Leviticus 8:15

And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) And he slew it.—Better, and he killed it, as it is rendered in the Authorised Version, in Leviticus 8:19. In ordinary cases the offerer himself slaughtered the victim (see Leviticus 1:5), but in the case before us Moses performed this act in accordance with the command in Exodus 29:11.

And Moses took the blood.—That is, having caught the blood in the bowl, he threw it upon the four corners of the altar, as described in Leviticus 1:5—not, however, on the horns of the altar of incense, or in the tabernacle, as in the case of the sin offering for the high priest and for the nation. (See Leviticus 4:7; Leviticus 4:16-18.)

And purified the altar . . . and sanctified it.—Like the priest, the altar was consecrated to the service of God by the anointing oil (see Leviticus 8:11), and hence, like the priest, the altar is also purified by the expiatory sacrifice from its defilements.

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 8:15. Moses took the blood, &c., and purified the altar — This ceremony of touching the altar with blood emphatically signified that all the services which they offered to God partook of their impurity, and that the very altar which consecrated their oblations was defiled by their unhallowed touch. But the sprinkling it with the blood of the victim, which, by divine appointment, was substituted and accepted instead of the forfeited life of the sinner, made room for repentance, the removal of guilt, and purification; on which account the altar is said to be purified and sanctified by this action.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:14-36 In these types we see our great High Priest, even Christ Jesus, solemnly appointed, anointed, and invested with his sacred office, by his own blood, and the influences of his Holy Spirit. He sanctifies the ordinances of religion, to the benefit of his people and the honour of God the Father; who for his sake accepts our worship, though it is polluted with sin. We may also rejoice, that he is a merciful and faithful High Priest, full of compassion to the feeble-minded and tempest-tossed soul. All true Christians are consecrated to be spiritual priests. We should seriously ask ourselves, whether in our daily walk we study to maintain this character? and abound in spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Christ? If so, still there is no cause for boasting. Let us not despise our fellow-sinners; but remembering what we have done, and how we are saved, let us seek and pray for their salvation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Purified the altar ... sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it - The altar had been sanctified by the anointing oil Leviticus 8:11 like the priests who were to officiate at it; it was now, like them, sanctified by blood, in acknowledgment of the alienation of all nature, in itself, from God, and the need of a reconciliation to Him of all things by blood. Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 9:21-22. See Leviticus 17:11; Exodus 28:38.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14-17. brought the bullock for the sin offering, &c.—a timely expression of their sense of unworthiness—a public and solemn confession of their personal sins and a transference of their guilt to the typical victim.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he slew it,.... Not Aaron, nor any of his sons, who as yet were not fully consecrated and installed into their office, but Moses, as follows:

and Moses took the blood; which was received into a basin when the bullock was slain:

and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger; upon the four horns of the altar, which were at the four corners of it, and dipping his finger into the blood, he besmeared the horns with it, and drew it about with his finger here and there; and so is said to be done round about the altar, as these horns were:

and purified the altar; or cleansed it; not from moral guilt and pollution, which it was incapable of, but from all ceremonial pollution it might be supposed to have:

and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar; the rest of the blood he did not use about the horns:

and sanctified it; separated it from common to sacred use:

to make reconciliation upon it; that it might be fit to have sacrifices offered on it to make atonement and reconciliation for sins; for which reason it was necessary it should itself be pure and holy, in such sense it was capable of being so.

Geneva Study Bible

And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the {c} altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified {d} it, to make reconciliation upon it.

(c) Of the burnt offering.

(d) To offer for the sins of the people.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14–30. (d) the sacrificial part of the rite, consisting of:

(i) The Sin-Offering (Leviticus 8:14-17, cp. Exodus 29:10-14)

A bullock, the most costly animal, appointed for ‘the anointed priest,’ or for ‘the whole congregation’ (Leviticus 4:3; Leviticus 4:14), on which Aaron and his sons laid their hands (see on Leviticus 1:4). It appears that the selection of the animal indicates the sacred office to which Aaron and his sons are to be admitted, but until they are consecrated, the ritual of the offering is the same as that prescribed in the case of private individuals (cp. Leviticus 4:30; Leviticus 4:34). Some of the blood is put on the horns of the altar, and the rest is poured out at the base of the altar.

15. And he slew it] Comparison with Exodus 29:11 shews that Moses slew it, but the text here might be interpreted, and he (Aaron) slew it, especially as it is followed by ‘and Moses took.…’ The same remark applies to Leviticus 8:19 and Leviticus 8:23; cp. Exodus 29:16; Exodus 29:20. In all the verses here cited, the Heb. verb is the same, but is rendered by both ‘kill’ and ‘slay.’

at the base of the altar] see on Leviticus 4:7.

and purified the altar … and sanctified it by making atonement for it] These clauses are not found in Exodus 29:12, but occur in Exodus 29:36-37 of that ch. The altar had already been anointed (Leviticus 8:11); it is now further sanctified by the blood of the Sin-Offering.

The words ‘purify’ here, and ‘cleanse’ (purge R.V. mg.) in Exodus 29:36 are translations of the same Heb. verb. As in English ‘to stone plums’ means to remove the stones, so in Heb. a verb corresponding to a noun is sometimes used in the same way. Here the Heb. verb corresponds to the noun ‘sin,’ and means to ‘remove sin’; it occurs also in Leviticus 14:49; Leviticus 14:52 (of a leprous house), and Ezekiel 43:20-23 with reference to the altar (see note on Exodus 29:36). The rendering ‘by making atonement’ is like R.V. mg. of the passage in Exodus 29:36.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 15-17. - And Moses took the blood. Moses continues still to act as priest, and the new sacrifice is once offered by him. He performs the priestly act of presenting the blood; but on this occasion, which is special, the blood is not dealt with in the manner prescribed for the high priest's offerings (Leviticus 4:6). The reason of this is that Aaron was not yet high priest, and also that the offering was made not only for Aaron, but also for his sons; and further, the blood as well as the anointing oil was required to purify the altar, and sanctify it (see Hebrews 9:21). Although the blood was not "brought into the tabernacle," yet the bullock was burnt with fire without the camp, not eaten according to the rule of Leviticus 7:26, 30. This was necessary, as there were as yet no priests to eat it. Leviticus 8:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The sacrificial ceremony with which the consecration was concluded, consisted of a threefold sacrifice, the materials for which were not supplied by the persons about to be installed, but were no doubt provided by Moses at the expense of the congregation, for which the priesthood was instituted. Moses officiated as the mediator of the covenant, through whose service Aaron and his sons were to be consecrated as priests of Jehovah, and performed every part of the sacrificial rite-the slaughtering, sprinkling of the blood, and burning of the altar gifts, - just as the priests afterwards did at the public daily and festal sacrifices, the persons to be consecrated simply laying their hands upon the sacrificial animals, to set them apart as their representatives.

Leviticus 8:14-17

The first sacrifice was a sin-offering, for which a young ox was taken (Exodus 29:1), as in the case of the sin-offerings for the high priest and the whole congregation (Leviticus 4:3, Leviticus 4:14): the highest kind of sacrificial animal, which corresponded to the position to be occupied by the priests in the Israelitish kingdom of God, as the ἐκλογή of the covenant nation. Moses put some of the blood with his finger upon the horns of the altar of burnt-offering, and poured the rest at the foot of the altar. The far portions (see Leviticus 3:3-4) he burned upon the altar; but the flesh of the ox, as well as the hide and dung, he burned outside the camp. According to the general rule of the sin-offerings, whose flesh was burnt outside the camp, the blood was brought into the sanctuary itself (Leviticus 6:23); but here it was only put upon the altar of burnt-offering to make this sin-offering a consecration-sacrifice. Moses was to take the blood to "purify (יחטּא) and sanctify the altar, to expiate it." As the altar had been sanctified immediately before by the anointing with holy oil (Leviticus 8:11), the object of the cleansing or sanctification of it through the blood of the sacrifice cannot have been to purify it a second time from uncleanness, that still adhered to it, or was inherent in it; but just as the purification or expiation of the vessels or worship generally applied only to the sins of the nation, by which these vessels had been defiled (Leviticus 16:16, Leviticus 16:19), so here the purification of the altar with the blood of the sin-offering, upon which the priests had laid their hands, had reference simply to pollutions, with which the priests defiled the altar when officiating at it, through the uncleanness of their sinful nature. As the priests could not be installed in the functions of the priesthood, notwithstanding the holiness communicated to them through the anointing, without a sin-offering to awaken the consciousness in both themselves and the nation that the sinfulness which lay at the root of human nature was not removed by the anointing, but only covered in the presence of the holy God, and that sin still clung to man, and polluted all his doings and designs; so that altar, upon which they were henceforth to offer sacrifices, still required to be purified through the blood of the bullock, that had been slaughtered as a sin-offering for the expiation of their sins, to sanctify it for the service of the priests, i.e., to cover up the sins by which they would defile it when performing their service. For this sanctification the blood of the sin-offering, that had been slaughtered for them, was taken, to indicate the fellowship which was henceforth to exist between them and the altar, and to impress upon them the fact, that the blood, by which they were purified, was also to serve as the means of purifying the altar from the sins attaching to their service. Although none of the blood of this sin-offering was carried into the holy place, because only the anointed priests were to be thereby inducted into the fellowship of the altar, the flesh of the animal could only be burnt outside the camp, because the sacrifice served to purify the priesthood (see Leviticus 4:11-12). For the rest, the remarks made on Leviticus 4:4 are also applicable to the symbolical meaning of this sacrifice.