In
Deuteronomy it has been possible to find anything surprising in
the joyous meals only because people are wont to know their Old
Testament merely through the perspective of the Priestly Code;
at most the only peculiar thing in that book is a certain humane
application of the festal offering, the offerer being required to
invite to it the poor and landless of his acquaintance. But this
is a development which harmonises much more with the old idea of
an offering as a communion between God and man than does the other
self-sufficing general churchly sacrifice. The passover alone
continues in the Priestly Code also to be a sacrificial meal, and
participation therein to be restricted to the family or a limited
society. But this last remnant of the old custom shows itself here
as a peculiar exception; the festival in the house instead of
"before Jehovah " has also something ambiguous about it, and turns
the sacrifice into an entirely profane act of slaughtering
almost--until we come to the rite of expiation, which is
characteristically retained (Exodus xii. 7; comp. Ezekiel xiv. 19).
Of a piece with this is the circumstance that the "first-fruits"
of the season have come to be separated from the festivals still
more than had been previously the case.
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