The burnt-offering, it is true, still continues to be a
meal, if only a one-sided one, of which God alone partakes; but
in the case of the sin-offering everything is kept far out of sight
which could recall a meal, as, for example, the accompaniments of
meal and wine, oil and salt; of the flesh no portion reaches the
altar, it all goes as a fine to the priest. Now, of this kind of
sacrifice, which has an enormous importance in the Priestly Code,
not a single trace occurs in the rest of the Old Testament before
Ezekiel, neither in the Jehovist and Deuteronomist, nor in the
historical and prophetical books. /1/
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1. How great is the difference in Deuteronomy xxi. 1-9; how very
remote the sacrificial idea!
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`Olah and Zebah comprehend all animal sacrifices, `Olah and Minhah,
or Zebah and Minhah, all sacrifices whatsoever; nowhere is a special
kind of sacrifice for atonement met with (1Samuel iii. 14).
Hos. iv. 8 does indeed say: "They eat the sin of my people, and they
are greedy for its guilts," but the interpretation which will have it
that the priests are here reproached with in the first instance
themselves inducing the people to falsification of the sacred dues,
in order to make these up again with the produce of the sin and
trespass offerings, is either too subtle or too dull.
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