Keluaran 29:14

29:14 But the meat of the bull, its skin, and its dung you are to burn up ¹  outside the camp. ²  It is the purification offering. ³ 

Imamat 4:3

For the Priest

4:3 “‘If the high priest ⁴  sins so that the people are guilty, ⁵  on account of the sin he has committed he must present a flawless young bull to the Lord ⁶  for a sin offering. ⁷ 

[29:14]  ¹ tn Heb “burn with fire.”

[29:14]  ² sn This is to be done because there is no priesthood yet. Once they are installed, then the sin/purification offering is to be eaten by the officiating priests as a sign that the offering was received. But priests could not consume their own sin offering.

[29:14]  ³ sn There were two kinds of “purification offering,” those made with confession for sin and those made without. The title needs to cover both of them, and if it is called in the traditional way “the sin offering,” that will convey that when people offered it for skin diseases, menstruation, or having babies, they had sinned. That was not the case. Moreover, it is usual to translate the names of the sacrifices by what they do more than what they cover – so peace offering, reparation offering, and purification offering.

[4:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the anointed priest” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). This refers to the high priest (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “to the guilt of the people”; NRSV “thus bringing guilt on the people.”

[4:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he shall offer on his sin which he sinned, a bull, a son of the herd, flawless.”

[4:3]  ⁷ sn The word for “sin offering” (sometimes translated “purification offering”) is the same as the word for “sin” earlier in the verse. One can tell which rendering is intended only by the context. The primary purpose of the “sin offering” (חַטָּאת, khatta’t) was to “purge” (כִּפֶּר, kipper, “to make atonement,” see 4:20, 26, 31, 35, and the notes on Lev 1:4 and esp. Lev 16:20, 33) the sanctuary or its furniture in order to cleanse it from any impurities and/or (re)consecrate it for holy purposes (see, e.g., Lev 8:15; 16:19). By making this atonement the impurities of the person or community were cleansed and the people became clean. See R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:93-103.