The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 35

of individual sacrifices were, there was nn element of freedom in some, and of limitation in all; and llB mnnifestly ne the burnt offerings and peace offerings were purely volun- tary, it is equally evident that the sin offerings and trespass offerings were largely influenced by time and space. A Jew who lived remote from Jernsalem, for example, might know the Law, but could not possibly fulfil it; thus there would be, even with the enthusiastically religious, a more probable remembrance and observance upon certain set occasions, such as the annual feasts. Nor must the hardness of the human heart be forgotten, and the rare virtue of living up to spiritual privileges. Still, the supposition is that we are standing in the court of the tabernacle on a New Year's Day. Although not dignified with the importance of Pentecost or the great Da.y of Atonement, it is still a. festal day, and offerings of many kinds will certainly be presented. At one hour, full of gratitude to God, and anxious for service and self-abnegation, a man brings his bull, or his ram, or his goat, for a burnt offering, according to his means and inclination, whilst his poorer neighbour presents his pair of pigeons. The customary ritual is gone through, each stage of which is symbolically expressive of the act and method of consecration, until the holocaust rises "as an offering of fire of a sweet savour unto Jehovah," and the deed of personal consecration is complete. At anotheT time it is an omission of some sacred duty which is to be remembered before the Lord, and in that obedience which is dearer even than sacrifice, an Israelite from the ranks is leading his spotless shaggy she-goat to the altar, when again the ceremonies of presentation, of imposition, and of slaughter are carefully gone through, each stage in the sanguinary proceeding having its own spiritual suggestiveness for the religiously minded, the blood is smeared upon the horns of the altar to bring the medium of atonement befora the Lord, and, the expiation for the unwitting sin being ended, the offerer walks away, mentally at rest. Or perhaps it is a trespass offering which is being brought in repentant recollection of some deed of fraud, a kind of conscience money; in acknow- ledgment of wrong done to God as well as man, the substitutionary ram is presented and slain, whilst the story of the fraud is told over the head of the slaughtered beast, the priest placing a judicial value upon the wrong done to Jehovah, and accepting the ram in lieu thereof, a mon~tary recompense being made to the injured neighbour. Or it may be a peace offering which is brought by a whole family in joyful recognition of the Divine goodness, the priest being welcomed to the hallowed society; the victim is slain, and the sin presrnt even in such united religious joy atoned; and the feasi follows within the sacred precincts of the holy place-a love feast indeed, n banquet where" the banner over them was love." Or, descending to the less frequent instances of the Levitical ceremonial, " now a Hel>rew woman, but recently a mother, is modestly presenting herself with her offering of pigeons; and now the high priest is passing through the gate of the court, attended by a Levite carrying birds and scarlet wool and hyssop-he has been summoned without the camp to examine a restored leper. Anon an application is made for the means of purifying some tent where the dead is lying. At one hour a householder is compounding for the property which be has voluntarily vowed unto the Lord; the next, a Nazaritc, with unshorn hair and beard is presenting the prescribed sacrifices for release from his vow." Such might have been the sights afforded to the observer by a single day. From early morning to the hour of the evening sacrifice there was oftentimcs, wo may assume, one long series of presentations by nil grades of people and for nil varieties of experience; and a similar course was pursued the whole year round, as we shall presently detail at more length after a brief digression which is rather a further explanation. To test the usefulness and the sufficiency of tho explanatory principles already deduced, let attention be concentrated upon two of those peculiar ceremonies which niv THE LEVITICAL SACRIFICES LITERALLY CONSIDERED.