The book of Leviticus

Front matter

Book ^( x 4

GoipglitT^^-

CDFffilGHT DEPOSm

Chapter I

1 AND the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,

1 AND the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying.

victim necessary will find all their demands met in Christ — that for those who must think of God's salvation in terms of victims and bloodsprinklings and washings there is the most abundant correspondence in Christ's death to every essential feature of the ritual ? In other words, this author's explanation of Christ's atonement by the Levitical ritual means that for the believer who needs it Christ may coincide with and satisfy all these forms of expiation, but not necessarily that he must present himself in these Levitical forms to every type of mind in order that his work may have its saving effect. As a matter of fact many minds experience the spiritual effect of the Saviour's work, that is, are brought into loving and trustful and fruitful communion with the God of grace, to whom the thought of a God who cannot save without first being appeased with blood is an utterly repugnant one. No man fully understands the method of the Saviour's atonement, but if that ineffable life and character and death, however apprehended, produces in the believer a loving and aspiring walk with God, all that is essential to the type is fulfilled in the antitype ; the Levitical ceremonial as an expedient for access to the grace of God has found its fulfillment in the spiritual fellowship of the believer with God and with his Son Jesus Christ.

I. Law of the five peincipal types op SACEiFiCE, 1 : 1 to 6 : 7.

Chap. 1. 1. And the Lord called unto Moses. It is a part of the universal and eternal religious instinct to observe forms. The impulse to order and propriety is an essential element in religion. In this sense the eternal God speaks eternally through ceremonial. The particular form of ritual may change with the circumstances or needs or capabilities of the people. The whole system, as in this case, may pass out of use, but the spirit of ceremonial, as we may call it, is eternal and belongs to all religion. As a recent author has said (Prof. Ed- Avard Slosson, in the " Independent" for March 8, 1900) : " In reality the foundation of ritualism is not historical or theological but psychological. Any long-established religion develops unconsciously those particular rites that are best fitted for exciting religious emotion." The same writer goes on to remark: "One of the main objects of ecclesiastical forms is the development of a religious life by isolating it from common life. The set days and hours with which no other duty must interfere, the sanctified place or building where nothing profane is allowed to enter, the ecclesiastical architecture and furnishings, the archaic pronunciations and peculiar intonations, the vestments and music, the postures and movements, all these are associated with religious emotions and experiences and with nothing else, so that they have the power of reviving and instigating devotional feelings. If all one's religious training and experiences from childhood have been connected with certain sights and sounds these will have an influence over the emotional nature that is astonishing to one who has been otherwise trained. . .

Rites arbitrary in origin become the language of the soul, so that if the power of these is lost it sometimes happens that all faith is lost too." If the observance of ceremonial becomes inimical to spiritual religion it is because it is insincere or imitative or no longer expresses the feeling of the worshiper, not because it is a form. Some form even the most spiritual will inevitably observe in approaching God ; some feeling that the merely natural or free and easy is not seemly in the divine presence will pervade even the most fervent and quietistic. Though it be no more than the adoption of the solemn style of speech or the uncovering of the head there will be some minimum of form which the mind will never outgrow. And this form, whatever its historical origin, will have for the mind the force of prescription ; the habitual will become sacred, so that that which is incongruous will cause pain or laughter and innovation will produce a shock. In this sense, namely, as adapted to the permanent instincts of men, ceremonial religion is eternal. The Jehovah who spoke to Moses, bidding him make men's sacrifices orderly, speaks as the eternal God to the deepest instincts of mankind through form and the striving after a higher or exclusively religious order and propriety. As a generalized or eternal truth this assertion that God spake thus teaches that the ritual feeling is of divine origin. The tabernacle of the congregation. In the Revised version this phrase is uniformly rendered tent of meeting, meaning not the place of assembly for the congregation but the place where the Lord was to be met. The literal rendering of the phrase is, tent of appointment. It referred to the tabernacle as a whole, as God's

[Cii. I.

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them. When any man of you offereth an oblation unto the Lord, ye shall offer your oblation of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock.

appointed place for manifesting himself — Jehovah's headquarters, as it were. It was here that Jehovah promised to meet and commune with Moses (Exod. 25 : 22) J and this revelation to Moses in Leviticus appears to be the fulfillment of that promise. Over this tent the cloud rested (Exod. 40 : zi) ^ and within it was the mysterious glory which symbolized the presence of Jehovah (ibid., 35). As the law of the Ten Commandments was given from Mount Sinai (Exod. 19), so these priestly laws purport to have been given from the cloud after it had been transferred to its resting-place in the camp above the tent of meeting.

These laws are stated to have been given in Mount Sinai, i. c, perhaps the wilderness of given from the completed tabernacle it must have been some time between the first day of the first month (Exod. 40 : 2) of the second year of the exodus and the twentieth day of the second month (Num. 10 : 11) when the tabernacle and the congregation left the wilderness of Sinai for the desert of Paran.

3. If any man of you bring. It is to be noticed that the custom of sacrifice is treated as an old and familiar thing. The function of the laAvgiver is regulative rather than creative ; it is to prescribe an orderly method for what people are in the habit of doing instead of to command their practice de novo. Sacrifice had been common from the earliest times ; it was a spontaneous form of religious expression. The effect of the book of Leviticus was to curb its extravagances, to bring its rules into such shape as to give the least encouragement to idolatry; in short, to place it under regulation by means of a ritual. An offering. This word, in Hebrew, l^'^.P, Qdrbdn, is so characteristic of Leviticus and Numbers that it may be taken as a sort of note of the class of conceptions with which these books predominantly deal. The word, outside of these two books, occurs only twice in Ezekiel (20:28; 40 : 43), and twice in a little different form in Nehemiah (10 : 34; 13 : 31), in the latter book referring to the wood offering for the temple sacrifices. It means a gift and is so translated by the LXX, but it is a sacred gift, a gift that is brought near to God. The books of Leviticus and Numbers contain regulations for that department of human effort which seeks to give something directly to

God, to send some token of good-will visibly to heaven. Material things can only in a conventional or constructive way be sent to God, and the method hit upon from the earliest times was to send the smoke or odor of the sacred object into the air. If the whole object was not thus sent to God, the memorial, or representative portion, at least, was burnt, and the remainder was set apart for the use of the priest. Objects thus set apart as well as the acts connected with the offering came to possess in the minds of the people a peculiar quality, the quality of being sacred, or separated from, and elevated above, the ordinary things of life. Hence arose that rigid distinction between the sacred and the secular, or the holy and the common, a distinction which it was the cherished purpose of the priestly legislation to emphasize (see 10 : 10 ; Ezek. 22 : 26 ; 42 : 20 ; 44 : 23). The act of Sending things by their smoke or savor directly to God eventually became simply symbolical of the act of prayer, and as religion grew more spiritual the idea that the gift offering had any value in the sight of God ceased to commend itself to the

It was as a house of prayer that the temple was appraised by the prophets (isa. 56 : 7). But as prayer takes the place of its symbol in public worship, the idea of giving a pleasing gift for God's enjoyment passes away. It is the drawing near of the whole person, the linking of human helplessness to divine might, of human frailty to divine mercy, that takes the place of the smug satisfaction of contributing to God's enjoyment, and that externalizing of prayer which arose from the thought of the act as meritorious or pleasing in itself Avas stigmatized by our Lord as hypocritical (Matt. 6:5) and even heathenish (ibid., 7). On the same Pharisaic theory of the preeminent meritoriousness of public worship, the act of setting apart property for sacred uses, or making it Corban, came in process of time to be placed above plain moral duties, and was denounced by Christ (Mark 7 : u). The teachings of our Lord, indeed, and of the apostles, tended to replace the idea of giving directly to God by a better and more rational one (Matt. 25 : 4o), and to reveal to spiritual apprehension the principle that the distinction between the clean and the unclean, the holy and the common, is not a final or eternal truth

Ch. I.]

3 If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish : he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.

4 And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering ; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

5 And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord : and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

6 And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.

3 If his oblation be a burnt offering of the herd, he shall offer it a male without blemish • he shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, tha^

4 he may be accepted before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering ; and it shall be accepted for him to

5 make atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord : and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall present the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is at the

6 door of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into its pieces.

The peculiar form of the beginning of this clause in the Hebrew — "a man if," cf. "a soul if," 4 : 2, "a man or woman if," 13 : 29 — is pointed out by modern critics as one of the characteristic marks of style in the Priest- Code, or P., of which Leviticus largely consists, distinguishing it from the earlier document JE., which forms a considerable portion of Genesis and Exodus. This theory of the documentary character of the Pentateuch assumes the non- Mosaic authorship of the books in their present form. The only profession made in the book (for the title does not belong to the original book), is that it was revealed to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. It is possible for it to be substantially Mosaic, i. e., a following out of the spirit and intention of Moses, while still a collection and codification, made by later hands, of the great body of priestly teachings and working formulas which had grown up during Israel's national history.

The burnt offering. Three forms of burnt offering are specified: from the herd, i. e., of larger cattle (ver. 3-9) ^ from the flock, i. e., smaller cattle (ver. lo-is)^ and birds (ver. 14-17). The directions for these three kinds are presented with only such difference of detail as is made necessary by the different natures of the animals. 3. Any offering of larger or smaller cattle must be a male without blemish ; the person is to offer it for Ms acceptance, not of his own voluntary will, before Jehovah. Cf. R. V. He is to place his hand on the head of the victim that it may be accepted for him. This placing the hands on the head of the animal fostered and expressed the feeling that the offerer was thus identifying himself with his victim, and thus in reality offering himself to God, as is done in the consummate act of prayer which the rite symbolized. The offerer is next to kill the animal, i. e., perhaps, take some ostensible part in the killing that shall make it constructively his personal act, while no doubt leaving most of the work to the more practised Levites. The priests are to dash the blood on the altar round about. This dashing is a way of disposing of the blood in quantity, and differs from the sprinkling in 4 : 6, 17 ; 16 : 14, 15, etc., for which a different word is used, and which was done with the finger. The priests are then to flay the animal and divide it into pieces, to place the parts in an orderly manner on the altar, taking care to wash the inwards and legs, and then to burn the whole with fire. It is to be noted that in the case of sheep or goats the side of the altar on which they are to be killed is specified. This is the only passage that informs us where the offering was to be killed, though elsewhere it is specified that the sin and guilt offerings were to be slain in the same place (^ : •24:, 29, 33 ; 7 : 2). It is also to be notcd that in the case of birds the priest is to do the killing, and that the blood is apparently to be allowed to sprinkle itself as it is drained out at the side of the altar, and also that the crop with the feathers (not filth as in R. V., which is philologically inadmissible) is not to be burned but to be thrown out in the place of the ashes.

The peculiarity in the form of the burnt offering, distinguishing it from all other forms of sacrifice, is that it is wholly consumed on the altar, while in the case of the others only selected portions are burned. The main idea of the burnt offering, expressed by the offerer through the act of laying his hand on the victim's head, is the idea of self-dedication to Jehovah. The life of the victim was, as it were, presented to God. At the same time the thought of a propitiation, even in this form of sacrifice, is not wanting. 4. Note the expression. To make atonement for him. The theory of its acceptability, reiterated in every separate case, is that it is an "odor of satisfaction" unto Jehovah (comp. Gen. 8 : 21). The Hebrew word T'Dpn, Mqtlr, used for the act of burning, in connection with the sacrifices, does not emphasize the consuming of the thing burnt, as does the ordinary word, ^"l)^, sdr&ph (see e. g., * : 12), but rather means to cau^e to smoke or ascend, as if the primary aim was to furnish an agreeable odor for Jehovah's satisfaction.

The broad, simple feeling which was fostered

[Ch. II.

7 And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put lire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:

8 And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar :

9 But his inwards und his legs shall he wash in water : and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by tire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

10 And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice ; he shall bring it a male without blemish.

11 And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord : and the priests, Aaron's sous, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.

12 And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat : and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar :

13 But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring il all, and burn it upon the altar : it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

14 And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the Lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.

15 And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar ; and the blood thereof Shall be wrung out at the side of the altar :

16 And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes :

17 And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder : and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire : it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

7 And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay wood in order upon the

8 fire : and Aaron's sons, tlie priests, shall lay the pieces, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which' is upon the altar :

9 but its inwards and its legs shall he wash with water : and the ijriest shall burn the whole on the altar, for a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

10 And if his oblation be of the flock, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt ottering ; he

11 shall offer it a male without blemish. And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord : and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle its blood upon the altar round

12 about. And he shall cut it into its pieces, with its head and its fat : and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is

13 upon the altar : but the inwards and the legs shall he wash with water : and the priest shall offer the whole, and burn it upon the altar : it is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

14 And if his oblation to the Lord be a burnt offering of fowls, then he shall offer his oblation

15 of turtledoves, or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off its head, and burn it on the altar ; and the blood thereof shall be drained out on the side of the

16 altar : and he shall take away its crop with the filth thereof, and cast it beside the altar on the

17 east part, in the place of the ashes : and he shall rend it by the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder : and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire : it is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord,

CHAPTEK II.

1 AND when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour ; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:

1 AND when any one offereth an oblation of a meal offering unto the Lord, his oblation shall be of fine flour ; and he shall pour oil upon it, by this form of worship was the feeling that Jehovah was pleased with an offering of the self which was also a losing of the self in him. The whole victim was reduced to the volatile form of smoke or odor and ascended visibly to the skies. The immense effectiveness of this form of spectacular teaching was far more than an offset to any danger lurking in the notion that God derived an animal pleasure from the smell of smoke. That notion was sure to be felt to be only a fiction or emblem of a great spiritual truth, while on the other hand the feeling that God is pleased with the heartfelt ascent to him of all that is most spiritual and aspiring in humanity would grow as intimacy with his kindness increased, and would derive new strength and vividness from each new clothing of the truth in the visibility of material sacrifice.

Chap. 2. 1-10. The meal offering. The word which designated this offering is nnJ.D, mlnchdh, which means a gift, such, for instance, as Jacob brought to Esau to propitiate him (Gen. 32 : 13, 18), or the brethren of Joseph carried on their second visit to Egypt as a propitiatory gift to the governor (Gen. 43 : ii). In general the minchah was a gift from an inferior to a superior, a gift expressing homage. As a sacrifice the minchah is the antithesis of the n^T, zebhdch, or slain offering ; the minchahheing in general the bloodless or meal offering. The two terms, zebhach and minchah, taken together, designate the two inclusive kinds of sacrifice, the animal or slain, and the vegetable or bloodless offerings, as in Ps. 40 : 6, "zebhach and minchah thou hast no delight in" (see auo i sam. 3 : 14). In the Law the minchah is generally treated as an accompaniment of the burnt offering or peace offering, rather than as an independent sacrifice. It was an actual and useful present to the priests, only the memorial, or small part of it as representing the whole, being burned on the altar. Memorial, nn3TX, 'azkdrdh, is a technical term and describes the offered portion as that which, as ascending directly to heaven, brings the vrhole gift into remembrance before Jehovah. The rest of the offering was treated as most holy, i. e., most

Ch. II.]

2 And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests : and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof ; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord :

3 And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons' : it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.

4 And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.

5 And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.

6 Thou Shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon : it is a meat offering.

7 And if tliy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.

8 And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the Lord : and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.

9 And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by flre, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

10 And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons' : it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.

2 and put frankincense thereon: and he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests : and he shall take thereout his handful of the fine flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof ; and the priest shall burn it as the memorial thereof upon the altar, an offering made

3 by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord : and that which is left of the meal offering shall be Aaron's and his sons' : it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.

4 And when thou offerest an oblation of a meal offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or un-

5 leavened wafers anointed with oil. And if thy oblation be a meal offering of the baking pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with

6 oil. Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil

7 thereon : it is a meal offering. And if thy oblation be a meal offering of the frying pan, it shall

8 be made of fine flour with oil. And thou shalt bring the meal offering that is made of these things unto the Lord : and it shall be presented unto the priest, and he shall bring it unto the

9 altar. And the priest shall take up from the meal offering the memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar : an offering made by fire,

10 of a sweet savour unto the Lord. And that which is left of the meal offering shall be Aaron's and his sons' : it is a thing most holy of the exclusively set apart for the priests* use, or most sedulously protected from secular profanation. "Among the dues of the priests a distinction was made between the holy and the most holy offerings. The latter could be eaten only (1) by the priests, and (2) in a holy place, i. c, within the courts of the sanctuary. The former could be eaten by the priests and any members of their family or household, in any clean place. In both cases it was necessary for the person who partook of the gifts to be in a condition of ceremonial purity " (Driver). When the offering Avas of uncooked flour, or of parched grains of first-gathered corn, it was to be accompanied by a small quantity of frankincense, which as a sacred substance was all to be taken for fumigation.

The three forms of the winchah enumerated are : fine flour with frankincense (ver. i-s)^ cakes and wafers of fine flour (ver. 4-8), and parched grains of earliest harvested corn with frankincense (ver. 14-16). Of the cake offerings several varieties are mentioned, distinguished by the kind of utensil with which they are cooked, and designated as "minchah baked in the oven" (ver. 4)j " minchah on the pan" (ver. 5), and "minchah of the pot" (ver. i). The first kind of offering, that of uncooked fine flour, was the typical minchah, the other forms being perhaps the offering of the humbler class. It was this form of minchah with which the princes of the congregation accompanied their costly gifts at the dedication of the tabernacle (see Num. 7 : 13, ai. ) . This uiicooked minchah belonged to all the priests (7 = lo), who were, however, to bake it without leaven and to eat it in the court of the tabernacle (6 = i6, iv) ; the cakes and wafers which were offered went to the particular priest who officiated (■? = 9).

In its meaning the minchah differed from the burnt offering in that it was a present instead of the symbolical offering of the life. As a reason why the offered cakes should be broken in pieces and anointed so as to make a tempting display, as a host would set food before a guest, it is said, "It is a minchah," i. e., a present, such as that with which one propitiates a superior. At the same time it is more than a mere present ; there is the idea of consecration to God in it. The reason why the memorial of it is to be burned on the altar is, that it is a fire offering, an odor of satisfaction unto Jehovah (ver. 2, 9). " As the burnt offering represented the consecration of the life, the person, to God, so the meal offering represented the consecration of the fruit of his labors." This consecration was made vivid by the ascent of the azkarah or memorial in smoke, and so prominent an element in worship was this offered sample of the gift that even in New Testament times the memorial was a familiar emblem, in religious feeling, of acceptability in the divine presence (Acts io:4).