Imamat 8:14-15

Consecration Offerings

8:14 Then he brought near the sin offering bull ¹  and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the sin offering bull, 8:15 and he slaughtered it. ²  Moses then took the blood and put it all around on the horns of the altar with his finger and decontaminated the altar, ³  and he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar and so consecrated it to make atonement on it. ⁴ 

Imamat 15:31

Summary of Purification Regulations for Bodily Discharges

15:31 “‘Thus you ⁵  are to set the Israelites apart from their impurity so that they ⁶  do not die in their impurity by defiling my tabernacle which is in their midst.

Imamat 16:15-19

16:15 “He must then slaughter the sin offering goat which is for the people. He is to bring its blood inside the veil-canopy, ⁷  and he is to do with its blood just as he did to the blood of the bull: He is to sprinkle it on the atonement plate and in front of the atonement plate. 16:16 So ⁸  he is to make atonement for the holy place from the impurities of the Israelites and from their transgressions with regard to all their sins, ⁹  and thus he is to do for the Meeting Tent which resides with them in the midst of their impurities. 16:17 Nobody is to be in the Meeting Tent ¹⁰  when he enters to make atonement in the holy place until he goes out, and he has made atonement on his behalf, on behalf of his household, and on behalf of the whole assembly of Israel.

16:18 “Then ¹¹  he is to go out to the altar which is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He is to take ¹²  some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it all around on the horns of the altar. 16:19 Then he is to sprinkle on it some of the blood with his finger seven times, and cleanse and consecrate it ¹³  from the impurities of the Israelites.

[8:14]  ¹ sn See Lev 4:3-12 above for the sin offering of the priests. In this case, however, the blood manipulation is different because Moses, not Aaron (and his sons), is functioning as the priest. On the one hand, Aaron and his sons are, in a sense, treated as if they were commoners so that the blood manipulation took place at the burnt offering altar in the court of the tabernacle (see v. 15 below), not at the incense altar inside the tabernacle tent itself (contrast Lev 4:5-7 and compare 4:30). On the other hand, since it was a sin offering for the priests, therefore, the priests themselves could not eat its flesh (Lev 4:11-12; 6:30 [23 HT]), which was the normal priestly practice for sin offerings of commoners (Lev 6:26[19], 29[22]).

[8:15]  ² sn Contrary to some English versions (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT), Aaron (not Moses) most likely slaughtered the bull, possibly with the help of his sons, although the verb is singular, not plural. Moses then performed the ritual procedures that involved direct contact with the altar. Compare the pattern in Lev 1:5-9, where the offerer does the slaughtering and the priests perform the procedures that involve direct contact with the altar. In Lev 8 Moses is functioning as the priest in order to consecrate the priesthood. The explicit reintroduction of the name of Moses as the subject of the next verb seems to reinforce this understanding of the passage (cf. also vv. 19 and 23 below).

[8:15]  ³ tn The verb is the Piel of חָטָא (khata’, “to sin”) and means “to de-sin” the altar. This verse is important for confirming the main purpose of the sin offering, which was to decontaminate the tabernacle and its furniture from any impurities. See the note on Lev 4:3.

[8:15]  ⁴ tn Similar to v. 10 above, “and consecrated it” refers to the effect of the blood manipulation earlier in the verse. The goal here was to consecrate the altar in order that it might become a place on which it would be appropriate “to make atonement” before the Lord.

[15:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “And you shall.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV).

[15:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “and they.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates a negative purpose (“lest,” so NAB, NASB).

[16:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he shall bring its blood into from house to the veil-canopy.”

[16:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.

[16:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “to all their sins.”

[16:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And all man shall not be in the tent of meeting.” The term for “a man, human being” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female.

[16:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) indicates the sequence of events here.

[16:18]  ¹² tn Heb “And he shall take.”

[16:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he shall purify it and he shall consecrate it.”