Leviticus 22:17-25

Directions as to the quality of offerings

This passage retains clear signs of a remarkably composite character. Leviticus 22:17 aindicate (-unto Aaron, and to his sons," -unto all etc.") that what follows is a blending of directions referring to priests and to the people. But further, Leviticus 22:21 presents what is virtually a repetition of the directions in Leviticus 22:18, while the differences in phraseology between the two point to diversity of origin. We notice further that the classes of offerings dealt with differ, viz. Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings respectively, while each of these have the same sub-divisions, i.e. Vows and Freewill-Offerings, the former passage making no reference to other classes of Burnt-Offerings, such as the Sin-Offerings and Guilt-Offerings (4, 5), and the latter ignoring the third species, viz. Thank-Offering (see Leviticus 22:29), included (Leviticus 7:12) under the genus Peace-Offering. Moreover, within the parallelism (Leviticus 22:18 as compared with Leviticus 22:21) there are marked differences in phraseology (e.g. -of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the goats," Leviticus 22:19, -of the herd or of the flock," Leviticus 22:21). For other differences see Oxf. Hex., which further points out the frequent changes in number and person in 18 a20 as indicating successive editorial revisions.