Leviticus 4:1-5:13 English Standard Version Laws for Sin Offerings 4 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandments about things not to be done, and does any one of them, 3 if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. 4 He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. 5 And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting, 6 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary. 7 And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting, and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 8 And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering he shall remove from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails 9 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys 10 (just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offerings); and the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering. 11 But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung-- 12 all the rest of the bull—he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place, to the ash heap, and shall burn it up on a fire of wood. On the ash heap it shall be burned up. 13 “If the whole congregation of Israel sins unintentionally and the thing is hidden from the eyes of the assembly, and they do any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, and they realize their guilt, 14 when the sin which they have committed becomes known, the assembly shall offer a bull from the herd for a sin offering and bring it in front of the tent of meeting. 15 And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and the bull shall be killed before the Lord. 16 Then the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the tent of meeting, 17 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the veil. 18 And he shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is in the tent of meeting before the Lord, and the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 19 And all its fat he shall take from it and burn on the altar. 20 Thus shall he do with the bull. As he did with the bull of the sin offering, so shall he do with this. And the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven. 21 And he shall carry the bull outside the camp and burn it up as he burned the first bull; it is the sin offering for the assembly. 22 “When a leader sins, doing unintentionally any one of all the things that by the commandments of the Lord his God ought not to be done, and realizes his guilt, 23 or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without blemish, 24 and shall lay his hand on the head of the goat and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord; it is a sin offering. 25 Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering. 26 And all its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings. So the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin, and he shall be forgiven. 27 “If anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, and realizes his guilt, 28 or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish, for his sin which he has committed. 29 And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill the sin offering in the place of burnt offering. 30 And the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out all the rest of its blood at the base of the altar. 31 And all its fat he shall remove, as the fat is removed from the peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. 32 “If he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he shall bring a female without blemish 33 and lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering. 34 Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out all the rest of its blood at the base of the altar. 35 And all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on top of the Lord's food offerings. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven. Now we're getting into the part of the sacrificial system that most everyone thinks about--the sin offering. This is the sacrifice that was required for atonement each and every time that a person unintentionally violated God's Law (don't miss that in verse 1--there is a price to be paid even for unintentionally transgressing the Law, and we have yet to see if there is any sacrifice that can pay for intentional transgression).. We also see something interesting here that the priests as representatives of the people bring guilt on all the people by their sin in the same way that Adam in his priestly role corrupted all mankind by his sin, but through another man, the God-Man Christ Jesus, our Great High Priest, atonement would be made that would be necessary for all mankind, but sufficient for those who would repent and believe by faith. We also see this when we study The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) that the high priest had to first make atonement for himself before he could make atonement for the people and that the sacrifice required for the high priest was larger (a bull) as opposed to the sacrifice required for the rest of the nation (a single goat).
We also see an indication here that sin interferes with the ability of our prayers to be heard by God. This is what the altar of incense represents and when the priest who offered up the prayers of the people had sinned, atonement needed to be made not only on the bronze altar where burnt offerings were presented, but also by putting some of the blood on the horns of the altar of incense where the prayers of the people were offered up continuously, and some of the blood even had to be put on the veil between the Holy Place (where the priests ministered) and the Most Holy Place (where the presence of God resided) so as for that barrier which was the blood and not the curtain to be sufficient to keep God's holiness from coming in contact with their sin, for the wages of sin is death--even for the priest--especially for the priests The rest of the blood was poured out at the base of the bronze altar of burnt offering, symbolic of the blood of Jesus that would be poured out for each and every one of us. We again see that all the fatty portions and entrails are burned on the altar of burnt offerings just as they are with peace offerings and burnt offerings. Unlike a regular burnt offering though, the carcass and anything else that was left was to be taken to a clean place outside the camp where they disposed of the ashes of the burnt offerings and burnt again so that nothing would remain of the animal on whom the sin of the priest and guilt of the people had been laid upon. This is the requirement for the unintentional sin of any anointed priests (the sons of Aaron as we'll learn later). Next comes the penalty that must be paid for the sin of the community if they all unintentionally violate God's Law. It is probably fair to say that these are the sacrifices required of them when Ezra read the Law of the Lord to the people upon their return from exile. Notice that this sacrifice for the entire community is the same as the offering required by any of the anointed priests (the sons of Aaron) as they represented the entire congregation before God. The instructions are the same in both cases. The next set of instructions is probably for any of the "elders" that we see chosen from the congregation. I believe there were 70 of them which is probably where the idea of the Sanhedrin having 70 members came from. It may also refer to any of the "princes" of tribes as we see the ones that were chosen to spy out the land of Canaan and only two of them gave a good report. The price here is that of a female goat from the man's flock that is without blemish (as with all of these sacrifices they must all be without blemish). Atonement here need only be made on the altar of burnt offerings. It is both a burnt offering and fellowship offering as the others as fellowship is being restored between God and men as well as atonement being made for the sin. If it is a common person who unintentionally transgresses the Law, then that person may bring a female goat or a female lamb. Atonement is made at the altar of burnt offerings as before. The main difference we see here is that a male bull needed to be sacrificed on behalf of the priest or the congregation, but a female goat could be offered on behalf of a leader or an ordinary person. An ordinary person could also offer a female lamb. There are some additional laws for sin offerings in specific situations in chapter 5 that I'll cover tomorrow. For now thought this covers most of the basics of sin offerings and you can see how they are similar, but sometimes a little different, to both burnt offerings and peace offerings. That should make sense as the purpose of these offerings is both atonement and reconciliation (maybe between men, but definitely between man and God). We also see some important truths about the sins of the priests being representative of the community and the possibility for the whole community to be in sin corporately and how there seems to be no distinguishable difference to God in those two situations. We also see that this sacrificial system so far is totally based on unintentional sin. We have yet to talk about volitional sin at all (though you may argue that some of the things we'll talk about next time are willful, such as refusing to testify in court when you have knowledge of the facts and events).
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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