'צו את בני ישראל ויקחו אליך שמן וגו, after the oil which had been donated before the Tabernacle had been built and erected, G’d commanded that the Israelites for all future generations should provide this oil as their contribution.

יערוך אותו אהרן, even though the procedure of lighting the Menorah, as well as the presentation of the daily incense offering was permitted to be carried out by any priest of the roster during future generations as per the sages’ tradition (Sifrey Behaalotcha 60), this procedure is linked to Aaron, seeing that all the time the Jews were in the desert the procedures involving the Temple service were on a “Day of Atonement” footing because the Torah linked the procedure to the line (17,2) “for I will manifest Myself above the kapporet by day and the column of fire will be visible at night,” a condition which ceased when the Jewish people settled in the land of Israel. It followed that procedures which took place inside the sanctuary would be the exclusive prerogative of the High Priest during those years. These procedures would be performed in the future by the High Priest on the day of Atonement.

ולקחת סולת, this commandment presumably also applied only after the initial donation of such flour which had been contributed when the Tabernacle was being built had been exhausted. That original amount had been included in what was mentioned in Exodus 39.33. [one wonders where all the flour came from during those years when the Jews, in the desert were cut off from contact with the surrounding nations so that even their exact location was unknown. Ed.]

והוא בן איש מצרי, this is why he had the effrontery to curse the tetragram; none of the Israelites would have been so deficient in reverence.

כי יקלל אלוקיו, and thereby transgresses the negative commandment אלוקים לא תקלל, (Exodus 22,27)

ונשא עונו, he will have to carry the burden of his punishment. In other words, this is a problem between him and his Maker, no human court being involved, seeing the sin was committed in private and he had not cursed G’d’s essence but one or more of His attributes. This “leaving him to G’d,” is also applicable when the blasphemer “only” cursed one of the attributes G’d is known by.

ונוקב שם ה' מות יומת, the penalty of someone cursing the tetragram is not comparable to the punishment for someone who “merely” cursed one of G’d’s attributes. The individual described in our verse will be executed publicly by stoning, and all who heard him commit this crime must participate actively in the execution.

כגר כאזרח, and the type of the penalty applied to the blasphemer in our paragraph was not especially harsh seeing the guilty person had been a convert. Natural born Jew and converts are treated exactly alike in the legislation concerning blasphemy.

ואיש כי יכה כל נפש אדם, seeing that among some nations cursing the deity is considered a very minor sin as we know from Isaiah 8,21 והתקצף וקלל במלכו ובאלוהיו, “and he shall rage against his king and his divinity, etc.;” we know from our sages in Sanhedrin 60 that when one hears a gentile blaspheme (even against our G’d) one need not rend one’s garment in mourning over having been a witness to such blasphemy, for if that were not the halachah our garments would consist of innumerable shreds. Keeping this in mind, we might have assumed that the curse uttered by the blasphemer in our paragraph should have been treated as irrelevant. This is especially so since we are all aware that blaspheming against G’d does not harm Him in any way, is an exercise of man’s frustration, not something harmful to the object of his blasphemy. The Torah explains that the reason why this blasphemy is treated as if something of substance, G’d forbid, must be seen in a different context. We know from Torah legislation that each deliberate act of disobedience against G’d is basically an act of insurrection, mutiny, and we could expect it to be treated as such, i.e. as equivalent to forfeiting one’s life. Nonetheless, the Torah has demonstrated that some deliberate sins rate quite different punishments than others. Basically, the Torah provides for financial penalties, physical punishment, and the death penalty. Clearly, this proves that G’d views different sins as differing in degree of insurrection, or due to different degrees of provocation experienced by the sinner. Killing a human being, basically deserves the death penalty, i.e. anything less would mean that the killer’s life is worth more than that of his victim. When someone kills an animal, this is not comparable, so that the penalty is financial, restitution to the owner for what he lost. When someone causes injury (deliberately), if the injury was caused to a fellow human being, by rights, the offender should be punished by bodily punishment, unless he were physically too weak to endure such punishment. Seeing that it is impossible to impose an exact equivalent for the injury caused, the sages decided to substitute a financial penalty instead. We must not think that the offender thereby gets off lightly, as the financial compensation comprises five different categories of harm suffered by the injured party, including even his injured pride. (compare Baba Kamma 83) When someone injures an animal the financial penalty is considerably milder. When someone causes injury to a human being we also distinguish between one human being and another. If he injured his father or mother, he is guilty of the death penalty, whereas an injury of similar severity to someone else draws only a financial penalty; when he injures an animal it is obvious that the penalty would only be financial. Cursing father or mother is not mentioned in the Torah here as it is in a different category altogether, seeing that this cannot be compared to blaspheming, words which by themselves have no effect, since what can man possibly do to harm G’d?. Parents may be harmed by their children’s curses though not necessarily visibly. [some of the wording is my own. Ed.]

כגר כאזרח יהיה, for I the Lord your G’d am just as much the G’d of the convert (compare Job 34,19).

ובני ישראל עשו כאשר צוה ה' את משה, they did not stone him as an act of revenge, or because they hated the individual being stoned; they did it merely in order to fulfill G’d’s commandment.