Leviticus 5:1-13

Leviticus 4:1 to Leviticus 5:13. The Sin Offering. This, and the guilt offering, whose ritual follows, are unknown before the Exile, save as fines (2 Kings 12:16; Amos 2:8). Ezek. mentions both, but is conscious of no difference between them. Probably the distinction between them grew up gradually (see on Ezekiel 5:14 ff.). The ritual is derived partly from that of the burnt offering and peace offering; partly from other old rites. No idea of substitution seems to be implied (though it is true that a ritual tablet from Babylonia states that idea very clearly; the life of the kid has he given for his own life, its head for his head, etc.), since the sin offering is most holy, a term which could not be applied to the offerer; a meal offering is included, as if the sacrifice were thought of originally as an offering of food; and the sacrifice is offered for sins not demanding death, though the victim is always killed, and by the worshipper. [Observe also that were the sacrifice substitutionary, the chief point would be the slaughter. But it was rather the manipulation of the blood. A. S. P.] On the other hand, the conception of a gift or payment in return for a wrong done is prominent throughout. The offerer has no more share in his offering than in the case of the burnt offering, though the priest has. This becomes clearer when it is seen that sin is used, not of deliberate disobedience or defiance of Yahweh's moral law, but more particularly of ritual or ceremonial mistakes or defilement committed through inadvertence or ignorance. The sin offering often accompanies other sacrifices; in Ezek., the consecration of the altar (Ezekiel 43:19). While the later legislation thus purifies the sacrificial ritual from anything that could remotely savour of irreverence, it is very far from the standpoint of Psalms 51; it simply perpetuates, for good and evil, the primitive conception of sin as an infraction of the restrictions or taboos imposed on human conduct by the deity. The main characteristics of the sin offering are the killing of the victim by the worshipper and the pouring out of the blood, as in the burnt offering; the flesh is burnt outside the camp or eaten by the priest, i.e. it is most holy. The manipulation of the blood, however, is more complicated (cf. Leviticus 4:5 ff.), and different kinds of animals are to be offered, according to the rank of the offerer High Priest, congregation, ruler, private person, or the poor. The seven times repeated sprinkling of the blood before Yahweh (Leviticus 4:6) recalls the ritual of ch. 16; both may well be among the latest developments of Priestly legislation.