Lots of Blood - Exodus 29

Before putting Aaron and the other priests into their temple clothes, God commands Moses to publicly do certain things, as a one time event, in order to kind of “dedicate” Aaron and the temple and all of it’s parts. TB compares it to a “ribbon cutting for a new ship or a highway opening.” He also gives some context of where we still are in the chronological scheme of things, “Moses is STILL up on the summit of Mt. Sinai so the narrative we’ve been reading since chapter 24 amounts to God being quoted as He instructs Moses. In a few more chapters, and AFTER the coming Golden Calf incident, THEN all of these instructions will actually be put in place so that they can be carried out.” That was nice to be reminded that these weren’t instructions being given as they were happening, like a narrated play by play, but instead were still before the golden calf thing happened.

Moses is to do these things because he’s the guy in charge and there is yet to be any formal priesthood that can take over yet at this point. God gives Moses a list of things to bring for the first initial sacrifice, a young bullock, two rams, unleavened bread, unleavened cakes with oil, wafers, wheaten flour. But then what’s interesting is that after bringing those things to the tabernacle to be sacrificed, Moses is then commanded to wash Aaron. This is just s imple statement and makes sense because they are in the desert so they are probably dirty and I figured it was more along the lines of the priests set up water stations and Moses instructs and supervises them cleaning off, but TB suggests that there is much more to it than that.

TB notes that while sacrifice has been around since Adam, the washing thing is new and that it began the ritualistic nature of the washing ceremony that would be so prevalent in Judaism for the rest of time. With this initial washing ritual beginning, Moses was to take himself out of his prominent social position and “debase” himself to wash others. TB notes, “the priests were considered to be lower in rank than moses… even Aaron was lower than Moses in rank and authority. Yet here was this most powerful man, the only man that ever talked with God face-to-face, reduced to performing a task that usually only women or servants did… washing others. This must have been quite a shocking sight to the people of Israel who lived in a world where the social class you belonged to was everything. The idea that your supreme ruler would stoop down and wash a lesser person was unthinkable.”

Of course, looking forward this is a call to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples during the last supper. One of the points that was interesting here is that when linked to this case in context, that means that Jesus was not only setting an example of service for his disciples but he was also ritually washing and purifying them to sanctify them so they could assume their rightful roles as high priests in the gospel. Additionally, this washing was a one time thing, Moses only did it this once, after that the priests were in charge of washing themselves.

After being washed, the priests put on their special temple clothes that we talked about in the last chapter, THEN they were to be anointed with oil. The scriptures simply say to take “the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him.” It doesn’t say how much or in which way, TB references Leviticus and the Talmud saying, “the oil had to be poured over their heads in sufficient quantity that it not only ran down their faces and dripped off their beards, but that it flowed all the way down to the hem of their garments. Not only was this extremely messy but by tradition the oil was poured first from right to left, then back to front, in the shape of a cross if you would. How about that for prophetic symbolism!” I thought, if true, that is a very interesting development here. I also thought that it was really weird that they would have to be THAT oily, I wonder why? If anything, I think it would ruin the special temple clothes really quickly.

Now the bullock, or ox, is sacrificed beginning with the priests all laying their hands on the bull’s head, this symbolically transfers all of the sins of Israel to the innocent bull, and that bull is killed. This first sacrifice is unique in that the bull is not tied down to the altar because the altar is not yet sanctified. TB explains, “Part of what was happening here was not only the consecration of the priests but also of the Tabernacle and its utensils and even of the Brazen Altar itself. Until the Bull was killed and its blood spilled and used to cleanse the Atar, the Altar wasn’t fit for use.”

After the bull was killed, only the inside fat, the fat covering the internal organs was kept on the altar and the rest of the animal was taken outside of Israel’s camp and burned there as a sin offering. The significance of this according to TB is that “in the Biible the far is considered the most valuable part of the animal So ONLY the most valuable was offered to Yehoveh on the Brazen Altar in this special sacrifice: the Sacrifice of Consecration.”

Next there is another burnt offering made, this time it’s a ram instead of an ox. Once killed, this ram will have it’s blood sprinkled around the altar. This whole entire ram is to be burned on the altar, all the pieces. Then a second ram is to be sacrificed, but this time the blood is to be put on Aaron and his sons’ right ear, right thump, and rightbig toe and again sprinkled around the altar. Some of the blood on the altar is to be mixed with the anointing oil and then sprinkled on Aaron and the priests’ clothes. Sounds pretty gross to me. Maybe that’s the point, that the atonement and forgiveness of sins is a messy and disgusting business.

This second ram is cut up and cleaned and the part of it is burned up and the other part and the bread and other stuff is used as a “wave offering.” I had never heard of this before the TB explains it as “literally this means they hold it up over their shoulders and heads, and move it back and forth in a waving motion. Then they take the wave offering and put it on the Brazen Altar and burn it up.” The rest of the ram is divided up, Moses gets the rams’ breast, which is uses for a wave offering then he can eat it, and Aaron and his priests boil the rest of the ram and eat that at the entrance to the Sanctuary.

A ritual similar to this is supposed to be repeated everyday for 7 days, and then “I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory… And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God.” This was the whole reason that the people were doing all of these things, so that God could dwell in the midst of them and guide them. All of these things, the weird clothes, the loss of animal life, the mess, the blood, the fire, all that was so that they could have God constantly in their lives. It’s an interesting thing to think about, what things we do in our own lives so that God can always be with us. What do we sacrifice?