The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 38

capable of proclaiming, in sanctuary, in palace, in market, in house, and in tent, religious truths of the highest importance. 'l'o this daily observance let the additional observances of the various festal seasons be added, and it will become yet more manifest how admirably this cultus of sacrifice at once educated and ministered to the Jewish phasis of religion. From the 2nd of Abib to the 10th, the customary daily celebration of Divine service was obser'l'ed, the interval being abnormally broken into solely by the increased consecration called for and symbolized by the double burnt offering of tho sabbath. When God was especially remembered, man was to be especially consecrated. With the 10th of Abib came the Paschal feast, continued more or less till the Feast of Pentecost. And very full of spiritual suggestions was this opening festival of the year, every detail of the rites enjoined tending to deepen those suggestions. In its first institution, as we have seen, the Passover was a sacrificial admission to covenant rights, and every subsequent celebration thereof was at once a remembrance and a repetition of that initiatory ceremonial From this fundamental significance all the peculiarities of this sacrifice follow. Thus the Paschal lamb was neither a sin offering pure and simple nor a peace offering; it did not in many important points come beneath the laws of the acknowledged sacrificial ritual It was a kind of inclusive sacrifice, which conveyed the prominent teaching of several forms of sacrifice under one suggestive fonn. Thus first and foremost the Paschal lamb was an atonement of so potent a nature as to arrest the destroying arm of the angel of death, and of so emphatic a ritual as to be brought more into contact with the several households of the tribes than was the case in any other festal season. The time allowed to elapse between the selection of the victim and its slaughter, the minute injunctions for the ,sprinkling of the blood upon the lintel and doorposts, the command that no bone of the lamb was to be broken, the strict command that what remained was to be burnt by fire, the rapid manner of partaking,-all pointed to the offering as less intended for a feast than an atonement, and laid very exceptional stress upon the neutralizing power of the effused blood. Certain features of the feast were undoubtedly ordained because of the peculiar position of the Israelites in Egypt, and if that position be borne in mind, and the fundamental significance of the Passover as the great initiatory rite, all the superficial difficulties of the narrative are removed. It is, of course, not denied, but strongly believed, that there are features in this institution which nothing but the fulfilment of the type could perfectly explain, and which are the outcome of distinct Divine prevision; at the same time, it is contended that even so extraordinary a command as that of keeping the skeleton intact was intelligible to the Jew as a natural consequence of what he was able to apprehend of the meaning of the Passover. Possibly even this nineteenth century is a record of many facts likewise which seem to us to be of a present import only, which will only receive an adequate explanation in tho light of a coming dispensation, Similarly with the following days of the Paschal feast and with the day of Pentecost, all the details of the injunctions relative thereto are nothing but exemplifications divinely prearranged of the leading fact taught thereby of the Feast of Consecration. Therefore, for example, was the pleasure of leavened bread eschewed; therefore were the firstfruits presented. Nor need we go outside the principles already deduced for explanation of the remain- ing feasts and their observances. Pentecost past, the year rolled upon its course for a time, it is true, in a more lc,vel manner, the regularity of the daily celebration being only interrupted by the sabbatic and lunar formalities, every day, therefore, a kind of gospel being proclaimed of Divine mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation, with its invariable poijtulatee of human sin and decadence, death and guilt. At length came  THE LEVI'flCAL SACRIFICES LITERALLY CONSIDERED. x.xvii