va THE FIVE MAJOR SACRIFICES IN LEVITICUS 1-7

Wenham contends that “the two sacrifices were quite different. The ritual was different. The sacrificial animals were different. The circumstances in which they were offered differed ... In short, different names denote different sacrifices.” 271 Occasions for va in Lev 5-6 These chapters set out three different occasions for a reparation offering: 1 When a person commits a violation and sins unintentionally in regard to any of the LORD’s holy things Lev 5:15. Levine 272 follows rabbinic tradition which understood that “holy things of Yahweh” here were limited to the tent of meeting and its sancta. Milgrom, 273 though, has shown that the term is wider and includes things that belong to priests —such as portions of ymlv Lev 7:31-34 and tithes Lev 27:30ff—and anything dedicated to Yahweh. In Lev 19:5ff meat of the ymlv is classified among the holy things of Yahweh. A layman who took anything that was holy would commit a violation. An example is found in Lev 22:14: “If anyone eats a sacred offering by mistake, he must make restitution to the priest ... ” Anyone discovering his fault was to return the property or its value, plus 20 per cent of the value, plus a ram as reparation offering Lev 5:15f. 2 If a person sins, and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’s commands, even though he does not know it, he is guilty and will be held responsible Lev 5:17. The syntax of the Hebrew in this text makes it difficult to interpret what it is “he does not know”. This has provoked different interpretations. JPS translates the verse on the basis that the offender did not know that his action was forbidden. Levine 274 points out, though, that this would mean that there is no distinction between the occasions for the reparation offering and the individual’s purification offering Lev 4:27-35: both would deal with the situation of inadvertent offences. 271 Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, p.105. 272 Levine, Leviticus, p.30. 273 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.322. 274 Levine, Leviticus, p.32. Levine follows the rabbinic interpretation that the offender suspected he may have committed an offence, but did not know for certain. He cites the case of Job who used to make a “contingent sacrifice”—in case his sons had sinned Job 1:5. Since the exact offence is unknown, there can be no return of the property as in the first case; simply a ram is offered in sacrifice. Another part of the verse difficult to interpret is the word va, which appears here as a verb. It is translated in NIV as “he is guilty”. Kiuchi points out that this translation makes the protasis simply an objective statement and does not answer the question as to when one should bring the sacrifice. He argues, “Since the term usually comes just before the bringing of the sacrifice or the confession e.g. Lev 5:5,17, it is most likely that the term refers to the existential situation of the sinner.” 275 Milgrom renders va as “he feels guilt”. It does not refer to the state of guilt but “the suffering brought on by guilt, expressed now by words such as qualms, pa ngs, remorse, and contrition.” 276 Kiuchi prefers “he realises guilt”. His position is summarised as follows: “va connotes both a legal status and the idea that ‘guilt’ works itself into the conscience ... so that the sinner becomes aware of his sin.” 277 However, as the offerer remains unaware of what has caused him to feel guilty, Kiuchi’s emphasis on actual legal guilt seems, at least in the context of this verse, misplaced. The traditional rabbinic view was that the reparation offering here was for unconscious breaches of any of God’s laws; but Wenham and Hartley 278 follow Rabbi Akiba 279 and argue that, in the context, it is rather trespasses against sacred property that are in view. Milgrom agrees that “basically the text predicates sancta desecration,” 280 but go es on to argue that “the term for desecration, , was deliberately excluded, in order to teach that the  offering is prescribed not just for the desecration of the sancta, but also for the unconscious violation of all of the Lord’s prohibitive commandments.” 281 275 Kiuchi, The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature, p.32. 276 Quoted in Kiuchi, The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature, p.31. 277 Hartley, Leviticus, p.82. 278 Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, p.107; Hartley, Leviticus, p.82. 279 In Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.331. 280 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.332. 281 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.332. The offerer’s lack of knowledge of the exact offence supports Milgrom’s wider interpretation here. The typical offerer, Milgrom postulates, has been suffering psychologically or physically, and unaware of the cause of his feelings of guilt, would often imagine the worst case scenario, that he has committed some sacrilege, though in fact it may have been something else. 282 3 The third occasion for the reparation offering is found in Lev 6:2ff which reads: “If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbour about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do ... ” Recent commentators 283 generally follow Milgrom 284 who considers this text as essentially dealing with religious rather than c ivil law. “Swearing falsely” does not specify a discrete wrong, but applies to all the preceding cases. The offender has defrauded his neighbour by one of the various means listed, but on top of that, when accused of his fraud, he has denied it under oath, using the name of Yahweh. This position clarifies the phrase, “unfaithful to the LORD” Milgrom translates as “sacrilege against the Lord” which heads the pericope v2. The sacrilege occurs because “the Lord has been made an accomplice to the defrauding of man.” 285 As in the first case, the offender has to return the property to its rightful owner, plus 20 per cent, and make a reparation offering to Yahweh Lev 6:4f. Other occasions for offering va The va is required elsewhere in several cases: 1. A Nazirite whose vow of consecration had been broken through corpse contamination had to reconsecrate himself and renew his vow and then present an va Num 6:7-21. 2. A man who slept with a betrothed slave Lev 19:20-22. 3. In post-exilic Jerusalem, those who were guilty of mixed marriages and had to divorce their foreign wives Ezra 10:19. 282 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.332f. 283 E.g. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, Levine, Leviticus, and Hartley, Leviticus. 284 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.336f. 285 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.365. 4. The Philistines returned the Ark they had captured together with valuable objects to appease the wrath of God they were experiencing 1Sam 6:3-5. 5. One healed of an infectious skin disease offered an va as part of a complex rite of aggregation Lev 14:12, 21. These can each be interpreted as examples of breach of faith or sacrilege: the first two involve breach of vows in the second, the oath of betrothal taken before Yahweh has been broken. 286 In the case of mixed marriage, the leaders talk of desecration of the holy people of Israel: “They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them.” Ezra 9:2 The Philistines had desecrated the holy ark of Yahweh. As for the person cured of the skin disease, Hartley 287 suggests that as illness was generally thought of as punishment for sin, and skin disease as the worst curse one could experience, a sufferer may well believe he had unknowingly desecrated sacred property. Wenham, 288 while not discounting this theory, suggests an alternative, that the reparation offering here compensated God for the loss of all sacrifices, tithes and firstfruits the sufferer had been unable to present during his uncleanness. The material The reparation offering was to consist of a ram “one without defect and of proper value in silver according to the sanctuary shekel” Lev 5:15. The latter phrase in my italics has attracted various interpretations. Some of these require the text to be emended. The two that interpret the text as it stands are as follows: 1. The ram must possess a certain value measured in shekels, though the number is not given. 289 The rabbinic view is that as “shekels” is given in the plural, the animal must be worth at least two shekels. Hartley suggests the value was varied from time to time by the officiating priest. 290 2. The offender had the option of providing his own ram or remitting the cost so one could be purchased on his behalf. 291 Milgrom supports this by pointing to 286 Milgrom, in Hartley, Leviticus, p.79. 287 Hartley, Leviticus, p.79. 288 Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, p.210. 289 Hartley, Leviticus, p.81. 290 Hartley, Leviticus, p.81. 291 Levine, Leviticus, p.31. 2 Kings 12:16 which talks of the “money from the guilt offerings”. Although the phrase is only found in Lev 5:15, he argues that it functions as a standard for the second and third cases which follow Lev 5:17f and 6:2ff. Unlike other sacrifices, there was no provision for a poor man, and there was no alternative species to the specified ram. The description of the rite is relatively brief, and from these facts Wenham concludes that for the reparation offering the “value of the animal presented was more important than the procedure at the altar.” 292 Purpose of the va Whereas the tafj was offered by individuals and by the Israelites collectively, the va was uniquely for individuals. 293 For Hartley, 294 the common thread running through all the occasions on which reparation offerings were made was lum, which he translates as “breach of faith”. The crimes of mishandling a neighbour’s property he conjectures were elevated to a breach of faith against Yahweh by swearing an oath of innocence in his name. Milgrom’s analysis, however, is more precise and helpful. His studies reveal that the key word lum in all occurrences in the OT constitutes a sin against God, and that its antonym is “to sanctify”. 295 So the common thread is desecration of something holy: holy property or offerings, or the holy people of Israel, or the holy name of Yahweh. When an offender feels guilt concerning some desecration, he is to make, if the offence is known, full compensation or reparation to all offended parties to put them back in the same position as before, plus a twenty per cent additional penalty. In all cases, on top of any compensation, he is to present a reparation offering to Yahweh so that the priest will make atonement for him and he will be forgiven Lev 5:16,18; 6:7. Milgrom notes that there is a paradox raised by the forgiveness of intentional desecration of the name of Yahweh in Lev 6:1-7, for elsewhere the Priestly author 292 Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, p.105. 293 Hartley, Leviticus, p.78. 294 Hartley, Leviticus, p.77. 295 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.345. asserts the person who sins with a high hand is excluded from the benefits of atoning sacrifice Num 15:30f. He finds that the paradox is resolved in Num 5:6-7, a passage parallel to that in Lev 6: “If a man or woman commits any wrong against man whereby he commits sacrilege against the Lord, when that person feels guilt, he shall confess the wrong he has done, make reparation in its entirety, and add one-fifth to it, giving it to the one to whom he has incurred liability.” 296 Milgrom 297 argues that this passage is more general than the cases in Lev 6 and confirms that lum applies to all cases of fraud through oath. It further stipulates that restitution must be preceded by confession. He surveys the passages Lev 5:1-5; 16:21; 26:40; Num 5:6f where the priestly author requires confession and finds that the passages all deal exclusively with deliberate sin. So he deduces that while for involuntary sacrilege, it is sufficient that the offender feels remorse 298 and presents the reparation offering to make atonement, in the case of deliberate sacrilege, there must also be verbal confession. In other words, repentance through remorse and confession “reduces ... intentional sin to inadvertence, thereby rendering it eligible for sacrificial expiation.” 299 Conclusion A reparation offering is a costly offering presented by an individual to compensate Yahweh for desecration of his property or his name.

5.7 SUMMARY

The following table summarises the major conclusions we have drawn concerning the purposes of the five sacrifices in Lev 1-7. It also sets out what can be perceived to be the distinctive focus of each ritual. 300 296 Quoted in Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.368. 297 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.365ff. 298 The verb va means to feel guilt or remorse. 299 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p.373. 300 See Jenson, Graded Holiness, p.161. Figure 17: Five sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7: summary of their functions Sacrifice Focus of ritual Purposes hlu burning of the whole animal substitutionary atonement; expression of thankfulness and trust hjnm presentation of grain tribute; consecration; thanksgiving; reminder of the covenant ymlv distribution of flesh to various parties enjoyment of fellowship between the people and Yahweh tafj manipulation of the blood purification of the sanctuary, its sancta and the people va value of the sacrificial animal reparation for the desecration of Yahweh’s holy property or name This brief overview demonstrates how complex the Levitical sacrificial is, with its different forms of sacrifice. Wenham argues that substitutionary atonement forms a part of the theology of all the blood sacrifices, and that the different sacrifices deal with different effects of sin. “The burnt offering uses a personal picture: of man the guilty sinner who deserves to die for his sin and of the animal dying in his place. God accepts the animal as a ransom for man. The sin offering uses a medical model: sin makes the world so dirty that God can no longer dwell there. The blood of the animal disinfects the sanctuary in order that God may continue to be present with his people. The reparation offering presents a commercial picture of sin. Sin is a debt which man incurs against God. The debt is paid through the offered animal.” 301 Wenham concentrates on the effects of sin, but as Averbeck points out, since Yahweh was actually “physically, literally and visibly present in the tabernacle” 302 see the cloud and fire in Exod 40:34-38; Lev 9:22-24; 16:2; Num 9:15-23, he was concerned also about the visible, physical holiness and purity of his residence, and of 301 Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, p.111. 302 Averbeck “Offerings and Sacrifices”, p.1008.