THE PENTATEUCH PART II: EXODUS
Lesson 15: Exodus chapters 29-30
Instructions for the Ordination of the Priesthood and the Instructions for the Completion of the Sanctuary
You created Israel to be a priestly nation. You gave Your Old Covenant people an earthly Sanctuary and an ordained priesthood to lead Israel and all mankind on a liturgical trajectory toward a promised liturgical destiny " worship in the heavenly Sanctuary. Our New Covenant priesthood, like the Old Covenant priesthood, serves Your New Covenant people in the same way, providing right worship in the joining of earthly and heavenly liturgy that sustains Your people on their journey through the wilderness of this earthly existence but which holds the promise of entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary for those who choose to remain faithful and obedient. Guide us now, Lord, as we study Your instructions to Moses on the consecration of Aaron and his sons as Your holy priests ordained to offer acceptable sacrifice on Your holy altar. We pray in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Liturgy: Latin liturgia; from the Greek leitos, "of the people" + ergon, "work;" leitourgia, "public duty," "public worship."
He raised up Aaron, a holy man like Moses, his brother, of the tribe of Levi. He made an everlasting covenant with him, and gave him the priesthood of the people. He adorned him with impressive vestments; he dressed him in a robe of glory. He clothed him in glorious perfection and invested him with rich ornaments, the breeches, the long robe, the ephod. To surround the robe he gave him pomegranates, and many gold veils all round to chime at every step, for their sound to a be heard in the Temple as a reminder to the children of his people and a sacred vestment of gold and aquamarine and scarlet, the work of an embroiderer; the pectoral of judgment, the urim and thummim, of plaited crimson, the work of a craftsman; precious stones cut like seals mounted in gold, the work of a jeweler, as a reminder with their engraved inscriptions of the number of the tribes of Israel; and a golden diadem on his turban, engraved with the seal of consecration; superb ornamentation, magnificent work, adornment to delight the eye. There had never been such lovely things before him, and no one else has ever put them on, but only his own sons, and his descendants for all time. Sirach 45:7-13
The chosen people was constituted by God as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But within the people of Israel, God chose one of the twelve tribes, that of Levi, and set it apart for liturgical service; God himself is its inheritance. A special rite consecrated the beginnings of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. The priests are "appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins." CCC 1539
Since the Fall of man the need for sacrifice acknowledged man's sinful condition and the need for atonement and forgiveness to reestablish communion with God. However, in the Sinai covenant for the first time in salvation history, offering God sacrifice and worship was no longer the obligation of the extended family but became a public duty of God's united covenant community family, mediated by an ordained priesthood. The building of the earthly Sanctuary was only the first step in the restitution of the relationship with God that man enjoyed in the Edenic Sanctuary. Moses was the covenant mediator of the Law of the Covenant that made the covenant people aware of their sins, but Aaron and his sons were to be the priestly mediators of the liturgy of blood sacrifice that restored the people to fellowship with Yahweh. In the Sinai Covenant liturgy, the offering of the public work of sacrifice and worship, became the established trajectory for salvation. It is a trajectory that points towards the eternal destiny for which mankind was created "communal worship of God in the heavenly Sanctuary in the company of saints and angels.
Chapter 29: The Instructions for the Consecration of Aaron and his Sons
Please read Exodus 29:1-9: The Instructions for their
Purification and Anointing
29:1 This is what you will do to them, to consecrate them to my priesthood. Take one young bull and two rams without blemish; 2also unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil, made from fine wheat flour, 3and put these into a basket and present them in the basket, at the same time as the bull and the two rams. 4You will bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and bathe them. 5You will then take the vestments and dress Aaron in the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, andthe breastplate, and tie the waistband of the ephod round his waist. 6Then you will place the turban on his head, and on it put the symbol of holy consecration. 7You will then take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and so anoint him. 8Next, you will bring his sons and dress them in tunics, 9and fasten waistbands round their waists and put the head-dresses on their heads. By perpetual (tamid) decree the priesthood will be theirs. Then you will invest Aaron and his sons.
Exodus 29:1-37 contains the instructions God gave Moses for the investiture of His chief priests. The actual consecration rites of the investiture ceremony for Aaron as the High Priest and his sons as chief priests are described in Leviticus 8:1-36 when Moses, acting as God's agent, consecrated Aaron and his sons as priests of the Sinai Covenant who were ready to assume their priestly functions in leading the people in the liturgy of worship.
Exodus 29:4: You will bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and bathe them. As in the ritual purification of the Israelites before the rendezvous with God in chapter 19, Aaron and his sons are to undergo ritual purification by immersion of their entire bodies in water as part of the ordination ceremony. It is a ritual purification that will become part of daily priestly purification. In the second Temple period the liturgical day began for the priests before dawn with a ritual bath of immersion. The priests who were assigned to service for the day arose at the trumpet signal that began the last watch before dawn (3-6 AM). This signal that ended the 3rd night watch and began the 4th watch was known in the 1st century AD as the "cockcrow" (Mk 13:35). It was the duty of the supervising chief priest to call his brother priests to assemble. The duties of daily worship would be assigned by lot and the priests who wanted to participate in the first lot would cleanse themselves through ritual immersion and dress in their seamless linen priestly tunics and under drawers before assembling (Mishnah :Tamid 1:1Q;Yoma 3:3). After the daily ritual immersion the priests were only required to wash their hands and feet when offering service at the courtyard altar or before entering the Tabernacle (Ex 30:17-21).
Exodus 29:6-7: Then you will place the turban on his head, and on it put the symbol of holy consecration. You will then take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and so anoint him. In the ordination rite Aaron is to be crowned with the High Priest's miter and its diadem (in Hebrew the nezer); after his crowning he is to be anointed with holy oil. The Hebrew word mashiah, translated "messiah," means "anointed." Apparently only Aaron as the High Priest is to be anointed. The Biblical title ha-Kohen ha-mashiah (the-priest the-anointed) refers exclusively to the High Priest (Lev 4:3, 5, 16; 6:15).
Those consecrated to God to fulfill a mission were anointed in His name. This was the case for high priests, prophets and kings (Ex 29:7; Lev 8:12; 1 Sam 9:16; 10:1; 16:1, 12-13; 1 Kng 1:39; 19:16; CCC 436).
Question: For what mission was Aaron and his sons anointed? See Heb 5:1 and CCC 1539.
Answer: The mission of Aaron and his sons was to represent God's people; they were appointed to act on their behalf in relationships with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins (Heb 5:1).
Exodus 29:8-9: Next, you will bring his sons and dress them in tunics, and fasten waistbands round their waists and put the head-dresses on their heads. By perpetual (tamid) decree the priesthood will be theirs. Then you will invest Aaron and his sons. According to the Mishnah: Sanhedrin 83B the instructions for the preparation of the investiture rites include a summary of the priests' vestments to signify that the priestly prerogative to serve in the Sanctuary is in effect only so long as the priest is wearing the prescribed liturgical garments.
Sirach [Ecclesiasticus] 45:7-22/27 recalls God's perpetual covenant with Aaron that established a ministerial priesthood that was never to end. It is a mission that is fulfilled in the New Covenant Church by an ordained ministerial priesthood that served the priesthood of believers. Sirach [Ecclesiasticus] 45:15-17 outlines the duties and obligations of the ministerial priesthood: Moses consecrated him and anointed him with holy oil; and this was an everlasting covenant for him, and for his descendants as long as the heavens endure, that he should preside over worship, act as priest, and bless the people in the name of the Lord. He chose him out of all the living to offer sacrifices to the Lord, incense and perfume as a memorial to make expiation for the people. He entrusted him with his commandments, committed him to the statues of the Law for him to teach Jacob and his decrees and enlighten Israel on his law.
Question: In the passage above from Sirach what four elements identify the office of the priesthood within God's covenant with Israel?
Please read Exodus 29:10-21: Yahweh's Instructions for
the Sacrifices for the Investiture Ceremony of the Chief Priests
29:10 You will bring the bull in front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron and his sons will lay their hands on the bull's head. 11You will then slaughter the bull before Yahweh at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 12You will take some of the bull's blood and with your finger put it on the horns of the altar. Next, pour out the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar. 13And then take all the fat covering the entrails, the fatty mass over the liver, the two kidneys with their covering of fat, and burn them on the altar. 14But the young bull's flesh, it skin and its offal, you will burn outside the camp, for this is a sin offering. 15Next, you will take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons will lay their hands on the ram's head. 16You will then slaughter the ram, take its blood and pour it against the altar, all round. 17Next, cut the ram into quarters, wash the entrails and legs and put them on the quarters and head. 18Then burn the whole ram on the altar. This will be a burnt offering for Yahweh, a pleasing smell, a food offering burnt for Yahweh. 19Next you will take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons will lay their hands on the ram's head. 20You will then slaughter the ram, take some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear, on the lobes of his sons' right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the big toes of their right feet, and pour the rest of the blood against the altar, all round. 21You will then take some of the blood on the altar and some of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and his vestments and on his sons and on his sons' vestments: so that he and his vestments will be consecrated and his son too, and his sons' vestments.
Exodus 29:14: But the young bull's flesh, it skin and its offal, you will burn outside the camp, for this is a sin offering. The bullock is identified as a sin offering to cover the sins of Aaron and his sons. No offerer could eat his own sin sacrifice because his guilt had not yet been expiated until the officiating priest fully completed the rite of expiation and consumed the sin sacrifice in a sacred meal (Lev 4:20, 26, 35; 5:6, 13, 26/6:7). Since no offerer could eat his own sin offering (including a priest who offered a sin sacrifice) the sin offerings of the priests had to be burned outside the camp with the exception of the blood and fatty parts of the animals which were to be burned on the Altar of Burnt Offerings.
The instructions for sins offerings for a high priest are also given in Leviticus 4:1-12. There were also sin sacrifices for the community as a whole (Lev 4:13-21), for the leader of the community (Lev 4:22-26) and for private individuals (Lev 4:27-5:27/6:6). After the priests are ordained they were to eat the sin offerings of covenant members in a sacred meal but they never ate their own sin offerings (Lev 6:17/24-23/30). The exception to the rule that the priests were to eat the peoples' sin sacrifices was when the blood of a communal sin sacrifice had been taken into the Tabernacle to make expiation as on the Day of Atonement. Those communal sin sacrifices were to be burnt outside the camp of God (Lev 6:22-23/29-30). In the case of most communal sacrifices offered for the entire people (as in the case of the Tamid lambs) the body of the animal was consumed completely on the Altar of Burnt Offerings and the blood of the victim was both dashed (sprinkled) and poured out against the altar. In the communal sin and reconciliation service on the Feast of Yom Kippur (Lev 16:1-34; 23:26-32; Num 29:7-11) the High Priest's sin sacrifice of a bull was, like the ordination ceremony, not burned on the courtyard altar nor was the goat offered as a sin offering for the community. These sin sacrifices, whose blood was sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies (Lev 16:14-16) were completely destroyed outside the camp (Lev 16:27-28).
Question: What kind of sacrifice was Jesus of Nazareth on the altar of the Cross? What happened to Him on the hill of Golgotha located outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem? See Mt 27:51 and Heb 9:6-15.
Answer: Jesus was the pure and holy Lamb of God sacrificed for the sins of all men and women. He was completely consumed outside the walls of Jerusalem, the "camp" of God, and then His sacrifice was presented to God in the Tabernacle, as evidenced by the tearing of the curtain that covered the entrance to the Holy of Holies.
Pope St. Leo the Great (reigned 440-461 AD) wrote: Indeed consequently, "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed," as the apostle says. Offering himself to the Father as a new and real sacrifice of reconciliation, he was crucified "not in the temple whose due worship is now completed, nor within the enclosure of the city which was to be destroyed because of its crime, but "outside and beyond the camp." That way, as the mystery of the ancient sacrifices was ceasing, a new victim would be put on a new altar, and the cross of Christ would be the altar not of the temple but of the world. Pope Leo the Great, Sermon 33.7
Question: Why were Aaron and his sons to lay their hands on the animals?
Answer: In laying their hands on the animals they identified their lives with the lives of the animals. In the same way the animals were offered up to Yahweh so were Aaron and his sons to offer up their lives to Yahweh as consecrated priests.
Question: Why was the blood of the scarified ram to be put on the men, on the altar and both blood and anointing oil on the vestments in the ordination ceremony?
Answer: The blood placed on their right ears, thumbs and big toes represented the sacrifice of their entire bodies to Yahweh's service. The altar represented God's part in the binding of the covenant ordination ceremony. The blood and the oil on the vestments consecrated the vestments as sacerdotal garments.
Please read Exodus 29:22-30:
The Rite of Investiture
29:22 You will then take the fatty parts of the ram: the tail, the fat covering the entrails, the fatty mass over the liver, the two kidneys with their covering fat and also the right thigh "for this is a ram of investiture " 23and a loaf of bread, a cake to bread made with oil, and a wafer, from the basket of unleavened bread before Yahweh, 24and put it all on the palms of Aaron and his sons, and make the gesture of offering before Yahweh. 25Then you will take them back and burn them on the altar, on top of the burnt offering, as a smell pleasing before Yahweh, a food offering burnt for Yahweh. 26You will then take the forequarters of the ram of Aaron's investiture and with it make the gesture of offering before Yahweh; this will be your portion. 27You will consecrate the forequarters that have been thus offered, as also the thigh that is set aside "what has been offered and what has been set aside from the ram of investiture of Aaron and his sons. 28This, by perpetual [tamid] decree, will be the portion that Aaron and his sons will receive from the Israelites, since it is the portion set aside, the portion set aside for Yahweh by the Israelites from their communion sacrifices: a portion set aside for Yahweh. 29Aaron's vestments must pass to his sons after him, and they will wear them for their anointing and investiture. 30Whichever of the sons of Aaron succeeds him in the priesthood and enters the Tent of Meeting to serve in the sanctuary, will wear them for seven days.
Exodus 29:18 & 25: 18Then burn the whole ram on the altar. This will be a burnt offering for Yahweh, a pleasing smell, a food offering burnt for Yahweh. [..]. 25Then you will take them back and burn them on the altar, on top of the burnt offering, as a smell pleasing before Yahweh, a food offering burnt for Yahweh.
Question: What is meant by the expression "a smell pleasing before Yahweh, a food offering burnt for Yahweh" (see Gen 8:21; Ex 29:18, 25, 41; Lev 1:9, 13; 3:11; 8:28; Num 28:2)? Does God need human food (see Ps 50:10-15; 51:16-17; Hos 14:3)? What was the difference between pagan offerings (for example in the story of Daniel and the pagan god Bel in Daniel chapter 14) and the offerings and sacrifices of the Israelites? See Dan 14:1-22; Ps 51:18-19; 1 Sam 15:22-23; Amos 5:21-22; Hos 6:6 (Dan 14 is absent from Protestant and Jewish Bible translations).
Answer: Pagan gods were given offerings of food placed in front of their images in the inner sanctums of their temples. Pagan peoples believed their gods ate the food presented to them when in actuality the pagan priests and their families consumed the food. The Israelites, however, understood that the sacrifices offered on Yahweh's Altar of Burnt Offerings in the Sanctuary courtyard was an expression of honor and gratitude, a means of expiation for sin and restoration of fellowship "not a way of "feeding" a hungry God. They knew that God derived only the "pleasing smell/odor", an expression that is a technical term indicating God's pleasure in the sacrificial gift and His acceptance of it as the essence of the worshipper's contrition, devotion and reconciliation.
Please note that the sacrificial altar was located outside the Tabernacle in the courtyard and that none of the sacrifices (animal flesh or bread and grain offerings) were ever taken into the Holy of Holies where God's presence resided with His people.
Question: How many animals were to be offered in sacrifice in the priestly investiture ceremony? How were the offerings to be made and for what purposes? See the chart in Appendix I at the end of this lesson and Lev 8:14-36.
Answer: Three kinds of animals were offered in sacrifice for a period of seven days. The animals offered in sacrifice in the priestly investiture rite were:
Exodus 29:22: You will then take the fatty parts of the ram: the tail, the fat covering the entrails, the fatty mass over the liver, the two kidneys with their covering fat and also the right thigh "for this is a ram of investiture "
The clarification of these instructions "that it is for the "ram of investiture" "is necessary because normally the right thigh of the animal was the priests' portion but Aaron and his sons will not receive it because they are in the process of being ordained and are not priests until the ordination rite is completed; therefore, that portion will be offered up in the altar fire (see Ex 29:27 and Lev 7:32ff). The "ram of investiture" (see vs. 19-26) is an offering in the category of zevah shelamin in Hebrew (JPS Commentary: Exodus, page 189), an "offering of well-being" or a "sacred gift of greeting or peace" "a communion sacrifice (see JPS Commentary: Leviticus, pages 14-15).
Exodus 29:23-25: 23and a loaf of bread, a cake to bread made with oil, and a wafer, from the basket of unleavened bread before Yahweh, 24and put it all on the palms of Aaron and his sons, and make the gesture of offering before Yahweh. 25Then you will take them back and burn them on the altar, on top of the burnt offering, as a smell pleasing before Yahweh, a food offering burnt for Yahweh.
Tenufah is the technical term in Hebrew for a ritual offering that is "raised up" (JPS Commentary: Exodus, page 189). The Jewish Mishnah describes the procedure: The priest places his hands beneath the pile of offerings and waves it forward and backward, upward and downward (Mishnah: Menahot 5:6). In English this offering is usually translated as a "wave-offering." Scholars have suggested that this ritual was to signify that what was elevated has passed from the domain of the offerer to the domain of God.
Exodus 29:26: 26 You will then take the forequarters of the ram of Aaron's investiture and with it make the gesture of offering before Yahweh; this will be your portion.
Answer: God is speaking to Moses. Moses is acting in a priestly capacity since Aaron and his sons will be in the process of being consecrated and ordained, Moses is entitled to part of would normally be the officiating priest's portion in the Israelites' future communion offerings, the forequarters and the right thigh (Lev 7:34), but Moses will only receive the forequarters which he will present to Yahweh as a "wave" offering (Lev 8:29).
Exodus 29:27-30: 27You will consecrate the forequarters that have been thus offered, as also the thigh that is set aside "what has been offered and what has been set aside from the ram of investiture of Aaron and his sons. 28This, by perpetual [tamid] decree, will be the portion that Aaron and his sons will receive from the Israelites, since it is the portion set aside, the portion set aside for Yahweh by the Israelites from their communion sacrifices: a portion set aside for Yahweh. 29Aaron's vestments must pass to his sons after him, and they will wear them for their anointing and investiture. 30Whichever of the sons of Aaron succeeds him in the priesthood and enters the Tent of Meeting to serve in the sanctuary, will wear them for seven days.
The thigh that is "set aside" is the left thigh. The right thigh was burned on the altar. This part of the ritual only applies to the present inaugural ordination. Future installations, which will be governed by Aaron and his successors, will be slightly different and after their ordination Aaron and his sons will receive their prescribed parts of the sacrificed animals in the ordinations of future priests.
Question: What succession arrangements are made in these instructions? As you will recall the dispossession of the covenant documents and the succession arrangements are part V if the covenant treaty formulary.
Answer: 1). Aarons' descendants will always receive the forequarters and the right thigh of the communion sacrifices of the Israelites. It is the Israelite's gift to the Lord which He shares with His priests who represent Him in the sacred communion meal. 2) Aaron's vestments must be passed down to his descendants who inherit the office of High Priest, and 3) each Aaronic High Priest will wear the eight sacred garments for the seven days of the investiture ceremony.
Please read Exodus 29:31-35: The Sacred Meal
29:31 You will take the ram of investiture and cook its meat in a holy place. 32Aaron and his sons will eat the meat of the ram and the bread which is in the basket, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 33They will eat what was used in making expiation for them [These things shall be eaten only by those for whom expiation was made for them*] at their investiture and consecration. No unauthorized person may eat these; they are holy things. 34If any of the meat from the investiture sacrifice, or the bread, should be left till morning, you will burn what is left. It may not be eaten; it is a holy thing. 35This is what you will do for Aaron and his sons, implementing all the orders I have given you. You will take seven days over their investiture.
[..] = literal translation (Interlineal Bible: Hebrew-English, page 222; *JPS Commentary: Exodus, page 191).
Answer: They are to cook and eat the parts of the sacrificed animal that Yahweh has decreed as their portion along with the unleavened bread in the enclosed court of the Sanctuary in front of the entrance to the Tabernacle.
Exodus 29:33: They will eat what was used in making expiation for them [These things shall be eaten only by those for whom expiation was made with them] at their investiture and consecration. No unauthorized person may eat these; they are holy things. The New Jerusalem translation does not do justice to this verse. The better translation is found in the New American Bible translation: They themselves are to eat of these things by which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration... or in the Jewish Tanach: These things shall be eaten only by those for whom expiation was made with them when they were ordained and consecrated... The context of the passage supports that "these things" (meaning the flesh of the communion sacrifice of the "ram of investiture") shall be eaten only by those priests for whom expiation was made in the sin sacrifice of the bull (Ex 29:14). The ritual of the communion or "peace" (shelamim) offering" always followed the sin offering and involved a sacrificial meal. The priests could not eat the communion sacrifice unless expiation had already been made.
Question: What is significant about the order of sacrifices and the eating of the sacred communion meal of the "ram of investiture"? What was the sacrifice of expiation for the priests? Cite the verse.
Answer: Sins must be atoned for and forgiveness given before restoration and communion can take place. The priests' sacrifice of expiation (atonement) for sin was the sacrifice of the bull: Ex 29:11-14: 11 You will then slaughter the bull before Yahweh at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 12 You will take some of the bull's blood and with your finger put it on the horns of the altar. Next, pour out the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar. 13 And then take all the fat covering the entrails, the fatty mass over the liver, the two kidneys with their covering of fat, and burn them on the altar. 14 But the young bull's flesh, it skin and its offal, you will burn outside the camp, for this is a sin offering. Also see Leviticus 8:14
Question: Is this same order of atonement and reconciliation followed by the sacred meal relevant today? See 1 Cor 11:26-32 and CCC 1415.
Answer: Absolutely! Christ is our sacrifice for sin and His Body is the communion offering that we consume, but our sins must be forgiven and reconciliation with God reestablished before the eating of the sacred communion meal of the Eucharist or, as St. Paul warns, we eat and drink to our own condemnation.
Question: What prohibition is pronounced concerning the sacred meal of the ordination rite?
Answer: Only the priests must eat the sacred meal of the consecrated offerings of the investiture ceremony. No one else may eat them because the consecrated communion food of the "ram of investiture" is sacred food.
Question: For how many days was the investiture ceremony to last?
Answer: Seven days.
Aaron and his sons are ordained and assume their priestly duties in Numbers 9:1-24.
Please read Exodus 29:36-37: Instructions for the Altar
of Burnt Offerings
36 On each of the days you will also offer a young bull as a sacrifice for sin, in expiation. You will offer a sin sacrifice for the altar when you make expiation for it [the altar]; then you will consecrate it by anointing it. 37For seven days you will make expiation for the altar, then you will consecrate it; it will then be especially holy and whatever touches the altar will become holy.
[..] = literal translation (Interlineal Bible: Hebrew-English, page 222).
These verses suggest that the entire ceremony was to be repeated each of the seven days. Leviticus 8:33 reads: For seven days you will not leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, until the time of your investiture is complete; for your investiture will require seven days.
Question: Why does the altar have to be consecrated?
Answer: It is made by human hands and therefore possesses a natural impurity. It must be anointed to be purged of defilement and consecrated to Yahweh's service before it can be used for Yahweh's sacred sacrifices.
Exodus 2937b: it will then be especially holy and whatever touches the altar will become holy. Holiness was contagious "since God had consecrated the altar His holiness was transferred to the altar.
Question: In Ezekiel 43:18-27 the prophet Ezekiel's vision of the future Temple also mentions a seven-day period of purification for the holy altar. What is the significance of the seven-day purification period for both the priests and the altar?
Answer: This is another link to the seven-day period of the first creation. The ordained priests stand before the people as the image of redeemed man and the covenant people are re-born as a new creation whose destiny is fulfilled in liturgical worship of Yahweh as their priests offer sacrifice on the sacred altar.
The word "altar" is mentioned four times in these two verses in the Hebrew text (Ex 29:36-37). These two verses serve as an introduction to the altar's primary and permanent function "to receive God's holy sacrifice of the twice daily unblemished male lambs that are the communal sin and restoration offering of the covenant people "the sacrifice known as olat ha-tamid, the perpetual burnt offering.
Please read Exodus 29:38-46: The Daily Communal Sacrifice
of the Tamid Lambs
29:38 This is what you must offer on the altar: two yearling male lambs each day in perpetuity. 39The first lamb you will offer at dawn, and the second at twilight [between the twilights], 40and with the first lamb, one-tenth of a measure of fine flour mixed with one-quarter of a hin of pounded olive oil and, for a libation, one-quarter of a hin of wine. 41The second lamb you will offer at twilight [between the twilights], and do it with a similar cereal offering and libation as at dawn, as a pleasing smell, as an offering burnt for Yahweh, 42a perpetual [tamid] burnt offering for all your generations to come, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before Yahweh, where I shall meet you and speak to you. 43There I shall meet the Israelites in the place consecrated by my glory. 44I shall consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar; I shall also consecrate Aaron and his sons, to be priests in my service. 45And I shall live with the Israelites and be their God, 46and they will know that I am Yahweh their God, who brought them out of Egypt to live among them: I, Yahweh their God.'
This sacrifice was known in Hebrew as the olat-ha-tamid, "the standing (as in perpetual) burnt" offering. The purpose of the ordination of the Aaronic priesthood and the construction of the Altar of Burnt Offerings was to offer this most holy sacrifice of sin and restoration. This was the daily offering of the perpetual sacrifice of two lambs: one brought to the altar at dawn and sacrificed in the morning at about 9AM and the second brought to the altar at noon and sacrificed at 3PM. (1) At this point in the history of the covenant people the Tamid was the only sacrifice to be offered to Yahweh for the peoples' sins and for reconciliation of the covenant community to Yahweh (this sacrifice was doubled on the Sabbath). Later, after the sin of the Golden Calf when the sacrifices and offerings are expanded, the Tamid remained the focus of liturgical worship for the covenant people. Their entire day revolved around the offering of the two Tamid lambs, and as the most important sacrifice of the covenant people no other sacrifice was to take precedence over the daily Tamid sacrifice. All other sacrifices were to be offered "in addition" to the Tamid (see Num 28:1-10, 15, 24-25, 31; 29:6, 11, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, and 38).
Exodus 29:39: The first lamb you will offer at dawn, and the second at twilight [between the twilights]... The Aramaic Targums of the 1st century AD render the term bayin-ha-ereb, "between-the-twilights" as identical with the rabbinic time marker bein ha-shemashot, "between the suns" (the rising and the setting of the sun). In the ritual requirements for the Tamid sacrifice "between the twilights" of the day is exactly what the Hebrew text records, literally at noon, the exact middle of the day between the twilight of dawn and the twilight at dusk. For the Hebrew people the day time consisted of a twelve seasonal hours with the setting of the sun announcing the beginning of the next day (John 11:9). In this time marker phrase, bayin-ha-ereb or beyn(bayin) ha- arbayim, the noun never appears without the definite article ha (the). The phrase becomes a time marker for several rituals in addition to the daily Tamid (Ex 29:30; Num. 28:4. 8). It was, for example, the time that the Passover lambs and kids of the first Passover in Egypt were to be brought out for sacrifice (Ex 12:6), it was the time to refresh the oil of the Golden Menorah in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle (Ex. 30:8), and on the Exodus journey to Mt. Sinai, the miracle of the quails in the wilderness occurred at this time marker (Ex 16:17).
The prescribed regulations for the offering of the daily sacrifice is recorded in the sacred oral tradition of the Old Covenant people known as the Jewish Mishnah, but the times of the sacrifice are not recorded. The 1st century AD Jewish priest/historian Flavius Josephus identified the hour of the "evening" sacrifice as the ninth hour Hebrew time, or three in the in the afternoon our time (the Jewish "evening" was our afternoon since the next day began at sundown). Writing about the sacrifice of the Tamid lambs in his book on the history of the Jewish people, Josephus recorded that so dedicated were the priests to this holy and perpetual sacrifice that even during the siege of Jerusalem during the Roman conquest in 63 BC, as priests were dying during the Roman attack: ...the priests were not at all hindered from their sacred ministrations by their fear during this siege, but did still twice each day, in the morning and about the ninth hour [3 PM], offer their sacrifice on the altar... (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 14.4.3). The testimony of the Josephus, himself from a high priestly family and trained for service as a priest, as well as the record of Temple worship in the Mishnah: Tamid section of the Talmud, place the second Tamid as an afternoon offering. The morning Tamid was offered for sacrifice at about the third hour, or approximately nine in the morning our time, signaling the beginning of the morning liturgical service. (1)
The olat ha-tamid, was established by Yahweh to be the most important of all the liturgical sacrifices; not even the other holy feasts like the Passover sacrifice were to take precedence over the daily offering of the Tamid (Num 29:16-25). From the time of the completion of the desert Tabernacle, to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70AD, the entire daily liturgy and prayer life of the covenant people was centered on the offering of the Tamid lambs. The Tamid was the center of liturgical worship and the sacrifice around which all other sacrifices and feasts of the Sinai Covenant revolved. The Tamid was the first and only sacrifice established for the covenant people before the sin of the Golden Calf, and it remained the most important of sacrifices after the sin of the Golden Calf when the blood sacrifices were expanded.
As originally established, the Tamid lambs were to be selected by the High Priest, and with the exception of the single male lamb offered for the sacrifice of the Feast of Firstfruits on Sunday of the holy week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:11-14), the morning and evening/afternoon Tamid was the only sacrifice that required exclusively the offering of a perfect male lamb in sacrifice. The Passover sacrifice could be a male lamb or a male kid.(2) When St. John the Baptist identified Jesus as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1:29) he probably wasn't speaking of the Passover lambs and kids that were sacrifices once a year; he had to be referring to the Tamid lamb that was sacrificed twice daily for the sins of the covenant people and for mankind in liturgical services that extended from dawn to dusk in the Jerusalem Temple. 1st century AD Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote: Accordingly, it is commanded that every day the priests should offer up two lambs, one at the dawn of the day, and the other in the evening; each of them being a sacrifice of thanksgiving; the one for the kindnesses which have been bestowed during the day, and the other for the mercies which have been vouchsafed in the night, which God is incessantly and uninterruptedly pouring upon the race of men. And on the seventh day he doubles the number of victims to be offered, giving equal honor to equal things, inasmuch as he looks upon the seventh day as equal in dignity to eternity...
The day the Tabernacle was dedicated the liturgy of worship began with this most important sacrifice of the covenant people. No other sacrifice was permitted to supersede the morning Tamid, nor interfere with the afternoon Tamid. In addition to the text of Sacred Scripture (Ex 29:39-42; Lev 6:2-6; Num 28:3-8, 10, 15, 23-25, 31; 29:6, 11, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, 38), the detailed instructions for the Tamid sacrifice and its liturgical service are found in a section of the Jewish Talmud entitled Mishnah: Tamid. The importance of the Mishnah in understanding the requirements for the Tamid Sacrifice is that it contains the priestly record of how this sacrifice and liturgical service was offered daily in the Temple in Jerusalem until the Temple's destruction forty years after Jesus Resurrection in 70 AD, at which time the Tamid sacrifice ended forever (see appendix II at the end of this lesson).
Question: In addition to the male lamb what else was offered on the Altar of Burnt Offerings for the morning and afternoon (Hebrew evening) sacrifices? See Ex 29:40 and Lev 2:11-12 (anything containing leaven was not to be burned on the altar).
Answer: In addition to the lamb a wafer/cake made of unleavened wheat flour with olive oil and a libation of wine were also to be offered.
The unleavened wheat cake was to be made with one-tenth of a measure of fine flour mixed with one-quarter of a hin of pounded olive oil and it was to be offered with one-quarter of a hin of wine. A measure was about 0.125 bushels or 4.50 liters and one-quarter of a hin was 0.5 gallons or 1.87 liters (New Jerusalem Bible notes "h" and "i" page 119).
Question: What are the links between the twice daily sacrifice of the Tamid lamb, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Eucharist? How was the Tamid a "type" of Jesus Christ? Hint: other than the sacrifice of the male lamb on the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev 23:12-13) no other sacrifice except the Tamid required a single, unblemished male lamb (one offered in the morning and the second in the afternoon) offered on the altar of sacrifice together with a cake of unleavened bread and a libation of red wine. See Mk 15:25 and 34 (the third hour Jewish time is 9AM and the ninth hour Jewish time is 3PM).
Answer: On the Friday after the Passover sacrifice on Thursday in the spring of 30 AD, the first daily Tamid lamb was sacrificed at the Temple Altar of Burnt Offerings at 9AM, at the exact same time Jesus was being nailed to the altar of the Cross. At 3PM the second Tamid lamb was sacrificed at the Temple altar as Jesus gave up His life on the altar of Cross on the hill of Golgotha. There were two Tamid lambs "Jesus possessed two natures, both human and divine. The Tamid lambs were sacrificed for the sins and restoration of the people of God "Jesus died for the sins and restoration of all people. Jesus was the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" "He was the true Tamid, perpetual sacrifice that every Old Covenant Tamid prefigured. Today His perpetual sacrifice is on-going in the Eucharist in which the bread and wine present on the altar are miraculously transformed into the Body and Blood of the perpetual (tamid), unblemished Lamb of God.
Please read Exodus 30:1-10: The Altar of Incense
27:1 You will make an altar on which to burn incense; you will make it of acacia wood, 2one cubit long, and one cubit wide "it must be square "and two cubits high; its horns must be of a piece with it. 3You will overlay its top, its sides all round and its horns with pure gold and make a gold moulding to go all round. 4You will make two gold rings for it below the moulding on its two opposite sides, to take the shafts used for carrying it. 5You will make the shafts of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 6You will put it in front of the curtain by the ark of Testimony, in front of the mercy-seat which is on the Testimony, where I shall meet you. 7On it Aaron will burn fragrant incense each morning; when he trims the lamps, he will burn incense on it; 8and when Aaron puts back the lamps at twilight, he will burn incense on it, incense perpetually before Yahweh for all your generations to come. 9You will not offer unauthorized incense, or burnt offering, or cereal offering on it, and you will not pour any libation over it. 10Once a year, Aaron will perform the rite of expiation on the horns of the altar; once a year, on the Day of Expiation [Yom Kippur], with the blood of the sacrifice for sin, he will make expiation for himself, for all your generations to come. It is especially holy for Yahweh.'
In the Hebrew this altar is known by several names:
For the dimensions of the golden Altar of Incense according to the Egyptian common cubit see the chart in handout #3, Lesson 13, but its approximate dimensions were 1.5 feet (0.45 m.) square and 3 feet (0.9 m.) high. The incense altar was to a square wooden column about the height of a man's waist made with a gold top rim, horns protruding from the four corners of the top and with four gold rings and two poles to transport the altar. The entire altar and its wooden poles were to be covered with gold
Question: Where was the golden Altar of Incense to be placed in the Tabernacle? Also see Ex 40:5.
Answer: It was to be placed in the Holy Place in front of the curtain that covered the entrance to the Holy of Holies, the sacred space that contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy-seat.
Exodus 30:7-8: 7 On it Aaron will burn fragrant incense each morning; when he
trims the lamps, he will burn incense on it; 8 and when Aaron puts back the lamps at twilight, he will burn
incense on it, incense perpetually before Yahweh for all your generations to
These instructions concern the liturgical service of the Tamid lambs where incense was burned in association with each of the sacrifices.
Both the Altar of Burnt Offerings and the golden Altar of Incense are mentioned in these Scripture passages on either side of the instructions for the Tamid sacrifice because both were intimately associated with that major communal sacrifice. The altar in the courtyard received the sacrifice of the Tamid lambs, and incense was burned on the incense altar before the first lamb was laid on the courtyard altar and after the second lamb was slain and laid on the courtyard altar so that the burning of the incense embraced both sacrifices. In addition to the twice daily burning of the incense on the Altar of Incense, on the Feast of Yom Kippur (Feast of Atonement) and when the sin sacrifice was offered for a High Priest, the incense altar became an altar of sacrifice, receiving the blood of the sin sacrificial victim offered for the High Priest smeared on the horns of both the incense altar (Lev 4:7; Heb 9:6-7). The instructions given for the Altar of Incense completes part I of the instructions given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
Exodus 30:9-10: You will not offer unauthorized incense, or burnt offering, or cereal offering on it, and you will not pour any libation over it. Once a year, Aaron will perform the rite of expiation on the horns of the altar; once a year, on the Day of Expiation [Yom Kippur], with the blood of the sacrifice for sin, he will make expiation for himself, for all your generations to come. It is especially holy for Yahweh.'
In this passage there is a three-time repetition of the Hebrew stem k-p-r, which is translated in this passage as "expiation" but which can also be translated as "purification, ransom, or atonement." The recipe for the incense is listed in Exodus 30:34-38. The golden Altar of Incense is to be used exclusively for the ritual incense offering with the sole exception of when the High Priest performs the purification rites for re-consecrating the incense altar on the feast of Yom Kippur (Lev 16:16-19). Only the priests have the authority to offer the incense and then only as prescribed by Yahweh.
Answer: Aaron's two elder sons offered incense improperly and were killed, and King Uzziah of Judah, who was not authorized, tried to offer incense in the Tabernacle but was struck with leprosy before he could desecrate the incense altar.
Question: Moses does not realize the implications of this command, but we can. What incident that happens in the future does this command presuppose, revealing God's foreknowledge of unfolding events in salvation history?
Answer: The sin of worshiping the idol of the Golden Calf in Exodus chapter 32 which makes the communal feast of atonement known as Yom Kippur necessary.
Please read Exodus 30:11-16: The Census and Poll Tax
30:11Yahweh then spoke to Moses and said, 12 When you count the Israelites by census each one of them must pay Yahweh a ransom for his life, to avoid any incidence of plague among them while you are holding the census. 13Everyone subject to the census will pay half a shekel, reckoning by the sanctuary shekel: twenty gerah to the shekel. This half-shekel will be set aside for Yahweh. 14Everyone subject to the census, that is to say of twenty years and over, will pay the sum set aside for Yahweh. 15The rich man must not give more, nor the poor man less, than half a shekel when he pays the sum set aside for Yahweh in ransom for your lives. 16You will take the ransom money of the Israelites and apply it to the service of the Tent of Meeting, for it to be a reminder of the Israelites before Yahweh, as the ransom for your lives.'
Yahweh then spoke to Moses and said... this formula saying begins the second part of the instructions to Moses. In this passage, as in the passage immediately preceding it, there is a three time repetition of the Hebrew stem k-p-r, which is variously translated as "purification, ransom, atonement, or expiation."
Question: What members of the community are to come under the imposition of the poll tax? What is the reason for the tax?
Answer: All males above the age of twenty are to pay the same tax amount. The payment is considered to be a ransom for the life of the individual covenant member because it serves to avert a plague.
This tax has an expiatory function. In Scripture a census can only be taken with God's approval, and yet every census appeared to be froth with danger. Usually a census in Scripture is associated with war and the numbers of fighting men to serve in the army (Lev 24:14; Num 8:10; 27:18; Dt 34:9), but a census is also necessary in the imposition of taxes as the Romans applied the census recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke (Lk 2:1-5). In this case, the census is the prelude to a tax levee for the construction of the Tabernacle, as Exodus 38:24-28 records. The money collected will be used for the casting of the sockets of the sanctuary structure and is therefore a one-time tax and not an annual obligation.(4)
Please read Exodus 30:17-21: Instructions for Construction
of the Bronze Basin
30:17Yahweh then spoke to Moses and said [And Yahweh spoke to Moses and said], 18 You will also make a bronze basin on its bronze stand, for washing. You will put it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar and put water in it, 19in which Aaron and his sons will wash their hands and feet. 20Whenever they are to enter the Tent of Meeting, they will wash, to avoid incurring death; and whenever they approach the altar for their service, to burn an offering for Yahweh, 21they will wash their hands and feet, to avoid incurring death. This is a perpetual decree for him and his descendants for all their generations to come.'
No measurement is given for the bronze basin of holy water that was to be placed in the courtyard in front of the entrance to the Tabernacle and used to purify the priests in preparation for their services in the Sanctuary courtyard or before they entered the Tabernacle. According to Mishnah: Zevahim 19b it was large enough to contain enough water for the washing of four priests who stood as they washed with each hand on the corresponding foot so that each pair was washed simultaneously.
Question: From what was the bronze water basin and its stand constructed? See Ex 38:8.
Answer: It was made from the polished bronze mirrors of the women.
In the ritual of the Feast of Unleavened Bread where the community of the people of God eat the Passover sacrifice in household groups there are three ritual hand washings.
Question: Why did Jesus replace one of the ritual hand washings by washing the Apostles' feet in the Gospel of St. John 13:3-16?
Answer: The ritual not only prepared them for receiving the holy food of Christ's Body and Blood, but the Church as seen Jesus' gesture as a kind of ritual ordination of the New Covenant priesthood.
Priests serving in the Sanctuary and later in the Jerusalem Temple were only permitted to wear the seamless white linen garment for worship services (Ez 42:14) and in the performance of those services the priests ritually washed both their hands and their feet in the Temple laver before beginning a ministerial duty (Mishnah: Tamid 2:1B), just as Catholic priests only wear their vestments for liturgical service and also ritually wash their hands before taking up the unleavened Bread just before reciting the words of Consecration during the celebration of the Mass.
Exodus 30:20: Whenever they are to enter the Tent of Meeting, they will wash, to avoid incurring death; and whenever they approach the altar for their service, to burn an offering for Yahweh, 21 they will wash their hands and feet, to avoid incurring death. "That they may not die" is a repeated formula (see Ex 28:5). It emphasizes that ritual purification was an indispensable requirement. To neglect this ritual, which reflected the inner purity of the priest who was offering service to Yahweh, rendered the priest's service invalid and could lead to death (physical or spiritual).
Please read Exodus 30:22-33: Instructions for Making and
Using the Anointing Oil
22 Yahweh spoke further to Moses and said [Yahweh spoke to Moses and said], 23 Take the finest spices: five hundred shekels of fresh myrrh, half as much (two hundred and fifty shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty shekels of scented reed, 24 five hundred shekels (reckoning by the sanctuary shekel) of cassia, and one hin of olive oil. 25 You will make this into a holy anointing oil, such a blend as the perfumer might make; this will be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you will anoint the Tent of Meeting and the ark of the Testimony, 27 the table and all its accessories, the lamp-stand and its accessories, the altar of incense, 28 the altar of burnt offerings and all its accessories and the basin with its stand, 29consecrating them, so that they will be especially holy and whatever touches them will become holy. 30 You will also anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them to be priests in my service. 31 You will then speak to the Israelites and say, "This anointing oil will be holy for you for all your generations to come. 32It must not be used for anointing the human body, nor may you make any of the same mixture. It is a holy thing, you will regard it as holy. 33 Anyone who makes up the same oil or uses it on an unauthorized person will be outlawed from his people."'
The word "holy" is repeated seven times. The spices needed for the anointing oil were mentioned in Exodus 25:6. Spices and aromatic resins were rare commodities and highly prized in the ancient world ( Is 23:18; 33:6; Jer 20:5; Ez 22:25; Prov 15:6; 27:24). They were often given as tribute gifts and were usually stored in a country's royal treasury ( 1 Kng 10:2, 10; 2 Kng 20:13). The list in verses 23-24 is set down in decreasing order of value.
Question: Where is the anointing oil to be applied and why? What restrictions are stated for the use of the oil?
Answer: To the priests and to the Sanctuary altars and furniture, and to the utensils and accessories. The sacred anointing consecrates the men and the items to divine service; their holiness is contagious and the oil must not be duplicated or used or any other purpose. Such a violation would result in excommunication from the covenant people.(3)
Please read Exodus 30:34-37: Instructions for Making the
30:34Yahweh then said to Moses, Take sweet spices: storax, onycha, galbanum, sweet spices and pure frankincense in equal parts, 35and compound an incense, such a blend as the perfumer might make, salted, pure, and holy. 36You will grind some of this up very fine and put it in front of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, where I shall meet you. 37You will regard it as especially holy. You may not make any incense of similar composition for your own use. You will regard it as holy, reserved for Yahweh. Anyone who makes up the same thing to use as perfume will be outlawed from his people.'
The priests drew lots to determine which priest had the honor of burning the sacred incense on the golden Altar of Incense that stood in front of the beautifully embroidered curtain that shielded the entrance to the Holy of Holies. The golden incense altar had to be cleaned and made ready to burn the special mixture of incense at the precise moment in the order of the Tamid liturgical service in both the morning and in the afternoon service (Ex 30:1-10; 34-37; Mishnah: Tamid 5:1-4). The special mixture of sweet smelling herbs and spices was a secret recipe only used in liturgical worship. It was during the daily offering of incense on the golden Altar of Incense in front of the beautiful curtain that covered the Holy of Holies that the angel Gabriel would one day announce the birth of the prophet John to his father Zachariah, the priest who had drawn the lot to burn the incense offering that day, a once in a lifetime event for most priests (Ex 30:1-10 & Lk 1:8-11).
Notice that the recipe given in verse 34 is not complete "God does not name the "sweet spices." Those secret ingredients are part of the oral tradition and are only given to the priests. According to the oral tradition of the Jews the incense was composed of the four ingredients mentioned in Ex 30:34 plus seven other secret ingredients in addition to "a small quantity of Ambra", a herb which gave out a dense white smoke" (Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, page 124). To the thirteen different spices and herbs, salt was added to total fourteen ingredients (Josephus in Wars of the Jews 5.5.5 ). The burning of the incense was strictly regulated in liturgical worship. Two of Aaron's sons were executed by God for the unauthorized burning of incense (Lev 10:1-2).
It is interesting that galbanum (verse 34) was a gum resin that produced a very unpleasant odor when burned. Without this ingredient the spices and herbs produced a lovely odor, but combined with the foul smelling galbanum the aroma of the sacred incense was truly extraordinary. This phenomenon came to be applied to a rabbinic teaching about tolerance. Just as the galbanum with its foul smell was necessary to complete the sacred incense so too was it necessary to include in the worship service Israel's sinners who, combined with the righteous, fulfilled the covenant community.
Question: What restriction is applied to the use of the sacred incense?
Answer: Like the aromatic anointing oil (vs. 31-33) in composition and in use it was only for liturgical worship and not for profane use.
Question for group discussion:
Question: Compare the duties and obligations of the ministerial priesthood in the Sinai Covenant to the duties and obligations of the New Covenant ministerial priesthood. What is the same and what is different in the four elements of priestly service defined in Sirach 45:15-17?
Question: When is sacred incense and anointing oil used by Catholic priests in the celebration of the Mass and in the Sacraments? When is holy water used as a Sacramental and when does the officiating priest ritually wash?
|Sacrificial Animals for the Priestly Investiture Ceremony (Ex 29:10-37)|
|Kind of animal||Type of sacrifice||
|Ram #1||Whole burnt gift offering||
"The ram of
Zevah shelamim (sacred gift of peace) an ordination/ communion sacrifice
these three kinds of sacrifices were be offered each day of the seven day
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2009 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.
of the High Priest Simon II (220-195 BC) during the Tamid service:
The leader of his brethren and the pride of his people was Simon the high priest, son of Onias.... [...]. When he put on his glorious robe and clothed himself with superb perfection and went up to the holy altar, he made the court of the sanctuary glorious. And when he received the portions from the hands of the priests, as he stood by the hearth of the altar with a garland of brethren around him, he was like a young cedar on Lebanon; and they surrounded him like the trunks of palm trees, all the sons of Aaron in their splendor with the Lord's offering in their hands, before the whole congregation of Israel. Sirach 50:1, 11-13
SCHEDULE OF THE TAMID SACRIFICE AND
THE LITURGICAL SERVICE
This is the order of the daily whole offering in the liturgy of the house of our God.
Mishnah: Tamid 7:3R
|JEWISH TIME||OUR TIME (also Roman time)|
|After the high priest prepares the altar, the first male lamb is brought out, given a drink from a golden cup and tied to the altar at dawn. Preparations are made for the morning prayer service [Mishnah: Tamid 1:2;3:2-3:3-4, 6-9]||Preparation for the Tamid begins [Exodus 29:38-42; Leviticus 6:1-6]|
The first lamb is sacrificed and its dismembered body
placed on the Altar. The Tabernacle/Temple gates open for the communal
morning liturgical service
[Mishnah: Tamid 3:7; 4:1-3]
|"Shacharit" is the Hebrew name for the morning prayer service [Acts 2:15]. Individual morning prayer may be recited until noon [Mishnah: Tamid 4:1; Edersheim, The Temple, chapter 7, p. 108]|
|The second lamb is brought out, tied to the altar, and given a drink from a golden cup [Mishnah: Tamid 3:4; 4:1G]||The lamb is given a drink from a gold cup and is tied to the altar until the time of sacrifice.|
|The second lamb is sacrificed signaling the beginning of the afternoon liturgical service [Mishnah: Tamid 4:1G]||3PM, the hour the second lamb is sacrificed [Antiquities of the Jews 14.4.3 (14:65); Philo Special Laws I, XXXV (169)]. It is the second hour of prayer [Acts 3:1; 10:9], in Hebrew "Minchah" (gift-offering), which is also called the hour of confession.|
|Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2009 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.|
There were only two liturgical daily worship services of sacrifice, prayer, and praise during the Tabernacle and the 1st and 2nd Temple periods. The Jewish day began at sundown. The daylight hours were divided into 12 seasonal hours, the division of which was centered on the schedule of the morning and afternoon sacrifice of the Tamid lambs. A third hour of prayer was not added until after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD when the Tamid sacrifice ceased forever.
1. Edersheim, The Temple, chapter 7, page 108; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14.4.3 (14:65); Philo of Alexandria, Special Laws I, XXXV (169); Mishnah: Tamid 1:2; 3:2-3:3-4, 6-9; 4:1-3
3. To be excommunicated from the covenant people meant that the guilty party lost all title to the divine promises made to Abraham's descendants as Yahweh's covenant people.
4. While in this case the poll tax is a one-time event to collect needed funds to build the Sanctuary, in the future this tax was treated as a precedent for the annual collection of a half-shekel tax from all Jews within and outside of the Holy Land to support the Temple. See Mt 17:24-27 where Peter is challenged by the tax collectors on whether or not Jesus supported the annual Temple half-shekel tax. When the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD the Temple tax should have ended but the Emperor Vespasian forced the Jews to continue to contribute the annual tax to be paid to the imperial treasury for the pagan Roman god Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. The post-biblical Hebrew term kenas is a Hebraized form of the Latin word census, which means "a penalty."
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2009 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.