together with a fifth of an ephah of meal and a quarter of a hin of 'lline (comp. ob. xxiii. 9-14; Numb. xxviii. 17-25). Fifty days after the Paschal Supper came the Feast of Harvest-to use one of the i;everal designations of the final feast of the Passover cycle-so called from the time of its observance. Another name for this feast was that of Firstfruit.s, a designation which is self-explanatory. From the fact that seven full weeks were allowed to elapse after the Passover before its celebration, it was also named the Feast of Weeks, or poesibly this name refers to the whole period between Passover and Pentecost. The date of its occurrence also explains its later name, just mentioned, of Pentecost. The feast lasted but a day, and partook of the nature of a eabbath. This fea.st again has a special eacrificial ritual peculiar to itself, consisting of a meal offering, a burnt offering, a sin offering, and a peace offering: the meal offering being two loaves of leavened bread, to be offered as firstfruits; the burnt offering consisting of seven lambs, one ram, and a bullock, together with meal offerings and drink offerings; a kid constituting the sin offering, and two lambs the peace offering. The common details of the ritual of presentation were observed with two exceptions-the two loaves and the two lambs were simply waved before the Lord, and were not consumed by fire ; they were " holy to the Lord for the priest ,. (comp. eh. :xxiii. 15-21; Numb. x:xviii. 26-31; Deut. :xvi. 9-12), The cyck of the seventh month, The seventh month stood out in strong relief in the Jewish calendar. It opened, as we have seen, with the Feast of Trumpets, as if to awaken the nation year by year to the high importance of the days in which its lot was cast, and continued with blended solemnity and rejoicing, bringing in due course the great Day of Atonement, upon the tenth of the month, and the Feast of Tabernacles, or Ingathering, upon the fifteenth. The ritual of the Day of Atonement was peculiarly sacrificial, and although there is combined therein not only offerings referring to :national sins, but those of an official nature, it may tend to clearness if that ritual be described in order once for all. "The law concerning the Day of Atonement contains instruction as to the performance of the appropriate ritual, and as to its performance annually. The prescribed ritual was as follows : ,AI!, a sacrifice for the priesthood, the high priest was to bring a sin offering of a bullock and a burnt offering of a ram; and as a sacrifice for the congregation, a sin. offering of two he-goats and a burnt offering of a ram. The priest was to be clothed, not in his state costume, but in a dress entirely of white, to be put on after bathing the whole body, and not simply the hands and feet as customarily. This dress of white was not even the plain official dress of the ordinary priesthood, for that had a coloured girdle. Lots were then cast opon the two he-goats-one lot for Jehovah and one for .Azazel; and, according as the lots fell, so were they presented as living sacrifices before the altar. The ceremony of the expiation of the priesthood and the holy places then commenced. The bullock having been slain as a sin offering for himsel! and his house, the high priest filled the censer with embers from the altar of burnt offering and with incense, and placed the censer within the vail. Some of the blood of the ox was then sprinkled upon the mercy-seat and seven times upon the ground. A~onement was- afterwards made for the nation. The he-goat was slain, and its blood, having been taken into the holiest, was sprinkled as the blood of the ox had previously been. '.l.'he floor of the holy place was next sprinkled with blood, and the altars of incense and burnt offering. The expiation of the priesthood, tabernacle, and nation being now performed, an exquisitely symbolic act of forgiveness was gone through. The high- 1,riest placed both his hands upon the head of the live goat, confessed over it all the bins and transgression~ of the people, and sent it away by a man who was standing ready into the desert. The high priest then removed his white garments, purified THE LEVITIOAL SACRIFICES LITERALl.Y CONSIDERED. vii
himself at the laver, and, having donned his official robes, o:ff'ered the burnt offerings for himself and the people." Further, the Feast of Tabernacles, time of wild and often libidinous rejoicing as it was, hi.Id its specific ritual of gifts and atonement, adjusted to the several days during which it lasted. Seven days long were the booths standing in the sacred court, and a kind of retrogression was observed in the sacrificial procedll!'e. .As on the other fa,t days, a goat was daily offered as a sin offering. The number of rams and lambs was doubled, being two and fourteen respectively. But it was in the number of bullocks that the distinguishing feature of the feast appeared. Seventy bullocks in all were offered, these being so distributed tha.t, on the last day of the feast, seven were slain, eight on the day preceding, nine on the day previous to that, and so on, daily increasing by one until the total reached thirteen, the proportion slaughtered on the first day (comp. Exod. x:xili. 1 6 ; eh. :u.iii. 34-43; Numb. n i x . Deut. xvi. 1 2 - 3 8 ; 1 3 - 1 6 ;
xxxi. 1 0 - 1 3 ) .