Chapter 24 now switches from instruction to a narrative describing an incident that leads to legislation on blasphemy. The text begins with the story of a man who commits blasphemy and continues with a series of related penalties.

This story corresponds to several others in the book of Numbers, stories that raise a legal question and move toward resolution. They have a midrashic quality about them, as they illustrate a principle and its operation. The issue raised here is blasphemy, probably in the tradition of the Decalogue prohibition against the intentional use of the divine name for evil purposes. That seems to be the issue here rather than failure to keep one’s word or deception (see 19:12). The penalties described are part of Israelite tradition and are common to the Holiness Code a…