Numbers 15:31
Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.
Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment,.... That is, has broken it through contempt of it, despising it as a command of God, paying no regard to it as a law of his; otherwise such who sin ignorantly break the commandment of God:
that soul shall be utterly cut off; or "in cutting off shall be cut off" {u}; most certainly cut off and entirely ruined and destroyed in this world and in that to come, as the Targum of Jonathan; and Maimonides {w} understands it of such a cutting off, that the soul itself perishes and is no more; but such annihilation the Scripture nowhere gives us any reason to believe:
his iniquity shall be upon him; the punishment of it, no atonement being made for it by sacrifice; it shall be upon him and him only, or be "in him" {x}, not repented of and not forgiven.
{u} trkt trkh "excidendo excidetur", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius.
{w} In Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 1.
{x} hb "in ea", Montanus, Junins & Tremellius, Drusius; "in ipso", Piscator.