Burnt Offerings

(Leviticus 1:1 - 1: 17)

Jehovah summoned Moses to the Tabernacle and communicated this to him,  "To the people of Israel give the following instructions: When you offer an animal sacrifice to Jehovah, it can either be from the cattle of the herd or from the sheep and goats of the flock.

"If you choose a burnt offering from the herd, it must be a male without any defects.  It should be brought to the entrance to the Tabernacle, where it can be received by Jehovah.  Place your hands upon the head of the animal, and it will be accepted in your place as a sacrifice of atonement.  The young bull should be slaughtered in front of the Sanctum.  Aaron (and his successors in the priesthood) should collect the blood and present it as an offering by splattering it against the sides of the Sacrificial Altar (which stands before the entrance to the Sanctum).  The sacrificed animal will then be skinned and cut into pieces.  The priests will start a fire upon the altar and put wood on it.  The animal's head and strips of fat will be placed into the altar fire.  The innards and legs should be washed first, but the priest will burn the entire animal upon the altar.  This will be a whole burnt offering; its smoke will produce an aroma most pleasing to Jehovah.

"If you chose a burnt offering from the flock, be it goat or sheep, it must be a male without defects.  Slaughter the animal in front of the Sanctum, on the north side of the altar.  The priests (Aaron’s successors) will splatter its blood on the sides of altar.  It will be cut up, and the pieces, including the head and strips of fat, will be put into the wood fire burning on the altar.  The innards and legs should be washed first, but the priests will burn the entire animal on the altar.  This will be a whole burnt offering; its smoke will produce an aroma most pleasing to Jehovah.

"If the offering to Jehovah is to be a bird, choose a dove or young pigeon.  The priest will bring the bird to the altar, wring its neck and snap off its head and then burn it on the altar.  However, he must first drain off the blood along the side of the altar.  The crop should be removed and the bird plucked, with the crop and feathers discarded among the ashes at the east side of the altar.  Grasping it by the wings, the priest should tear the bird open, but without pulling it apart.  He will then put it into the wood fire burning on the altar.  This will be a whole burnt offering; its smoke will produce an aroma most pleasing to Jehovah."

Notes
1.  To modern sensibilities, this slaughter and gory proceedings of ritual sacrifice seem anything but holy, but one must keep in mind that blood sacrifices were an integral part of just about every ancient religion.  The Jehovan priest was obviously required to have skill as a butcher -- and a strong stomach, but slaughtering animals would have been a part of everyday life, as it was for country folk everywhere until fairly recent times.

2.  Although more will be spoken of it later, the burnt sacrifices were means of atonement.  The sacrificed animal would always be taking the place of the human who presented it.  This is an enduring concept, the death of one creature atoning for the sins of another; it is exemplified by Christ dying on the cross to atone for the sins of mankind, or at least the sins of those who accepted and worshiped him.

3.  It is ambiguous in the text whether Jehovah spoke to Moses and expected these sacrifices to be made at the earlier Meeting Tent or at the new Tabernacle, whose construction was completed at the end of Exodus.  Only the latter makes sense, although many translations, even many modern ones, say "meeting tent," or "tent of meeting."  What, one might ask, was the point of going to all the trouble of building the Tabernacle with its first-rate sacrificial facilities, when the old primitive Meeting Tent was still going to be used?  Obviously, the Tabernacle was meant -- unless we have here a contradiction between two original texts the furnished the basis for the Book of Leviticus.  As has been suggested before, it was not really possible for  the exiled, nomadic Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai to have built the Tabernacle, which must have come into being at a later time, perhaps a much later time.  Perhaps one text tells of the building of the Tabernacle at this point and another does not, but rather has Moses still communing with Jehovah in the Meeting Tent where the sacrifices are to take place.  Perhaps these instructions in Leviticus do not assume the construction of the Tabernacle.  An altar, though, is referred to and one imagines it is the fancy bronze one with the horns as described in Exodus.  This is one of many contradictions in the text, not surely the most egregious.

4.  The instructions on the preparation of the avian sacrifice in the Hebrew text are unclear, but it seems likely that it involved not only removal of the crop (which would contain undigested food) but plucking.  Feathers were probably not consigned to the flames; the birds were probably divested of them beforehand, since the animals were skinned before they were sacrificed and burnt.

5.  The priests (cohenim or kohanim) are referred to as Aaron’s sons.  It means not only his sons, but all his successors.  By Jewish law (Halakha) the priests were to be patrilineal descendants of Aaron.  However, it should be noted that the Hebrew word “banim,” which is used here, can also mean “successors” and not merely sons or physical descendants.

6.  All translations have the sacrificial animals slaughtered “before the Lord” or something similar (the Orthodox Hebrew Bible says “before Hashem”).  It is unlikely, though, that it is meant that Jehovah would be physically present at every sacrifice and that the ceremony would be conducted in front of him, especially considering that Jehovah would not allow even Moses to glimpse his face.  And would he really want to be splattered with blood?  And if he were there merely in spirit, could the slaughtering really be "before him"?  Surely what is meant is more figurative and yet more specific.  No other translator seems to have caught on, but it seems very likely that “before the Lord” means before or in front of the place belonging to and sacred to Jehovah, here meaning the Sanctum, before whose entrance the Sacrificial Altar stood.