1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,#1: The Lord tells Moe that...
2 If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;
3 Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:
4 Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,
5 Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.
6 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest:
7 And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.
8 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
9 Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.
10 And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
11 And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.
12 And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.
13 The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.
14 And this is the law of the meat offering: the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the LORD, before the altar.
15 And he shall take of it his handful, of the flour of the meat offering, and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense which is upon the meat offering, and shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour, even the memorial of it, unto the LORD.
16 And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.
17 It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
18 All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.
19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
20 This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer unto the LORD in the day when he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat offering perpetual, half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night.
21 In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou shalt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat offering shalt thou offer for a sweet savour unto the LORD.
22 And the priest of his sons that is anointed in his stead shall offer it: it is a statute for ever unto the LORD; it shall be wholly burnt.
23 For every meat offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten.
24 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
25 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the LORD: it is most holy.
26 The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation.
27 Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place.
28 But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken: and if it be sodden in a brasen pot, it shall be both scoured, and rinsed in water.
29 All the males among the priests shall eat thereof: it is most holy.
30 And no sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire.
#2: If one trespasses against Him by being dishonest with his neighbor about something he was supposed to take care of for him, or about that neighbor's being robbed, or if he otherwise deceives the neighbor...
#3: Or if one finds a lost item and falsely testifies about it — any of that behavior is a sin.
#4: He must restore the ill-gotten goods (this suggests that the lying about robbery in verse #2 means lying about the fact that it was you that robbed your neighbor or had him robbed)...
#5: If he swore falsely, same deal, and he pays back the principal plus 20% when he makes his trespass offering.
#6: He is to bring the Lord (via a priest, no doubt) an unblemished ram of comparable value (I guess to cover the 20%, since he's supposed to return the purloined goods as it is.)
#7: The priest will atone him (and keep the 20%?) and the sinner will be forgiven.
#8: YHWH also told Moses...
#9: To pass along to Aaron and sons that "This is the law of the burnt offering," because the burning goes on all night (I don't quite see the cause and effect, but whatever)...
#10: And the priest is to put on linen clothes and transfer the ashes from the altar to the side of the altar (I hope they had wash-day miracles back then).
#11: Then the priest should change clothes and take the ashes outside the camp and put them in a clean place (afterwards, is it still considered a clean place?).
#12: The priest needs to keep the altar fire burning, with wood and burnt offerings and fat from the peace offerings.
#13: And He means keep it burning, as in forever.
#14: Aaron's boys will do the meat offering in front of God and the altar.
#15: Whichever son of Aaron is on duty burns some of the grain-meat, along with some oil and all the frankincense.
#16: Aaron and sons eat the rest "in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation."
#17: And for God's sake, don't use unleavened bread (one line I'm definitely not expecting to find in the Bible: "Blessed are the yeast makers."). All this offering stuff is holy.
#18: For ever and ever, all of Aaron's sons must eat some of the offerings. "Every one that toucheth them shall be holy," with "them" presumably meaning the offerings, not the sons, but it must have been tempting for them to claim otherwise.
#19: The Lord tells Moses...
#20: Aaron and sons need to offer the Lord meat (unleavened grain-based food) every day and night.
#21: Bake it in a pan with oil.
#22: Aaron's designated son will burn the food. This rule is forever, in case this point hasn't been repeatedly made already.
#23: The priest needs to burn up all the twice-daily grain-meat, and not eat it.
#24: God tells Moses...
#25: To tell Aaron and sons that "this is the law of the sin offering" and that sin offerings should be killed in the same place, "before the Lord," as the burnt offerings. A place that is "most holy."
#26: Again, the priest eats his take in the holy tabernacle.
#27: Whoever touches the sacrificial meat (as in meat, not wheat, I reckon) becomes holy, and if any blood gets on one's clothes, they should be washed in a holy place.
#28: If the meat's cooked in earthenware, you should smash the pot; if it's cooked in a brass pot (or is it bronze or copper?), clean and rinse it.
#29: All the male priests eat the goods (hmm, implies that there are female priests, but they're second-class citizens). Cause this grub is "most holy."
#30: Don't eat the sin offerings. Burn 'em.
4 comments:
#5 – "[...] and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering"
Say you sin at 9 PM. Will God understand if the ram store is closed and you have to wait till the next morning? The legalese wasn’t quite clear on that point.
By now, you've probably noticed that the fairly frequent "and Yahweh spoke unto Moses" seem a bit out of place - its more like a legal document where someone has very crudely made an attempt at inserting some (fictional) social context. Its similar to "And the wise old lady said to the naive young girl: 'A subsequent application concerning the same subject as the first Convention application, filed in the same Convention country, shall be considered the first Convention application (of which the filing date is the starting date of the period of priority), if at the time of the subsequent application...'"
Basically, these passages were all once just INDEPENDENT ordinary descriptions of regulations, without any kind of "these come from God" claim; they were just brief documents knocking around the priestly archives. But someone (the later writers of the Priestly Source) has tried to edit them into the (priestly source) text by adding the "and Yahweh said to Moses..." bits. As is characteristic of the later parts of the priestly source, the editing is fairly obvious - its as jarring as a 1960s modernist concrete tower would be if it was stuck in the middle of the Palace of Westminster.
One thing to point out in particular here is the break between verse 7 and 9. Its quite different from the other breaks, and it reads "and Yahweh spoke to Moses saying Command Aaron and his sons saying.." rather than just the first bit. It also abruptly goes back to the subject of WHOLE OFFERINGS, and the style of writing changes. The break and abrupt change that follows it is known as a "colophon" - something that indicates the end of a document. In particular, here it indicates the change from one writer to another. Both are writers in the Priestly Source group, but they are different people.
Verses 2-7 are the continuation of the rules for GUILT OFFERINGS (as I mentioned at the previous chapter).
After verse 8, it moves on to the other Priestly writer, whose own document also covers EXACTLY THE SAME SUBJECTS AS THE PREVIOUS 6 CHAPTERS. This document was evidently less concerned with the population at large, and the writer wasn't as absurdly repetitive.
Again, "burnt offerings" are really WHOLE OFFERINGs - they are offerings which are burnt completely. The Hebrew term means "the thing that is destroyed by burning". Or in other words, they left the fire burning the object until it had completely turned to ashes - "all night" is simply a turn of phrase meaning that it was burnt for a long time (long enough to be completely turned to ash)
In verse 12, you have a permanently burning fire; remember that the narrative context is that the Israelites have been told to do this, even though they are currently in the desert, wandering, and will be for the next 40 years. How exactly do you keep a fire going for 40 years, while moving the thing the fire is burning on? It only really makes sense if the object was always fixed - ie. that the regulation has been artificially inserted by an editor into a narrative context.
"It is holy" / "shall be holy" should really be translated "it is taboo" / "shall be taboo". Ie. it is considered sacred, and therefore should be AVOIDED (the modern meaning of "taboo" unfortunately took the false assumption that objects were "taboo" because they were profane, whereas the opposite was originally true).
So for SIN OFFERINGS, what it is saying is that the offering is taboo, and anything that the blood (one of the most taboo things in Israelite religion) comes into contact with, will also become taboo as a result.
Taboo objects couldn't be used until they were made un-taboo. For metal pots this just involved scrubbing them clean, so any taboo stuff (like blood) that might have been on the surface (however minimally) was (supposedly) removed. Earthenware, on the other hand, is quite porous and liable to staining, so it was thought that they might still retain a small amount of taboo stuff no matter how much they were washed - hence why they had to be smashed (glazing can reduce the problem drastically, but Israelite society seems to have been quite primitive in that respect and most archaeologically recovered earthenware from early Israel - prior to the 6th century BC - is unglazed).
Also notice that here the priests are allowed to eat a portion of the sin offering, except for when the blood is sprinkled on the "mercy seat"; the difference with the earlier chapter is subtle - there priests couldn't eat the sin offering if the offering had been made on behalf of a group that included them (like an offering from "the people in general").
Fervent Atheist, the Israelite day was counted from DUSK not midnight, so 9PM was (for most of the year) interpreted as being part of the same day as the following morning. In regards to the wider point, what verse 5 actually says is "make the guilt offering and the restitutional payment on the same day"; the resolution of the issue you raise being that the guilty party wouldn't make the restitution until they could also make the guilt offering.
i won't be as long nor as exact as that last dude... but notice how it's all about moses... and how ppl think moses wrote the first five books.. but how could moses write law that dealt with temple ritual without there being a temple or priests to inhabit that temple?!
here we have some people or groups of people writing under moses' name to give authority to these texts. kinda shifty if you ask me.
WHAT!?! Are you saying we can't trust what the Bible says?!?!
Oh my god! Where are we going to get our morals, then?!
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