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1–2. The sacrifice for sin and its ritual, which differs according to the difference in the socio-theocratic position of the person who sinned, 3–12. high priest, 13–21. whole society, 22–26. Prince, 27–35. private person. Lev.4:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Lev.4:2. Tell the children of Israel: If any soul sins by mistake against any of the commandments of the Lord and does anything that he ought not to do; If burnt offerings and peace offerings were known to the Jews even before the Law of Moses, then propitiatory or sin offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, are the proper establishment of the Law of Moses. The regulations regarding them form a new completed section (Lev.4–7). These sacrifices are no longer left to the freedom and diligence of each member of a theocratic society: they are obligatory in the presence of sin, a crime subject to sacrificial purification. Not every sin, however, allowed such purification, but only one committed by mistake, “bisdigagah”, LXX: ἀκουσίως, Akila: ἐν αἀγνοί, Vulg.: per ignorantiam, glor.: “not wanting”, i.e. by mistake due to universal human weakness, but by no means not with a clear intention not with a “bold hand” (bejad ramah), Num 15.30; For the last sins, death was certainly prescribed. Propitiatory sacrifices, in theory, were supposed to educate the conscience of Jews in particular sensitivity to various kinds of deviations from moral duty. Lev.4:3. If the anointed priest sins and makes the people guilty, then for the sin he has committed, let him present a bullock from the herd, without blemish, to the Lord as a sin offering, Lev.4:4. and he shall bring the bullock to the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord, and shall lay his hands on the head of the bullock, and slay the bullock before the Lord; In the rulings on the sin offering (and trespass offering) no distinction is made according to the material condition of the persons responsible, but according to the type and degree of their guilt and according to their socio-theocratic position. The first in this kind of gradation is the “anointed priest,” hakohen hammaschiach, LXX: ἀρχιερεύς, glav.: “anointed bishop,” i.e., the high priest (cf. Lev. 16:32, 21:10). The high priest was followed by: the Israeli society, as a collective legal entity, the prince of the people, and finally, any private person. The sin of the high priest made the whole people, whose representative the high priest was, guilty. Lev.4:5. and the anointed priest, [consecrated with perfect consecration,] shall take the blood of the bull and bring it into the tabernacle of meeting, Lev.4:6. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary; Lev.4:7. And the priest shall put the blood [of the bull] before the Lord on the horns of the altar of incense, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and the rest of the blood of the bull shall pour out at the foot of the altar of burnt offerings, which is at the entrance of the tabernacle of the congregation; Lev.4:8. and he shall take away from the calf for sin all the fat thereof, the fat that covers the inwards, and all the fat that is on the inwards, Lev.4:9. and both kidneys and the fat that is on them, that is on the hips, and the omentum on the liver; he will separate it with the kidneys, Lev.4:10. how it is separated from the body of a peace offering; and the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering; Lev.4:11. and the skin of the bull, and all the flesh thereof, with the head and the feet thereof, and the inward parts thereof, and the uncleanness thereof, The sin offering differed from the general sacrificial ritual in the method of blood sprinkling and the consumption of sacrificial meat. In both respects, the first two categories of sacrifice for sin, for the high priest and for the whole society, differ significantly from the last two: for the prince of the people and for an individual. The blood of the calf, slain for the sin of the high priest and all the people, was brought into the sanctuary, and here it was sprinkled seven times before the veil that separated the sanctuary from the Holy of Holies, then this blood was laid on the horns of the altar of incense (in the second part of the tabernacle), the remainder was poured out at the foot of the altar of burnt offerings (Lev. 4: 6–7, 16–18 ). This introduction of sacrificial blood into the holy place expressed the greatness and severity of sin, and at the same time the completeness of its cleansing (the highest cleansing of the sins of the entire people on the day of atonement was symbolized by bringing the blood of a goat and a bull into the Holy of Holies); The latter was also indicated by sprinkling seven times “before the Lord” and placing blood on the horns of the incense altar. According to the rabbis, these are “internal” sacrifices (chattot penimoth), in contrast to subsequent sacrifices for sin – “external” (ch. chizonoth), from which the blood was not brought into the holy place. In all types of sin offerings, those special sacrificial parts were subjected to sacrificial burning (designated, as already said, by the special Hebrew term hiqlir, in contrast to the ordinary burning, saraph) - the fat with kidneys and omentum (Lev. 8–10, 19, 26, 31), which were also burned during the peace offering. Regarding the consumption of the rest of the meat of the sin offering, Lev. 6.30 sets out the rule: “every sacrifice from which the blood is brought into the tabernacle of meeting for cleansing in the sanctuary must not be eaten; she must be burned (tissareph - burned not as a sacrifice) with fire" (cf. Heb 13.11-13). According to this rule, in the first two cases (as well as on the day of atonement, when the blood of a bull and a goat was brought into the Holy of Holies), after the fat parts were burned on the altar, the rest of the meat, along with the skin, head, legs, entrails and excrement, was burned (not as a sacrifice) outside the camp, in a clean place (Lev. 11-12, 20-21, 16:27). 1 In these cases, the priests, as guilty (by the guilt of the high priest or the whole people) and being cleansed, did not have the right to eat from the sin offering, which right (however, only to the male sex of the descendants of Aaron, Lev. 6:18) belonged to the priests in those cases where the sins of other private individuals were cleansed by the sin offering. Lev.4:13. If the whole congregation of Israel sins by mistake and the matter is hidden from the eyes of the congregation, and does something against the commandments of the Lord, which should not have been done, and is guilty, Lev.4:14. then, when the sin they have committed is known, they shall, on behalf of the whole congregation, present a bullock from the herd as a sin offering and bring it before the tabernacle of meeting; Lev.4:15. and the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and shall slaughter the bull before the Lord. Lev.4:16. And the priest shall bring the bull anointed with the blood into the tabernacle of meeting, Lev.4:17. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood [of the calf] and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord before the veil [of the sanctuary], Lev.4:18. and he will put the blood on the horns of the altar [of incense] which is before the Lord in the tabernacle of the congregation, and the rest of the blood he will pour out at the foot of the altar of burnt offerings, which is at the entrance of the tabernacle of the congregation; Lev.4:19. and he shall take all the fat out of it and burn it on the altar; Lev.4:20. and he will do to the bullock what is done to the bullock for sin; This is what he must do to him, and this is how the priest will cleanse them, and it will be forgiven them; Lev.4:21. and he will carry the calf outside the camp and burn it, just as he burned the first calf. This is a sin offering for society. These verses, depicting the rite of sacrifice for the sin of the entire Israeli society, in view of the close ideological connection of this sacrifice with the sacrifice for the high priest, features in cf. with Lev. 4:5–12 do not represent. Lev.4:22. And if the boss sins and does something by mistake against the commandments of the Lord his God, which he should not have done, and he is guilty, Lev.4:23. then when the sin he has committed becomes known to him, he is to sacrifice a goat without blemish, Lev.4:24. and he shall lay his hand on the head of the goat, and slay it in the place where the burnt offerings are slaughtered before the Lord: it is a sin offering; Lev.4:25. And the priest shall take with his finger the blood of the sin offering, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pour out the rest of his blood at the foot of the altar of burnt offering; Lev.4:26. and all his fat will be burned on the altar, like the fat of the peace offering, and so the priest will cleanse him from his sin, and he will be forgiven. Lev.4:27. But if any of the people of the earth sin by mistake and do anything against the commandments of the Lord, which he should not have done, and is guilty, Lev.4:28. then when the sin he has committed becomes known to him, let him sacrifice a goat without blemish for the sin he has committed, Lev.4:29. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering, and they shall slaughter the [goat] for the sin offering in the place [where they shall slaughter] the burnt offering; Lev.4:30. and the priest shall take her blood with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pour out the rest of her blood at the foot of the altar; Lev.4:31. and all the fat thereof shall be separated, just as the fat is separated from the peace offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a pleasing aroma to the Lord; and so the priest will cleanse him, and he will be forgiven. Lev.4:32. And if he wants to offer a sin offering from the flock of sheep, let him bring a female, without blemish, Lev.4:33. and he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering, and slaughter it for a sin offering in the place where they slaughter the burnt offering; Lev.4:34. And the priest will take with his finger the blood of this sin offering and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offerings, and pour out the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar; Lev.4:35. and all the fat thereof shall he take off, as the fat of a sheep is taken off from the peace offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord; and so the priest will cleanse him from the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven. On the contrary, a sin offering for a leader or prince (nasi – head of a clan, judge, captain of a thousand, etc.), Lev.4:22–26, and a sacrifice for a simple layman, Lev.4:27–35, are significantly similar to each other (only in one case is a male animal offered, Lev. 4:23, in the other – a female one, Lev.4:28, 32), differ from the first two cases of a sin sacrifice in both significant moments, blood sprinkling and consumption of meat after (the same in all cases) sacrificial burning of fat. The blood for the leader and for any individual Israeli in general was not brought into the sanctuary, but was simply laid on the horns of the altar of burnt offerings, in the courtyard of the church, and the remainder of the blood was poured out at the foot of the altar (Lev. 25:30). The consumption of meat in these two cases is not deliberately mentioned, but, based on the contrast to the first two cases and the noted rule - Lev.6.30 (cf. Heb. 13.11-13), one should think that the meat in the last two cases was given to the priests. This is positively affirmed by another rule - Lev.7.7: “both about the sin offering and about the trespass offering there is one law: it belongs to the priest.” In ch. 6th (Lev. 6.18, 26–29, according to Heb. T. Lev. 11, 19–23) defines precisely and in detail how the priests should consume the meat of the sin victim and how in general to deal with this “great shrine.” The main idea of the sacrifice of sin is to calm the conscience of the Old Testament man in case of always possible and particular deviations from the “ought”. The red heifer sacrifice for the sins of Israel, Numbers XIX, has all the characteristic features of sin offerings of the first category. You might be interested in: