The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 28

offerer forcibly laid his hand upon its hoad j his hand, not his slave's ; bis hand, not hi11- substitute's, nor his wife's, but his own band "-to retranslate what Outram extracted from the Talmud. There was a forcible imposition of the hand upon the head of the victim by the offerer, whoever be might be, whether priest or layman, king or elder, And this act was singularly eloquent. Again refraining from entering int.o the protracted con- tro'l'ersy as to the meaning of the rite (discussed in the writer's previous work), suffice- it to say that this act was a dedication of the victim to the purpose for which it was brought. Perfunctory worship Jehovah would not have, and as the deliberate act of presentation kept the mind of the offerer awake to the importance of the rite in which he was engaging, so the deliberate act of the imposition of the hand kept the mind awake to the same great object, Just as the presentation said, "This is my deliberat& a',t," so the imposition of the hand implied, "This is my deliberate gift." The act of slaughter. This, be it observed, was always performed by the offerer (possibly assisted or guided by the Levites), and hence its significance. In offering an animal, he was bringing before God au atonement as well as a presentation. Bd atonement was by the blood, not by the living animal. Whilst, therefore, sacrifice as a gift was complete when the victim was dedicated to sacred purposes in the two first ritual acts already described and explained, sacrifice as au atonement was not complete until the blood was given to the priest. In the act of slaughter by his own hand, the offerer obediently brought before God the blood of atonement.. The slaughtering was important 3s the consummation of the act of sacrifice by the presentation of the at.oning blood before the Lord. The heaving and waving. Sometimes a peculiar swinging of the offering was appended to the other acts of presentation, called "heaving" and "waving" (therumah and thenupha). This detail was enjoined in the consecration of the Levites and priests, in the vow of the Nazarite, in the offering of jealousy, in the cleansing of the leprous, in the thank offerings and the tithes. Nor are the movements themselves difficult to trace. " Heaving" was a perpendicular motion from below upwards, a swinging from earth towards heaven. "Waving n has been very differently understood. Some of the early Protestant ex:egetes regarded " waving" as making the sign of the cross, in which they found some mysterious reference to the crucifixion of Jesus; Hengsteuhurg and Bahr accept this interpretation whilst rejecting the inference. Oesenius, Thalhofer, Keil, Knobel, Schultz, and Oehler seem to regard thenupha as a mere synonym of thehiah, and as forming no distinct pa.rt of the ceremonial ; in which view there is both truth and falsity, the" waving" being assureclly a part of the act of presentation, but a part of the ritual distinctly emphasized. All Wangemanu has pointed out, the compilers of the :Mishn.a--110 mean authorities on the details of ancient worshi~regard this move- ment of heniph as a "going and coming," as if "waving" were a horizontal movement backwards and forwards. With this certain passages in the Old Testament coincide. Thus Isa.iah calls .the swinging of an axe "waving," as also the angry shake of the threatening finger. Ou the whole, therefore, this significant act of the officiator would seem to be a more emphatic presentation. The priest took the offering aud ." heaved " it towards heaven, as if presenting it to the Deity who had made the heavens his throne, and then returned the gift to the altar by a " waving" process, which only differed from the reverse of" heaving" by the ex:en ise of force to counteract gravity, and place the limb or the firstfruits, for example, upon the altar. The signiflcanu of the manipulation, with the blood. Although this act varied in the several kinds of sacrifice, it was nevertheless invariably a more or less complete pouring forth of the life-blood before the Lord. The rabbinical interpreters of the Law divided the manipulation in question into three acts-lekicha, 6erilca, and shnpiclta. To  THE LEVI'flCAL SACRIFICES LITERALLY CONSIDERED. xvil