Chapter One

1–9. The burnt offering and its ritual; the offering of large cattle. 10–18. The offering of small cattle.

Leviticus 1:1. And the Lord called to Moses and said to him from the tent of meeting, saying: Leviticus 1:2. tell the sons of Israel and say to them: When any of you wishes to bring an offering to the Lord, then if from the cattle, bring your offering from large cattle and small cattle. After the building of the tabernacle, the Lord, fulfilling His promise to Moses to reveal to him His will and manifest His presence over the ark of the covenant and its mercy seat (kapporeth, Greek ἱλαστήριον – the throne of propitiation, mercy), gives His commands no longer from Mount Sinai, as before (Exod 19:3), but from the tabernacle, from the ark of the covenant – all the more since almost all the ordinances of the Book of Leviticus are connected with the sanctuary, and some sections of it are appointed specifically for the servants of the sanctuary (for example, Lev 6:8-7:21). However, the general purpose of the laws of the Book of Leviticus and of the book itself is for the “sons of Israel” (Lev 1:2), as those called to priestly holiness (Exod 19:5-6). All the commands and laws of Jehovah contained in the Book of Leviticus Moses received, standing probably in the second part of the tabernacle, before the veil in the holy of holies, into which only the high priest could enter (Exod 30:10; Lev 16:2; Heb 9:7).

Leviticus 1:2. tell the sons of Israel and say to them: When any of you wishes to bring an offering to the Lord, then if from the cattle, bring your offering from large cattle and small cattle. Leviticus 1:3. If his offering is a burnt offering from large cattle, let him bring it a male without blemish; let him bring it to the door of the tent of meeting, so that he may find favor before the Lord; From this point begins the exposition of the laws concerning sacrifices Lev 7:38. The purpose and meaning of Old Testament sacrifices, Theodoret the Blessed, like other Church Fathers, defines as follows: “That God needs nothing in this, I think even the foolish will not much dispute. And that such sacrifices are displeasing to Him, He revealed through many prophets. But since the Israelites, having lived a long time in Egypt, learned to offer sacrifices to idols, God allowed sacrifices in order to deliver them from superstition. For the Israelites took pleasure in sacrifices (Exod 32; Ezek 16:6-7), they took pleasure in the blood of sacrifices; therefore He also permitted them, satisfying their desire. Beyond this, God also provided another protective remedy for the Israelites through this, because He commanded them to offer in sacrifice what the Egyptians deified – among four-footed animals: the calf, the goat, and the sheep, and among birds: the turtle dove and the young of pigeons” (reply to question 1 on the Book of Leviticus). But apart from these motives of a negative character, the Old Testament sacrifice undoubtedly had a positive side, embodying the idea of service to God, of course in accordance with the spiritual condition of Old Testament mankind and in relation to the future world-redeeming sacrifice of Christ the Savior. The general name for sacrifice – Hebrew qorban, Greek δῶρον, a gift (cf. Mark 7:11, κορβαν ὃ έστιν δῶρον); Aquila, Symmachus: προσφορὰ; Vulgate: hostia, oblatiö – the idea of a gift, of dedication to God of oneself and one’s property – is fundamental in the biblical concept of sacrifice. Rabbi Abarbanel pointed to the twofold meaning of the term “qorban” from its etymology (from Hebrew qarab, to bring, to draw near): sacrifice is called qorban: 1) because it is brought to the altar, and 2) because it effects a great drawing near between the one offering the sacrifice and God. The burnt offering, concerning which we read in Lev 1, is a private offering brought by the voluntary vow or intention of individuals; whereas the sin offerings (Lev 4), the guilt offerings (Lev 6), and the cleansing offerings (chapter Lev 14:12-19) were strictly determined in certain cases specified by law. The burnt offering, being an expression of the complete dedication of a person’s self to God, was also the most important among all kinds of sacrifice. The material for bloody sacrifices in general consisted of large livestock and small livestock – sheep and goats; for the burnt offering – necessarily male, whereas in peace offerings (Lev 3:1-6) and sin offerings (Lev 4:28) in some cases animals of the female sex were permitted. Besides, in the burnt offering and in other cases two kinds of birds were offered: turtle doves and pigeons, and their sex was considered immaterial. The Hebrew name for the burnt offering: olah – ascending, that is, wholly raised up on the altar; ishsheh – burning, being consumed (especially); kalif – wholeness, perfect (that is, complete burning), cf. Deut 33:10; Ps 50:21, Ps 70: ὁλοκαύτωμα, Vulgate: holocaustum – a sacrifice in which the entire sacrificial animal is burned. The latter in any sacrifice must be “without blemish”, tamim, LXX: ἄμωμον, that is: to have no defect from the number specified in (Lev 22:21-23), – since only a completely healthy, viable, and perfectly clean (the animal was carefully washed before sacrifice) sacrificial animal could symbolize the strength and vitality of the sacrificial self-surrender to God on the part of the offerer; a defective animal was an insufferable insult to the greatness of Jehovah, the theocratic king of Israel, cf. Mal 1:7-8. Instead of the favor of Jehovah, a sacrifice from defective material would bring a curse upon the one offering it (Mal 1:14). To bring a sacrifice, the owner of the animal brought it to the entrance of the tent of meeting (cf. Exod 40:32), that is, to the courtyard where the altar of burnt offerings was located. Hereupon, Lev 4-13, the sacrifice from large and small livestock consisted of the following acts.

Leviticus 1:4. and he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering – and he shall gain favor, to make atonement for his sins; After the offerer had expressed his need, desire, or obligation to bring a sacrifice to Jehovah by leading the animal to the sanctuary, he performed the laying on of hands (semichah) – he placed both hands on the head of the sacrificial animal and (according to tradition) pressed the head of the sacrifice with them, which at this time stood bound to the northern side of the altar (Lev 11), where the sacrifice was slaughtered. The right of laying on of hands the offerer could not transfer to anyone else; only when a sacrifice was offered for the dead did the heir perform this rite (Mishnah, Menachot 9:8, women, children, the blind, the deaf, and the mentally ill are called legally incompetent for laying on of hands). If the sacrifice was brought by the whole congregation, the elders laid on their hands (Lev 4:15). The meaning of the laying on of hands does not consist in the transfer of sins and responsibility to the sacrificial animal (according to the theory of satisfactio vicaria) – only the sin offering had such a special meaning, and when laying on of hands, according to tradition, was joined with confession of sins by those offering the sacrifice; but rather in the surrender of the sacrifice and one’s own spiritual state in the sacrifice to God: a moment of extraordinary tension of faith and devotion to God on the part of the Old Testament person, waiting for sacrificial “covering”, propitiation (lekapper alav). According to the Blessed Theodoret, “it would be nothing strange to say that different kinds of irrational animals offered in sacrifice are representations of those who offer themselves to God” (question 1).

Leviticus 1:5. and he shall slaughter the bull before the Lord; and the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood on all sides of the altar, which is at the entrance of the tent of meeting; Leviticus 1:6. and he shall remove the hide from the burnt offering and cut it into pieces; The next act, performed also by the offerer, was the slaughtering (schechitah), following immediately after the pronouncement of the last word of the confession. The Levites could help the offerer in this, as especially happened when there was a multitude of sacrifices, on feast days (cf. 2 Chr 29:24), when the priests also participated in the slaughtering. The place of slaughtering was usually the northern side of the altar of burnt offerings – not because of the ancients’ belief in the dwelling of the Deity in the north (Ewald), but as the only free, unoccupied side, and also perhaps for the symbolic meaning of the north – a synonym for darkness, cold, and death (Toluck). The biblical text does not speak of the manner and method of slaughtering, except for the slaughtering of birds; the detailed and exact regulations of tradition on this matter amount to the requirement that the animal suffer as little as possible: the cut was made with a large sharp knife, which at once severed both the food and the breathing passages, so that the blood would flow quickly and not be lost. The symbolic meaning of the act of slaughtering consisted in the ideas: 1) death is the tribute owed for sin (Rom 6:2-3), and 2) without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22; Isa 53:12), ideas that penetrated the entire Old Testament (Gen 2:17; Isa 34:6; Jer 50:27 and others) and pointed forward to the Sacrifice on the Cross. The slaughtering was the last act of the offerer; now the priest began to act. Holding a large basin (with two handles), the priest collected into it the blood flowing from the animal’s wound and performed the sprinkling of blood (zeriqah) on all sides of the altar, according to tradition: first on the northeast corner of the altar, and he sprinkled two sides of the altar, the north and east, then on the southwest corner, whereby the south and west sides were sprinkled. By sprinkling of blood, however, is meant any use of sacrificial blood, differing according to the distinction of the kind of sacrifice and the degree of the intensity of the atoning moment (the sides of the altar of burnt offerings were sprinkled, or only its horns, or the horns of the incense altar and the place before the veil in the sanctuary, or finally the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies). The remainder of the blood was poured at the base of the altar. Here in Solomon’s temple two drain pipes were constructed, through which the blood flowed into the Kidron brook (from where it was taken for field fertilization). Jewish tradition regarded sprinkling as the “radix et principium” of sacrifice, and a sacrifice at which sprinkling was performed by a layman they considered invalid (Mishnah, Zebachim 2:7). The cleansing power of blood and sprinkling with it is connected with the biblical view that blood is the seat of the soul and life of the animal, and the sacrificial shedding of it has an atoning power for the sins of men (Lev 17:11), of course, by virtue of the prefigurative meaning of the Old Testament sacrifice in relation to the redemptive death of Christ (cf. Heb 10:4).

Leviticus 1:7. And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall put fire upon the altar and arrange wood on the fire; Leviticus 1:8. and the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat on the wood that is on the fire, on the altar; Leviticus 1:9. and the internal organs of the burnt offering and its legs he shall wash with water, and the priest shall burn all of it on the altar: this is the burnt offering, a sacrifice, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. After the hide was removed from the animal (Lev 6), which always belonged to the serving priest (Lev 7:8), who normally performed the hide removal (2 Chr 29:24), and after being cut into separate pieces, these were arranged in a definite order (according to tradition, the hind parts at the bottom and the head at the top of all), all the meat was covered with salt (Lev 2:13; Ezek 43:24; Mark 9:49), according to tradition, necessarily “from Sodom”, that is obtained from the Dead Sea, – fire was kindled on the altar, and all the sacrifice was burned (hiqtir, Lev 9:13). The Hebrew verb hiqtir (from qatar) is used exclusively of “the burning of incense”, “the lighting of lamps” in the temple, and “the burning of the sacrifice on the altar”, and, in distinction from the verb saraph – to burn, to reduce to ashes (for example, the burning of a sacrifice not on the altar of the temple but outside the camp, – Lev 4:12; Num 19:5 and others), means the ascent, the rising to God of the “own essence” (Kurtz) of the sacrifice, as a “pleasing aroma to Jehovah”. More specifically, since the material gift of the offerer symbolized his spiritual disposition, the act of burning meant the offering of the sacrificer himself to God, and on the other hand – also the acceptance of the sacrifice by Jehovah (cf. Judg 13:23), which in certain cases was marked by a special, miraculous descent of fire from heaven sent by Jehovah Himself (Lev 9:24; Judg 6:21; 1 Sam 18:38).

Leviticus 1:10. If his burnt offering is of small cattle, of sheep or goats, let him bring it a male without blemish, [and let him lay his hand on the head of it,] Leviticus 1:11. and he shall slaughter it before the Lord on the north side of the altar, and the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall sprinkle its blood on the altar on all sides; Leviticus 1:12. and he shall cut it into pieces, [separating the head and the fat,] and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar, Leviticus 1:13. and the internal organs and the legs he shall wash with water, and the priest shall bring all of it and burn it on the altar: this is the burnt offering, a sacrifice, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. These verses speak of the sacrifice from small cattle, which in no way differed from the sacrifice of large cattle. As for large animals, so for small livestock, in regard to sacrifice, there were age restrictions. Young animals were required to be at least 8 days old from birth (Lev 22:27; cf. Exod 22:29); in one case (with Samuel, – 1 Sam 7:9) a lamb from the teat (teleh-chalaph) is specifically mentioned as being offered. The maximum age is not defined in the biblical text. Small cattle were normally offered at one year of age (Exod 12:5, Lev 9:3 and others); there are such indications also regarding bulls (Lev 9:3, cf. Josephus Antiquities III book, ch. 9, 1), but of course both small and especially large cattle were also offered at a more mature age. In Gen 15:9 it is said that Abraham brought a cow, a sheep, and a goat – at three years old. On the basis of Jewish tradition the last age is considered the limit, yet once, with Gideon (Judg 6:25), a seven-year-old bull was offered, as a symbol of the seven-year oppression of Midian. In verse 11 it is directly stated where the sacrifice of the animal is to be slaughtered – the north side of the altar, – a side, as we already mentioned, the only free one: on the eastern side (from the entrance) ashes and cinders were deposited, Lev 16, and here probably stood the performing priest, facing the sanctuary – to the west, which, as a sacred place, could not serve as a place for slaughtering an animal: on the south side stairs were placed for ascending to the altar. Concerning other sacrifices – sin and guilt offerings – it is explicitly commanded to perform the slaughter of the animals “in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered” (Lev 4:24). The biblical text does not say this about the peace offering, and tradition considered it permissible to bring, at least from private individuals, peace offerings anywhere in the temple courtyard (Mishnah, Zebachim 5:5).

Leviticus 1:14. If then he brings to the Lord a burnt offering from birds, let him bring his offering from turtle doves or from young pigeons; Leviticus 1:15. and the priest shall bring it to the altar, and shall wring off its head, and burn it on the altar, and the blood shall be drained out against the wall of the altar; Leviticus 1:16. and he shall remove its crop with feathers and cast it beside the altar on the east side, where the ashes are; Leviticus 1:17. and he shall split it at the wings without separating them, and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire: this is a burnt offering, a sacrifice, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Following a descending scale of value in the sacrificial materials, the lawgiver now indicates the ritual of bringing a burnt offering from birds, namely turtle doves (in mature age) and pigeons (young); both were found in abundance in ancient Palestine, especially at certain times of year (Jer 8:7; Song 2:11-12), and at least pigeons were domesticated (Isa 9:8). The birds mentioned as suitable for burnt offering material in Abraham’s vision, Gen 15:9, birds of both kinds in the legislation are recognized as such, on the one hand, for the poor, – so that their sacrificial service to God would not encounter obstacles on account of material lack (Lev 5:7-11 and others), and on the other hand, in certain cases precisely defined by law, such as: the purification of a woman after childbirth (Lev 12:6), one healed from leprosy (Lev 14:19 and others), a man with a bodily discharge (Lev 15:14 and the like), a Nazirite (Num 6:9-14). The ritual of sacrificing birds was conducted much more simply than that of animals: neither laying on of hands nor the other acts mentioned with the sacrificial animal took place here: the priest merely wrung off (malaq – cf. Lev 5:8) the bird’s head, not separating the head from the body at all, but only opening the wound to obtain the blood, which was immediately poured at the base of the altar, and then, having removed and cast away the refuse, burned the whole bird, and the ashes of it were swept to the east side of the altar (cf. Lev 4:12). Lev 17: being the most important of sacrifices, expressing the idea of complete and perfect service to Jehovah, the burnt offering was therefore in the special sense a “pleasing aroma to the Lord”.