of those kings: some were righteous, some were wicked, and some were intermediate. Now, Nahshon probably didn’t prophesy about the future with the symbolism in his gifts, but it’s still a pretty interesting explanation.

In the Torah portion of Nasso we come across the inauguration of the Tabernacle, and how Nahshon was the first of the twelve tribes to offer gifts in regards to the dedication of the Altar. All this points towards a future time, where the Messiah will be the first person in Israel to offer gifts in regards to the dedication of the 3rd Temple in the Messianic Era.