Leviticus 4:7
And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation; and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
Jump to: BarnesBensonBICalvinCambridgeClarkeDarbyEllicottExpositor'sExp DctGaebeleinGSBGillGrayGuzikHaydockHastingsHomileticsJFBKDKellyKingLangeMacLarenMHCMHCWParkerPoolePulpitSermonSCOTTBWESTSK
EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
(7) And the priest shall put.—That is, the high priest. With the finger thus dipped into it, he is to put some of the blood on each of the four horns of the golden altar on which the incense was offered.

This process, too, was peculiar to the sacrifice of the sin offering. The altar was placed in the holy place before the vail which separated off the holy of holies (Exodus 30:1-6). According to the practice which obtained in the time of Christ, the priest began by putting the blood first on the north-east horn, then on the north-west, then on the south-west, and, lastly, on the south-east horn. He dipped his finger in the blood of the bowl at the sprinkling of each horn, and wiped his finger on the edge of the bowl between the separate sprinklings, as the blood which remained on his finger from one horn was not deemed fit to be put on the other.

And shall pour all the blood.—That is, all the remaining blood. The bulk of the blood which remained, after expending the small quantity on the horns of the incense altar inside the sanctuary, the priest poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering, which stood outside the holy place. At the time of the second Temple, there were at the southwest horn of this altar two holes, like two nostrils, through which the blood ran into a drain conveying it into the brook of Kedron.

4:1-12 Burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and peace-offerings, had been offered before the giving of the law upon mount Sinai; and in these the patriarchs had respect to sin, to make atonement for it. But the Jews were now put into a way of making atonement for sin, more particularly by sacrifice, as a shadow of good things to come; yet the substance is Christ, and that one offering of himself, by which he put away sin. The sins for which the sin-offerings were appointed are supposed to be open acts. They are supposed to be sins of commission, things which ought not to have been done. Omissions are sins, and must come into judgment: yet what had been omitted at one time, might be done at another; but a sin committed was past recall. They are supposed to be sins committed through ignorance. The law begins with the case of the anointed priest. It is evident that God never had any infallible priest in his church upon earth, when even the high priest was liable to fall into sins of ignorance. All pretensions to act without error are sure marks of Antichrist. The beast was to be carried without the camp, and there burned to ashes. This was a sign of the duty of repentance, which is the putting away sin as a detestable thing, which our soul hates. The sin-offering is called sin. What they did to that, we must do to our sins; the body of sin must be destroyed, Ro 6:6. The apostle applies the carrying this sacrifice without the camp to Christ, Heb 13:11-13.Pour - All the blood that was left after the sprinkling and the smearing should be disposed of in such a manner as to suit the decorum of divine service. It had no sacrificial significance. Le 4:3-35. Sin Offering for the Priest.

3. If the priest that is anointed do sin—that is, the high priest, in whom, considering his character as typical mediator, and his exalted office, the people had the deepest interest; and whose transgression of any part of the divine law, therefore, whether done unconsciously or heedlessly, was a very serious offense, both as regarded himself individually, and the influence of his example. He is the person principally meant, though the common order of the priesthood was included.

according to the sin of the people—that is, bring guilt on the people. He was to take a young bullock (the age and sex being expressly mentioned), and having killed it according to the form prescribed for the burnt offerings, he was to take it into the holy place and sprinkle the atoning blood seven times before the veil, and tip with the crimson fluid the horns of the golden altar of incense, on his way to the court of the priests,—a solemn ceremonial appointed only for very grave and heinous offenses, and which betokened that his sin, though done in ignorance, had vitiated all his services; nor could any official duty he engaged in be beneficial either to himself or the people, unless it were atoned for by blood.

The altar of sweet incense which is in the tabernacle; the altar of burnt-offerings was without the tabernacle.

All the blood; so also below, Leviticus 4:18,30,34, to wit, all the rest, as it is expressed Leviticus 5:9, for part was disposed elsewhere.

And the priest shall put some of the blood,.... With his finger, which he dipped into it:

upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation; this was the golden altar on which incense was offered: it was placed before the vail, on the outside of it, in the holy place, see Exodus 30:1 and the priest, when he put the blood on the horns of it, began at the northeast horn, so to the northwest, then to the southwest, and last to the southeast (w); and the priest dipped his finger at every horn, and when he had finished at one horn, he wiped his finger at the edge of the basin, and after that dipped a second time; for what remained of the blood on his finger was not fit to put upon another horn (x). This rite shows, that the intercession of Christ, signified by the altar of sweet incense, proceeds upon the foot of his blood and sacrifice, Revelation 8:3 1 John 2:1,

and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; this altar stood without the holy place, and the altar of incense within; and after the priest had sprinkled of the blood of the bullock, upon the horns of the altar of incense, what remained he poured at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering; for though it is said "all" the blood, it can mean no more than what was left; wherefore the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "all the remaining blood": and Jarchi's explanatory note is, the rest of the blood. The place where this was poured, according to Maimonides (y), was the west bottom of the altar; and Gersom on the place observes the same. This denotes the efficacy of Christ's blood to make atonement for sin, and the reverent esteem it ought to be had in, being precious blood.

(w) Misn. Yoma, c. 5. sect. 5. Maimon. ib. (Maasch Hakorbanot c. 5.) sect. 10. 14. (x) Maimon. ib. sect. 8. (y) Ib. sect. 11.

And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the {e} tabernacle of the congregation; and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

(e) Which was in the court: meaning by the tabernacle the sanctuary: and in the end of this verse it is taken for the court.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
7. The ‘altar of sweet incense’ does not appear in Exodus 27-29 (Pg). It must therefore be ascribed to a secondary addition (p[43]) to the groundwork of the Priestly Code. See App. on P, pp. 174 f.

[43] (secondary enactments) combined with the earlier strata. See further, pp. 174 ff.

before the Lord] The cloud was on the mercy-seat upon the ark in tie Holy of Holies; the sprinkling before the veil of the sanctuary was a sprinkling ‘before the Lord.’ The two phrases describe the same action.

at the base of the altar] The base (bottom A.V.) is mentioned only in connexion with pouring out the blood of the Sin-Offering in this ch., and in Leviticus 5:9, Leviticus 8:15 (= Exodus 29:12), Leviticus 9:9.

the altar of burnt offering] A designation which marks ps[44]. In the legislation of Pg (see last note) there was no need for this distinction. There, accordingly, it was simply called ‘the altar’ (Leviticus 9:7-8 etc.) and so in Pt (ancient tôrôth; see App. on P, pp. 174 f.), e.g. in Leviticus 1:7 ff., Leviticus 2:2, Leviticus 3:2 ff. etc.

[44] (secondary enactments) combined with the earlier strata. See further, pp. 174 ff.

Leviticus 4:7The presentation, laying on of hands, and slaughtering, were the same as in the case of the other sacrifices (Leviticus 1:3-5). The first peculiarity occurs in connection with the blood (Leviticus 4:5-7). The anointed priest was to take (a part) of the blood and carry it into the tabernacle, and having dipped his finger in it, to sprinkle some of it seven times before Jehovah "in the face of the vail of the Holy" (Exodus 26:31), i.e., in the direction towards the curtain; after that, he was to put (נתן) some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of incense, and then to pour out the great mass of the blood, of which only a small portion had been used for sprinkling and smearing upon the horns of the altar, at the bottom of the altar of burnt-offering. A sevenfold sprinkling "in the face of the vail" also took place in connection with the sin-offering for the whole congregation, as well as with the ox and he-goat which the high priest offered as sin-offerings on the day of atonement for himself, the priesthood, and the congregation, when the blood was sprinkled seven times before (לפני) the capporeth (Leviticus 16:14), and seven times upon the horns of the altar (Leviticus 16:18-19). So too the blood of the red cow, that was slaughtered as a sin-offering outside the camp, was sprinkled seven times in the direction towards the tabernacle (Numbers 19:4). The sevenfold sprinkling at the feast of atonement had respect to the purification of the sanctuary from the blemishes caused by the sins of the people, with which they had been defiled in the course of the year (see at ch. 16), and did not take place till after the blood had been sprinkled once "against (? upon) the capporeth in front" for the expiation of the sin of the priesthood and people, and the horns of the altar had been smeared with the blood (Leviticus 16:14, Leviticus 16:18); whereas in the sin-offerings mentioned in this chapter, the sevenfold sprinkling preceded the application of the blood to the horns of the altar. This difference in the order of succession of the two manipulations with the blood leads to the conclusion, that in the case before us the sevenfold sprinkling had a different signification from that which it had on the day atonement, and served as a preliminary and introduction to the expiation. The blood also was not sprinkled upon the altar of the holy place, but only before Jehovah, against the curtain behind which Jehovah was enthroned, that is to say, only into the neighbourhood of the gracious presence of God; and this act was repeated seven times, that in the number seven, as the stamp of the covenant, the covenant relation, which sin had loosened, might be restored. It was not till after this had been done, that the expiatory blood of the sacrifice was put upon the horns of the altar, - not merely sprinkled or swung against the wall of the altar, but smeared upon the horns of the altar; not, however, that the blood might thereby be brought more prominently before the eyes of God, or lifted up into His more immediate presence, as Hoffmann and Knobel suppose, but because the significance of the altar, as the scene of the manifestation of the divine grace and salvation, culminated in the horns, as the symbols of power and might. In the case of the sin-offerings for the high priest and the congregation, the altar upon which this took place was not the altar of burnt-offering in the court, but the altar of incense in the holy place; because both the anointed priest, by virtue of his calling and consecration as the mediator between the nation and the Lord, and the whole congregation, by virtue of its election as a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6), were to maintain communion with the covenant God in the holy place, the front division of the dwelling-place of Jehovah, and were thus received into a closer relation of fellowship with Jehovah than the individual members of the nation, for whom the court with its altar was the divinely appointed place of communion with the covenant God. The remainder of the blood, which had not been used in the act of expiation, was poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt-offering, as the holy place to which all the sacrificial blood was to be brought, that it might be received into the earth.
Links
Leviticus 4:7 Interlinear
Leviticus 4:7 Parallel Texts


Leviticus 4:7 NIV
Leviticus 4:7 NLT
Leviticus 4:7 ESV
Leviticus 4:7 NASB
Leviticus 4:7 KJV

Leviticus 4:7 Bible Apps
Leviticus 4:7 Parallel
Leviticus 4:7 Biblia Paralela
Leviticus 4:7 Chinese Bible
Leviticus 4:7 French Bible
Leviticus 4:7 German Bible

Bible Hub














Leviticus 4:6
Top of Page
Top of Page