17, 18 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them, Whatsoever he be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers" in Israel, that will offer his oblation [offering"] for all [any of] his vows, and for all [any of] his free-will offerings, which they 19 will offer unto the LORD for a burnt offering; ye shall offer at your own will [for your acceptance] a male without blemish, of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the 20 goats. But whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be 21 acceptable for you. And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering in beeves or sheep [of the flock"], 22 it shall be perfect to be accepted: there shall be no blemish therein. Blind, or broken, or maimed," or having a wen [or ulcerous], or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto the LORD, nor make an offering by fire of them upon the 23 altar unto the LORD. Either a bullock or a lamb [one of the flock"] that hath anything superfluous or lacking in his parts, that mayest thou offer for a freewill 24 offering; but for a vow it shall not be accepted. Ye shall not offer unto the LORD that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut; neither shall ye make any 25 offering thereof [make such'] in your land. Neither from a stranger's hand shall ye offer the bread of your God of any of these; because their corruption is in them, and blemishes be in them: they shall not be accepted for you.

18

26, 27 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under the dam; and from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted for an offering made by fire unto 28 the LORD. And whether it be cow or ewe [female of the flock"], ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day.

29

And when ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the LORD, offer it at 30 your own will [for your acceptance13]. On the same day it shall be eaten up; ye shall leave none of it until the morrow: I am the LORD.

31

Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the LORD. 32 Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the chil33 dren of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD.

13 Ver. 19.

14 Ver. 21.

sive term.

See Textual Note 2 on ii. 1.

37. See Textual Note 5 on i. 3. Comp. also ver. 21.

includes both sheep (A. V.) and goats (marg.). It is better therefore to use the ordinary comprehen

15 Ver. 22. On the precise sense of 1, the authorities differ. LXX. yλwoσótμntov-having the tongue cut; Targ. Jon. having the eyelids torn; Jerome, cicatricem habens. The A. V. has followed the Targ. Onk, in a sense which may be considered as sufficiently general to include all the others.

16 Ver. 22., adj. fem. from to flow. It is an. dey, but there seems no doubt of its meaning.

ז־

17 Ver. 23. is neither specifically a lamb (A. V.) nor a kid (marg.), but may be either. See Textual Note 14 on ver. 21. Gesen.: "a noun of unity corresponding to the collect. 1, a flock, sc. of sheep or goats.”

18 Ver. 23. is an animal which has an inequality between the corresponding parts, as the two legs, or two eyes, so that one of them is longer or larger than it should be; while on the other hand, signifies one having such

part smaller than its normally developed fellow.

קלוּט

19 Ver. 24 According to all authorities the preceding clause refers to the four ways of castration practised among the ancients (see Aristot. hist, an, ix. 37, 3, and the other authoritic cited by Knobel and Keil); the latter clause contains, incidentally, an absolute prohibition of such customs in the land, and has nothing to do with sacrifice, there being no word for offering in the Heb. Such is the interpretation of Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 40) and of the Jewish authorities generally. So also the LXX., the Targs., and the Vulg. The sense of the A. V., however, is found in the Syr., and is sustained by Knobel and Lanze, who says expressly: "It is particularly to be noticed that castration of animals was not universally forbidden in Israel, only no castrated animals might be offered in sacrifice." of ver. 18, and probably referring to a for

T

20 Ver. 25. 15, a different word from the of ver. 10 and the eigner, not even sojourning in the land. 21 Ver. 28. See Note 17 on ver. 23. in masc. form; but Rosenmüller notes that in regard to brute animals, the verbs, as well as the nouns and adjectives, take no note of sex.

: :::

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

The analysis of this chapter given by Keil is a very clear one. "Vers. 1-16. Reverence for things sanctified. The law on this mat

ter was (1) that no priest who had become unclean was to touch or eat them (vers. 2-9), and (2) that no one was to eat of them who was not a member of the priestly family (vers. 10-16). Vers. 17-33. Acceptable Sacrifices." Lange introduces the chapter thus: "The keeping

holy of the sacrifice was to correspond to the keeping holy of the priesthood, since this is indeed at the bottom an expression of keeping the priesthood holy. It was most strongly insisted upon." The centre, however, of the whole Levitical system is rather the sacrifice than the priest, and the priest is for the sake of the sacrifice, as is distinctly brought out in this chapter, rather than the reverse. Certainly the sacrifice was earlier, and the necessity for it more fundamental. The symbolical hotiness of the priesthood must therefore be considered as an essential requirement in order to their offering of acceptable sacrifices. Lange thus analyzes the chapter: "a. In relation to the conduct of the priest, vers. 3-9. b. In relation to the conduct of the laity, vers. 10-16. c. In relation to the condition of the sacrificial animals, and especially to the fact that everything defective was excluded, vers. 17-25; but also that every proper offering was to be offered to the Lord in the right way, or to be eaten as a thank-offering, vers. 26-33."

means: "shall be excluded from the sanctuary" deprived of his priestly office. Lange, however, interprets it that "the penalty of death is pronounced upon every one of the priestly family who approaches the holy things in a state of uncleanness, whether it be to offer or to eat the priestly sacrificial food." But he afterwards adds: " With the positive death penalty is connected at the same time a mysterious destiny of death, which Jehovah reserves to Himself. The legislation has as yet no idea of the ruder forms of desecration of the sacrifice in the future as e. g. 1 Sam. ii. 12 sqq." This was the pe nalty attached to the violation of any of the precepts in this paragraph. The uncleannesses mentioned in vers. 4-6 have already been treated in their appropriate places. They are only mentioned here as showing that they excluded the priest from contact with holy things. Vers. 6, 7, prescribe for the priest, as for the people in similar cases, the simplest forms of purification, and when these are observed, limit the time of the uncleanness to the going down of the The chapter consists of three Divine commu- sun. In accordance with the considerate chanications, all given to Moses, the first (vers. racter of the Divine legislation, it then allows 1-16) to be communicated to Aaron and his sons, him to eat of the sacrifice, because it is his prescribing under what conditions the priests food. In ver. 8 the eating of that which had are not to touch the offerings (1-9), and who not been properly slain, and was therefore still beside the priests might partake of them (10-16); contaminated with the blood, is forbidden with the second (17-25) is to be communicated not especial emphasis to the priests whose office was only to Aaron, but unto all the children of to make atonement with the blood. This had Israel, determining the quality of the victims; already been forbidden to all the people (xi. 39, while the third (26-33) is to Moses alone, pre-40) with but a slight penalty for transgression. scribing certain conditions to be observed with all victims, and concluding the chapter.

Here the transgression for the priest comes under the heavier sentence of ver. 3. Calvin notes that such a special prohibition was needed lest the priests might think themselves, in virtue of their office, exempt from the laws binding upon the rest of the people. Ver. 9. Lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, gives the penalty in general of a priestly ne

Vers. 1-9. For his view of the difficult passage in ver. 2, Lange refers to his translation, which runs thus: that they profane not my holy name-even they, who have it in charge to keep holy for Me," thus referring the relative to the name. Other commentators refer it to the holy things of the chil-glect to keep God's ordinance, but is not dren of Israel, as in the A. V., LXX. and Vulg. (Rosenmüller, Knobel, Kalisch, Murphy, Keil, Clark, etc.). The sense of the whole verse is certainly that the priests should not profane the holy gifts of the people by approaching them when themselves in a condition unlawful for priestly ministrations. The expression separate themselves from the holy things is clearly to be understood as meaning under the circumstances mentioned below. 66 13 with

necessarily to be understood of the penalty for The command here, as everywhere, is made to the breach of each particular precept mentioned. rest upon the consideration, I the LORD do sanctify them.

Vers. 10-16. This forms the second part of the first Divine communication, and prescribes who beside the priests themselves might or might not eat of the holy things. It has nothing to do with the most holy things which could be eaten IP, to keep away, separate one's self from any-only by the priests themselves. "The is thing, i. e. not to regard or treat them as on a the stranger relatively; accordingly those who par with unconsecrated things." Keil. The are not Israelites, not Levites, not relatives; Divine acceptance of the sacrifices was expressed here, those who are not priests. He might not by the priests' eating certain parts of them as eat of the holy food of the offerings, however the representatives of God. These were allowed near he might stand to the priest as a neighbor, to be eaten by those who were permanently dis- or a day laborer; but on the other hand, the qualified by physical defects from offering the purchased slave, since he had become by cirsacrifices (xxi. 22); but if consumed by those cumcision an Israelite and one of the household in a state of uncleanness, would be a profanation of the priest, might certainly eat of it, together of the name of the Lord. The prohibition ex- with those born in the priest's house. And here tends not only to the eating, but to the touching again the house appears in its full theocratic signifithem at all. Ver. 3. Shall be cut off from cance. (Comp. Com. on Matt., p. 146.) It remy presence is considered by Rosenmüller sults from this, that the married daughter of and others as equivalent to the expression "shall a priest is excluded; she belonged to another be cut off from the midst of his people." A bet-house (if it were a priestly house, she might of ter interpretation (Knobel, Clark) is that it course eat there with them). Her right revives

ance.

The burnt offering is first treated of (vers. 18-20), and then the peace offering. Vow and free-will offerings might be made of either kind of sacrifice; but the regulations concern

ing, it must be a male, as well as without blemish, according to the law of the burnt offering in i. 3, 10; if it was a peace offering, there was no law concerning the sex of the victim; but it was still required (ver. 21) there shall be no blemish therein. The rigidness of the law was, however, somewhat relaxed in case of the free-will offering (ver. 23), so that for this purpose a victim was allowed to have some thing superfluous or lacking in his parts. For the distinction between the vow and the free-will offering, see Com. on vii. 15. The other kind of peace offering, the thank offering, is not mentioned here; being the highest of all, it of course required the perfect victim. Among the Gentiles also a sense of natural fitness generally required that the victim should be integrus and reλcios. See abundant references in Rosenmüller and Knobel here, in Outram L. I. c. 9, and Bochart Hieroz. I. L. II. c. 46. Ver. 24 absolutely prohibits the offering in sacrifice of any castrated animals. See Textual Note. Lange: "The minute, precise definition of this defect requires the perfect fitness for breeding in the male animals, without which it lost in a great degree its signification of a worthy resignation." In ver. 25 the priests are forbidden to accept even from a stranger's hand victims marked with any of the defects that have been enumerated, because their corruption is in them, i. e. because these defects render them unfit for sacrifice. The bread of your God "must be derived from a perfect victim to represent that which is acceptable to God, which in moral things is perfect righteousness." Murphy.

again, however, if she comes back to her father's house as a childless widow or divorced; but if she had children, she formed with the children another house. If one who had no right ate of the holy things by mistake, he must make resti-ing the victim differed. If it was a burnt offertution to the priest for what he had eaten, and add a fifth part thereto. "The verse refers only to something unimportant, for in the case of greater things he was commanded, moreover, to offer a trespass offering (ch. v. 15)." Knobel. The difference is in this, that here the subject is the transgression of eating the priestly portion of the heave offering; there, of heedless injury done to the sanctuary in regard to the portion hallowed to Jehovah." [It seems more probable that the case here referred to is exactly included under that in v. 15, 16, and that the trespass offering is not expressly mentioned here because it is only necessary to show that this case comes under the category of those for which the trespass offering was required. Calvin well observes that this prohibition was necessary to prevent the "holy things being regarded as common food."-F. G.] Here too the law is led back to I the LORD do sanctify them. The history of David (1 Sam. xxi.) and the New Testament explanation of it (Matt. xii. 3) show that necessity provided exceptions to this rule. But the rule rests upon the truth that religion must be kept holy, in the strongest sense, even in its sacrifices, otherwise guilt will accumulate upon the people who profess the religion (ver. 16). When deceit is practised against Jehovah in any way, e. g. by feigned fasts, by asceticism, joined with secret sins, by fanatic faith joined with a life of plunder, the manliness itself of the natural man is buried more and more, and the intercourse of the people loses more and more of its saving salt of moral truth-not to speak of the refining fire of the spirit of the new birth. -When they eat their holy things.-That which as holy things belonged to them no long- Vers. 26-33. The final communication made er." Lange. On the meaning of the last clause to Moses alone. Lange: "Even in the case of see Textual Note 10. The provision in regard sacrificial animals without blemish, there yet to the purchased servant in ver. 11 is of impor-appear particular conditions of acceptableness tance as showing how completely such servants became identified with the house of their mas ters. The command was given only about a year after the Exodus when the tribes of Israel doubtless included a large number of the circumcised descendants of the servants of the patriarchs; but there can be no stronger identification than is here given in allowing the purchased servants of the priests from whatever nation, in contradistinction to a servant hired from any other family in Israel, to eat of the priestly portion of the holy things.

for the offerers. First, the victim must be eight days old; it must be kept seven days under the dam to enjoy the full pleasure of existence." See the same law in Ex. xxii. 30 in regard to firstlings. "The reason for this was, that the young animal had not attained to a mature and self-sustained life during the first week of its existence." Keil. It is noticeable that the age at which the animal became admissible for sacrifice is the same as that at which man was received into covenant relation by circumcision. At this age, too, the animal first began to be Vers. 17-25. Moses is directed to convey this eatable, and this fact doubtless had its significommunication unto all the children of cance in the laws for the symbolical food of Israel, because it was important to have them Jehovah. Similar restrictions of age were in all entirely familiar with the conditions neces- use among the Romans, Pliny Nat. Hist. viii. 77. sary to an acceptable victim. They were to The prohibition in ver. 28 of killing both dam know all the laws; but their attention would and offspring on the same day is analogous to naturally be more fixed upon those which were the thrice repeated precept: "Thou shalt not immediately addressed to them. The law in seethe a kid in its mother's milk" (Ex. xxiii. regard to the victims necessarily applies to all 19; xxxiv. 26; Deut. xiv. 21), and rests upon cases, whether they were offered by persons of the same principle as the prohibition to take the house of Israel, or of the strangers from a bird's nest the mother together with the (ver. 18), because it prescribes what was re- young (Deut. xxii. 6, 7). All these precepts quired in the victim itself in order to its accept- I were of an educational character and imposed

III. The identification of the household with its head, always strongly marked in the Hebrew polity, appears in the case of the priest with especial clearness. The family is the unit of the Hebrew commonwealth and the basis of the Mosaic legislation. On this see Maine's Ancient Law.

IV. The law of the conditions of the acceptable victim was precisely the same for the Israelite and the stranger. The law thus intimates not obscurely that in their approach to God all stand on precisely the same footing. "There is no distinction of persons."

men

upon the Israelites the duty of keeping sacred, | But inasmuch as they had also special duties even among the lower animals, the relation toward God, they were incapacitated for their which God has established between parent and performance by this uncleanness. offspring. The law could not have been for the sake of the brute, but was altogether for man's sake; he must not allow himself to violate the finer susceptibilities implanted in his nature, even when mere utilitarian reasoning could see no use in the command. The Targ. Jon. prefaces the command with the words: "As our Father is merciful in heaven, so be ye merciful on earth." The connection here applies the precept especially to killing for sacrifice; but it is noticeable that the word used is the more general , as if the command was meant to apply to all killing whatever. In ver. 30 the law for eating the thank offering on the same day on which it is presented is repeated from vii. 15. Such repetitions, if not of necessity. are yet at least highly desirable in a lengthened code of laws. The conclusion, vers. 31-33, is like that of chapters xviii. and xix., and rests upon the fact that He who gives the commands is Jehovah Jehovah who sanctifies them, and who has brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Lange: "I am Jehovah is said again to seal this command, and the following explanation shows plainly the educational view: that Jehovah seeks to bring them up to be a holy people of God by means of these fixed directions. The educational idea is negative: only certainly no kind of dishonor, or deceit, or faithlessness is allowable in matters of religion."

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

I. "The symbolical and definite thought of the whole chapter has the highest meaning for every form of religion, but particularly for the Christian Church. It seeks a faultless, normal priesthood, a priesthood which does not darken, but glorifies religion, the service of God. When we think of the sad fact that priests have often altogether, or in a great degree, corrupted their religious community, or are now corrupting it, that so many spiritual and hierarchical cripples of every kind darken and disfigure so many congregations, the contents of our section will give us a strong witness against a laxity and untruth which is guilty especially of the corruption of the religious life. The church training was to be before all things self-training, the ladder of the churchly life. How many reflections in regard to the choice of the theological profession, the tests, the ordinations, and the ecclesiastical visitations belong to this chapter. Also the family circumstances of spiritual persons are here estimated according to their significance." Lange.

II. The relation of the priests to the people is here again distinctly brought out. They were under precisely the same laws as others, became unclean from the same causes, and were to be purified in the same way; in short, they were fully citizens of the commonwealth of Israel.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

Lange: "Chap. xxii. is concerned with the pure conduct of the priests face to face with the sacrifice of the congregation; observances of cleanness of the most varied kind, and especially of sacrifices according to their spiritual meaning."

As symbolical cleanness was required of those who partook of the sacrifices which typified the death of Christ, so is spiritual cleanness necessary in those who feed upon the memorial of the same. See 1 Cor. xi. 28, etc. Wordsworth. The whole house of the priest was sanctified through him to partake of the holy things; so is the whole house of the Great High Priest sanctified through Him, even His body, the blessed company of all faithful people.

But to be partakers of the table of this Great High Priest men must not be merely sojourners in His house, or serving Him as hired servants for gain, but truly identified with Him, and forming an actual part of His household. Wordsworth.

Again and again the law insists that the victim for the acceptable sacrifice must be without blemish. Whatever is offered to God must be of the best; especially must the offering of the heart be perfect and complete. Christ Himself is described as having offered Himself "without spot," and the Church which He presents unto Himself must "be holy and without blemish." Eph. v. 27.

By forbidding the Israelites to kill on the same day the dam and its offspring God taught them, and through them the church in all ages, to be merciful; not only merciful to those who can understand and appreciate it, but to exercise this virtue for its own sake-to be merciful always and everywhere, even as our Father in heaven is merciful.

Calvin draws from the often repeated and here extended precept that the sacrifice must be perfect and without blemish, this lesson: that whatever we offer to God must be whole-hearted and true. We cannot serve God and mammon. He applies this to prayers in which the heart is not engaged, and a multitude of other things in which man may undertake to offer an imperfect and divided, and therefore unacceptable service.

PART THIRD.

Sanctification of the Feasts.

"Keeping holy the theocratic times and places, the feasts and their cultus, the most holy name of the covenant God and His holy land."-LANGE.

CHAPS. XXIII.-XXV.

FIRST SECTION.

Of the Sabbaths and Annual Feasts.

"The Holy Seasons, Laws of the Feasts. Sabbath, Easter, Pentecost, the Seventh New-Moon or Sabbath of the Year, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles."-LANGE.

CHAP. XXIII. 1-44.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.