[The Temple sacrificial system remains a curiosity for ex-Christians, specifically to us, Sinaites. If it is not at all intended to point to the supreme sacrifice by God-Man Mediator Jesus Christ who sheds his blood for the salvation of all mankind (according to Christian theology), then what were the animal sacrifices all about?
Why would the God of Israel not only give specific details about what/where/how and not specifically spell out the ‘why’ for the slaughter of animals for sacrifice? The very design of the wilderness tabernacle and its minimal furniture seems to be for this very purpose, since how could we even imagine that this small portable movable tent could be the dwelling place of the infinite Creator God of the universe?
On our own, we have figured out this much:
- Israelites were exposed to pagan religions which included sacrifice of not only animals but humans as well, specifically virgins and babies, always the helpless but supposedly ‘pure’ among the populace who cannot protest their being the sacrificial offering even if they wanted to.
- Israelites were acculturated to such practices and needed to be weaned from the tendency to sacrifice to a god; it took them centuries to get idolatry out of their system.
- So, in YHWH’s wisdom, not to forget patience and forbearance, He used the sacrificial system already entrenched in the cultures of those times but with a difference; He set parameters that would teach them many lessons in the process.
- The very absence of both a Tabernacle/Temple today—the only places where sacrifices to YHWH are to be brought—seems to evince that this is merely a phase in maturing a confused slave populace that had yet to learn how to serve their new Master, YHWH, according to the Ways He requires of them.
- Of course Christianity teaches the Temple has been destroyed after the One Final Supreme Sacrifice had been fulfilled; this teaching requires another article so we will reserve it for a related post.
Meanwhile, since the very people to whom the Torah was entrusted have studied every aspect of YHWH’s instructions for Israel specifically, we will include the commentary on this chapter from one of our excellent resource books; Pentateuch & Haftarahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz, interspersed with the related verse. We are in process of changing our official website translation from our former to EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1]
P&H: “Holiness in Meat Foods” — This chapter may be looked upon as supplementary to the first part of Leviticus. It ordains that meat-foods must be free from idolatrous taint. This taint assumed two forms: sacrificing to ‘satyrs’ (v. 7), and eating the blood (10-14).
Leviticus/Wayyiqrah 17
1 YHVH spoke to Moshe, saying:
2 Speak to Aharon and to his sons and to all the Children of Israel, and say to them: This is the word that YHVH has commanded, saying:
3 Any-man, any-man of the House of Israel who slays an ox or a sheep or a goat in the camp or who slays (it) outside the camp,
2 Speak to Aharon and to his sons and to all the Children of Israel, and say to them: This is the word that YHVH has commanded, saying:
3 Any-man, any-man of the House of Israel who slays an ox or a sheep or a goat in the camp or who slays (it) outside the camp,
3-7. On Slaying Animals for Food
v. 3. killeth an ox. Evidently refers to a time when the slaughtering of animals for food was rare, and only at a family festivity or other formal gathering was meat consumed. During the wandering in the Wilderness the people lived on manna; and only exceptionally would it happen that an animal was slaughtered for consumption. Every such slaughtering had to be a sacrificial act; it had to take place at the Sanctuary; and it was deemed a peace-offering. In Deut. xii, 20f, the law is modified in anticipation of the fact that Israel would soon be spread over a large area; for the requirement that every animal killed for food should be brought to the Sanctuary could apply only when the entire Community lived in the closest proximity to it.
According to the Rabbis this section refers only to animals intended as sacrifices—that they must not be offered except at the door of the Tabernacle.
4 and to the entrance of the Tent of Appointment does not bring it, to bring-it-near as a near-offering to YHVH before the Dwelling of YHVH: bloodguilt is to be reckoned to that man, blood has he shed, that man is to be cut off from amid his kinspeople-
v. 4 blood shall be imputed. ‘Blood’ is here used in the sense of ‘the guilt of the blood’, as in Deut. XXI,8. He is regarded as though he had shed blood, and thereby incurs a severe penalty.
be cut off. The offender was not to be punished by an earthly tribunal. The penalty was what the Rabbis term ‘death by the hand of Heaven’.
5 in order that the Children of Israel may bring their slaughter-offerings that they are slaughtering in the open field, that they may bring them to YHVH, to the entrance of the Tent of Appointment, to the priest, and slaughter them as slaughter-offerings of shalom to YHVH.
v. 5 which they sacrifice. i.e., which they had up to now sacrificed upon ‘high places’ in the open field.
peace offerings. [thanksgiving-offerings] In peace-offerings the offerer had a share of the sacrifice.
6 The priest is to dash their blood against the slaughter-site of YHVH, at the entrance of the Tent of Appointment, and is to turn the fat into smoke as a soothing savor to YHVH-
7 that they may slaughter no longer their slaughter-offerings to the hairy (goat-demons) after whom they go whoring. A law for the ages shall this be for them, throughout their generations.
7 that they may slaughter no longer their slaughter-offerings to the hairy (goat-demons) after whom they go whoring. A law for the ages shall this be for them, throughout their generations.
v.7 [Sa’iyim] satyrs. lit. ‘goats.’ They were deemed to be sylvan gods or demons who inhabited waste places (Isa. XIII, 21; XXXIV) the worship of the goat, accompanied by the foulest rites, prevailed in Lower Egypt. This was familiar to the Israelites, and God desired to wean them from it. (cf.Josh.XXIV, 14; Ezek. XX,7)
Some commentators point to this verse as giving a main purpose of the sacrificial system in the Torah; viz. gradually to wean Israel away from primitive ideas and idolatrous practices. The manner of worship in use among the peoples of antiquity was retained, but that worship was now directed towards the One and Only God. ‘By this Divine plan, idolatry was eradicated, and the vital principle of our Faith, the existence and unity of God, was firmly established–without confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of the sacrificial worship, to which they were accustomed’ (Maimonides).
8 And to them you are (also) to say: Any-man, any-man of the House of Israel or of the sojourners that sojourn in their midst who offers-up an offering-up or a slaughter-offering
9 and to the Tent of Appointment does not bring it, to perform-as-sacrifice to YHVH: cut off shall that man be from his kinspeople!
9 and to the Tent of Appointment does not bring it, to perform-as-sacrifice to YHVH: cut off shall that man be from his kinspeople!
8-9. The actual offering of the sacrifice as well as its slaughtering must on no account be performed at any place except at that Sanctuary. This prohibition applies not only to Israelites, but also to those strangers who had been completely incorporated in Israel.
10-14. Blood Not To Be Eaten
10 And any-man, any-man of the House of Israel or of the sojourners that sojourn in their midst that eats any blood: I set my face against the person who eats the blood; I will cut him off from amid his kinspeople!
10. eateth any manner of blood. The prohibition, which included the eating of flesh containing blood, has been stated in general terms in Lev. III,17; VII, 26 f.
The reason for these repeated solemn injunctions is not given. The purpose may be to take man’s instincts of violence by weaning him from blood, and implanting within him a horror of all bloodshed. The slaying of animals for food was in time taken away altogether from the ordinary Israelite, and was relegated to a body of pious and specially trained men, Shochetim. These injunctions have undoubtedly contributed to render the Israelites a humane people. ‘Consider the one circumstance that no Jewish mother ever killed a chicken with her own hand, and you will understand why homicide is rarer among Jews than among any other human group (A. Leroy Beaulieu).
The Jewish method of slaughter (Shechitah) causes the maximum effusion of blood in the animal; and the remaining blood is extracted by means of the washing and salting of the meat. In regard to the terms nevelah and terefah in v. 15, the flesh of an animal that died of itself (sevelah), or was torn by beasts (terefah), is emphatically forbidden. The latter term (terefah) includes flesh of all animals ritually slaughtered but found to contain injuries or organic diseases, whether patent or determined by inspection of the animal after Shechitah. Animals not killed strictly in the prescribed Jewish manner are technically also termed nevelah. The flesh of animals which are not found on Rabbinic inspection to be sound is forbidden food.
11 For the life of the flesh-it is in the blood; I (myself) have given it to you upon the slaughter-site, to effect-ransom for your lives, for the blood-it effects-ransom for life!
11. life of the flesh. The vital principle of the animal was in the blood. While life and blood are not quite identical, the blood is the principal carrier of life. With heavy loss of blood, vital powers dwindle; and if the loss continues, they cease altogether. Blood is therefore something sacred. It is withdrawn from ordinary use as an article of food, and reserved for a sacred symbolic purpose.
I have given you. i.e., I have appointed it to be placed on the Altar on your behalf. These words effectually dispose of any idea that the life of the animal presented to God was intended as a bribe. The blood on the Altar was for the spiritual welfare of the worshipper, not for the gratification of God.
maketh atonement by reason of the life. Which it contains. The use of the blood, representing life, in the rites of atonement symbolized the complete yielding up of the worshipper’s life to God, and conveyed the thought that the surrender of a man to the will of God carried with it the assurance of Divine pardon.
12 Therefore I say to the Children of Israel: Every person among you is not to eat blood, and the sojourner that sojourns in your midst is not to eat blood.
12. therefore I said. i.e. because the life resides in the blood, for that reason is its consumption prohibited.
13 And any-man, any-man of the Children of Israel or of the sojourner that sojourns in your midst who hunts any hunted wild-animal or a bird that may be eaten is to pour out its blood and cover it with the dust.
13. cover it with dust. The blood being the symbol of life, it had to be treated in a reverent manner, in the same way that a corpse must not be left exposed. The covering with dust was the equivalent of burial in the case of a dead body. According to Hoffmann,the exhortation to act reverently in regard to the blood of an animal was not liable to be forgotten in connection with animals that were admitted as sacrifices, but some reminder was necessary in the case of those other animals that could not be brought as sacrifices; hence the command to cover the blood.
14 For the life of all flesh-its blood is its life! So I say to the Children of Israel: The blood of all flesh you are not to eat, for the life of all flesh-it is its blood, everyone eating it shall be cut off!
15 And any person that eats a carcass, or an animal-torn-to-pieces, among the native-born or among the sojourners, when he scrubs his garments and washes in water, and remains-tamei until sunset- then he is pure.
16 But if he does not scrub (them), and his flesh he does not wash, he continues-to-bear his iniquity!
15 And any person that eats a carcass, or an animal-torn-to-pieces, among the native-born or among the sojourners, when he scrubs his garments and washes in water, and remains-tamei until sunset- then he is pure.
16 But if he does not scrub (them), and his flesh he does not wash, he continues-to-bear his iniquity!
v. 15-16 CARCASS which causes defilement
15. a stranger. A full proselyte, otherwise, he was not debarred from eating it; see Deut. XIV,
16. he shall bear his iniquity. Should he enter the Sanctuary, or partake of sacred food.