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 

Imamat 6:25

6:25 “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered the sin offering must be slaughtered before the Lord. It is most holy. ⁸ 

Imamat 7:7

7:7 The law is the same for the sin offering and the guilt offering; ⁹  it belongs to the priest who makes atonement with it.

Imamat 8:2

8:2 “Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, the anointing oil, the sin offering bull, the two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread,

Imamat 8:14

Consecration Offerings

8:14 Then he brought near the sin offering bull ¹⁰  and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the sin offering bull,

Bilangan 6:11

6:11 Then the priest will offer one for a purification offering ¹¹  and the other ¹²  as a burnt offering, ¹³  and make atonement ¹⁴  for him, because of his transgression ¹⁵  in regard to the corpse. So he must reconsecrate ¹⁶  his head on that day.

[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.

[6:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “holiness of holinesses [or holy of holies] it is.” Cf. NAB “most sacred”; CEV “very sacred”; TEV “very holy.”

[7:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “like the sin offering like the guilt offering, one law to them.”

[8:14]  ¹⁰ 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]).

[6:11]  ¹¹ tn The traditional translation of חַטָּאת (khatta’t) is “sin offering,” but it is more precise to render it “purification offering” (as with the other names of sacrifices) to show the outcome, not the cause of the offering (see Lev 4). Besides, this offering was made for ritual defilements (for which no confession was required) as well as certain sins (for which a confession of sin was required). This offering restored the person to the ritual state of purity by purifying the area into which he would be going.

[6:11]  ¹² tn The repetition of “the one…and the one” forms the distributive sense of “the one…and the other.”

[6:11]  ¹³ tn The burnt offering (Lev 1) reflects the essence of atonement: By this sacrifice the worshiper was completely surrendering to God, and God was completely accepting the worshiper.

[6:11]  ¹⁴ tn The verb וְכִפֶּר (vÿkhipper) is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The meaning of the verb is “to expiate, pacify, atone.” It refers to the complete removal of the barrier of fellowship between the person and God, and the total acceptance of that person into his presence. The idea of “to cover,” often linked to this meaning, is derived from a homonym, and not from this word and its usage.

[6:11]  ¹⁵ tn The verb “to sin” has a wide range of meanings, beginning with the idea of “missing the way or the goal.” In view of the nature of this case – the prescribed ritual without confession – the idea is more that he failed to keep the vow’s stipulations in this strange circumstance than that he committed intentional sin.

[6:11]  ¹⁶ tn The verb simply means “to consecrate,” but because it refers to a vow that was interrupted, it must here mean to “reconsecrate.”