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"Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build "thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou "be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, "with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then "shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar."* The former of these passages I understand to intend votive offerings; and the latter, voluntary ones.

VII. As burnt offerings are said in the scriptures to "make atonement" for those by whom they were offered, hence the Jews consider this class of victims as expiating certain kinds of sins. Such, they apprehend, were evil thoughts and designs, violations of affirmative § precepts, and transgressions of negative precepts, which were so implicated with affirmative ones, that a breach of the negative was altogether incompatible with obedience to the affirmative. || Of this description was the prohibition of killing the dam with the young, which could not be violated without disobeying the injunction to let the dam go free. The Jews are the more confirmed in considering these kinds of sins as expiated by burnt offerings, because their expiation is never attributed to the victims exclusively piacular, either sin offerings or trespass offerings. But here it is important to guard this statement from being misunderstood: it maintains, not that burnt offerings were in all cases to expiate all evil thoughts, and all omissions of duties enjoined

*Psalm li. 18, 19.

+ Levit..xiv.

Jonath. Paraph. ad Levit. vi. 9. Abarb. & David de Pomis in voc. ny STR. The rabbies have distributed the whole of the Mosaic law into six hundred and thirteen precepts; which they divide into two classes, affirmative or commanding, and negative or prohibitory. The affirmative, they say, are two hundred and forty eight; and the negative, three hundred and sixty-five.

Sol. Jarchi ad Levit. i. 4. Sol. Ben Melech, ibid.

by the law, sins for which indeed no flocks or herds would be sufficient to atone; but that a person who came to pray for the pardon of such sins, might, if he chose, legitimately accompany his prayers with burnt offerings, and that these offerings would promote the acceptance of his prayers. This idea is fully implied in the Hebrew word rendered to make atonement, whenever it is used in reference to burnt offerings, or peace offerings, or acts rightly performed to a neighbour; of all which uses of the word examples are found in the scriptures.

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VIII. The Jews believe it to have been peculiar to burnt offerings, that they might lawfully be offered at the temple of Jerusalem by strangers as well as by Israelites. This they contend was not the case with other sacrifices, none of which could be accepted by the Jewish priests from any Gentiles: not piacular victims, properly so called, whether sin offerings or trespass offerings, because the laws respecting them were given to the Jews only, and not to other nations;-nor peace offerings which used to be offered at the solemn festivals, because strangers had no concern in the festivals prescribed to the Israelites; nor lastly to the votive or voluntary peace offerings, because the meat offering that was always to be connected with these oblations, was never, they allege, to be accepted from strangers. Whence it became customary, that if any piacular victims were brought to the temple by Gentiles, they were slain and consumed with the ceremonies peculiar to burnt offerings: nevertheless, if any stranger was desirous of furnishing sacrifices for the peace and happiness of the people of Israel, + Leyit. xxii, 25.

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it was deemed lawful to offer such victims after the manner of peace offerings.*

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IX. Nor were burnt offerings confined to the Hebrews and other worshippers of one God; they were every where in use among idolaters. Herodotus mentions an instance:† At this time Eumilcas 'sacrificed and made expiation, consuming whole 'bodies on a large flaming pile.' The same practice is introduced by Seneca: § He burns entire anix mals' which are holocausts. Evidence of this custom is also supplied by Virgil; And he lays upon the flames (solida viscera) the entire carcasses ' of bulls.' Servius explains 'solida viscera' to 'mean not the entrails but the flesh, all that is between the "bones and the skin. This phrase denotes a holocaust, which, after the entrails had been extracted, was laid upon the altar.' the altar.' The same commentator,

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on another passage, says:

passage, says: These animals are vic* tims which are only immolated, and the flesh is "allotted to the priests. In one place the poet sig'nifies that only the blood was poured upon the

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'altars;¶ in another place, he mentions a sacrifice, consisting of a part of the body:** and in another place' (just quoted) he describes the consumption ' of entire victims.'-But holocausts which the law of of Moses required to be sacrificed to the one Maker and Lord of the universe, the disposer of life and death, used to be immolated by the heathens to their fictitious and all-devouring infernal deities.

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Maimon. in Maase Korban. c. 3.

+ In Polymuia.

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TR. A remarkable instance occurs in Xenophon: When they were come to the sacred place, they offered sacrifices to Jupiter, and (ωλοκαύτωσαν) burnt whole bulls ; then to the Sun, and burnt 'whole horses. Cyropæd. L. viii.

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§ In Oedipode.

Eneid. vi. 253.

Æneid. iii. 65. ** Æneid. v. 237.

128

CHAPTER XI.

The Peace Offerings, and those which may be classed with Peace Offerings, such as the Firstlings and the Tithes.

THE Hebrew word rendered Peace Offerings* comes from a root,† which signifies either retribution or peace; and the term peace in the scriptures generally denotes, either the mutual concord of friends, or a state of prosperity. These different senses assigned to the root have produced different expositions of the appellation derived from it. By those who understand the root to mean retribution or recompence, the name given to this class of sacrifices is considered as indicating the division made of them into three parts, for God, for the offerers, and for the priests. This opinion is maintained by the author of the book Siphra; who says, they were so called, because a prescribed portion of them fell to the share of each party.' Those who understand the root to mean concord, think the name of these oblations to denote their being symbols of friendship between God, the priests, and the offerers; to each of whom was allotted a certain portion of them :-the blood and inwards to God, the breast and shoulder to the priests, the rest of the carcass and the skin to the offerers. The peace offerings were so called, because they used to be offered, when any one was in favour with God, ' and their design was that the offerers, the priests,

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and God, to whom be praise, might use one common table. For the blood and inwards were assigned 'to the altar, the breast and shoulder to the priests,

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and the skin and flesh to the offerers.' With this representation of R. Levi Ben Gerson, agree R. Solomon Jarchi, David Kimchi, and the author of the book entitled Aruch; who all consider the common table to have been an indication of friendship, and those who fed upon the sacrifices, as having used one common table with God. But though this account of the matter may not be inconsistent with the truth, yet I prefer, as more simple and natural, the opinion of those, who, understanding the root to signify prosperity, conclude this class of sacrifices to have been so called, because they were always offered in reference to a prosperous state of affairs, either obtained, or prayed for. This explanation appears to have been adopted by the Septuagint translators, and by Philo;t who designate these sacrifices by a Greek term which denotes their being offered on account of safety, or prosperity. And as sacrifices of this class received the original appellation, which is rendered peace offerings, from their being offered in thanksgiving or supplication for prosperity; so, because they were employed by the offerers themselves in sacred feasts, they were also very frequently designated by another name,§ which denotes their being victims slain for banquets. While the people were in the wilderness, living in the vicinity of the sanctuary, such banquets were always to be celebrated whenever any animal fit for sacrifice was slain: for the blood of every bullock, sheep, and goat, slaughtered there, was to be poured out, and its fat to be burnt, upon the altar :|| so that in the wilderness, it

* In Exod. xx. 24. Num. x. 10. xxix. 39.

† Περί Ζωων εις Θυσ.

Η Σωτηρία.
Levit. xvii. 3-6.

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