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minchah by rigidly excluding, except in a few significant instances, leavened bread, and by thus marking the oblations as holy.

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However, a minchah was, under various circumstances, also presented as an independent sacrifice by the nation every sabbath when the twolvo cakes of show-broad were placed on the golden Table in the Holy, on the second day of Passover when the first sheaf of ripe barley, and on Pentecost when the first loaves from the new whoat were presented;3 by the High-priest on the day of his initiation, when the offoring, like every bloodless oblation of priests, was burnt entirely by the very poor as a sin-offering for certain offences, instead of an animal sacrifice, when oil and frank-incense, the emblems of holiness and devotion, were excluded; and by the wife suspected and accused of infidelity, when not only oil and incense were avoided, but ordinary barley-meal was employed instead of fine wheaten flour required for every other minchah, In nearly all these cases the minchah was proscribed to consist of not less than one tenth of an ephah, or an omer, of flour, from the reason above alluded to, that 80 much was supposed to be required for the daily food of ono man." The only exception admitted in the Law was the bloodless oblation presented by the High-priest on the day of his consecration, which was limited to one half of an omer, from considerations pointed out in another place, 10

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The instances above enumerated prove sufficiently that it is idle to dony, as has frequently been dono, tho independent character of the bloodless offorings; the facts that they accompanied the greater number of animal sacrifices, and that for such cases the quantity of the materials to bo used was fixed by the Law, afford no conclusive proofs; for holocausts and burnt-offerings were very frequently killed together; can it thence be inferred that they were never presented separately? The minchah is, no less than the animal sacrifices, called "an offering made by fire to the Lord" or "food of the Lord."11 The sheaf on Passover and the loaves on Pentecost were manifestly the principal offerings of those festivals, to which the animal sacrifices were joined as collateral, if not subordinate, as is manifest from the wording of the commands,

1 Lev. VII. 13; XXIII. 17.

2 Lev. XXIII. 10, 11.

3 Lev. XXIII. 16, 17, 20; Num. XXVIII. 26.

4 Lev. VI. 12-16; see notes in loc.

5 Lev. V. 11-13; comp. vers. 1—5; see Sect. XV.

6 Num. V. 15, 16, 25, 26; comp. Lev. II. 1, 4, 5, 7.

7 See notes on Exod. XVI. 16, 36. 8 Lev. V. 11; comp. XXIII. 17.

• Exod. XVI. 16-18; see p. 76.

10 Lev. VI. 13; see Comm. in loc.

11 Lev. II. 16; XXIII. 7; comp. XXI.

6, 8, 17, 21, 22; XXII. 25; etc.

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"On the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a lamb without blemish" etc.; 12 and, "You shall bring out of your habitations two wavo loaves...and you shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year" etc. 13 Nay on the second day of Passover, the holocaust of one lamb was, contrary to the general rule, accompanied by a minchah of two tenths of an ephah of flour instead of one, evidently because the firstfruit-sheaf presented on the same day was regarded as oquivalent to a sacrificial animal. 14 It is even not improbable that for long periods, reaching to the later times of the monarchy, a bloodless offering alone was publicly presented in the evening, and not an animal holocaust with its accompanying minchah, as ordained in the Pentateuch. If some passages are indistinct, one at least is conclusive: the king Ahaz commanded the priest Uriah to burn on the great altar which he had erected after the admired pattern of one of Damascus "the burntoffering of the morning and the minchah of tho evening"; 10 so that the latter was evidently a chief offering exactly like the former; and if it be contended that the term minchah is there, as in some other instances, synonymous with sacrifice in general and therefore means animal holocaust, this supposition is overthrown by the words which follow, "and the burnt-offering of the king and his minchah, and the burnt-offering of all the people of the land and their minchah and their drink-offering." Moreover, the very laws which enjoin merely flour with oil as an accompanying minchah, prove that the varied and very different forms of bloodless offerings mentioned in the introductory soctions of Loviticus wore moant as indepondont oblations. For as the first chapter treats of holocausts and the third of thank-offerings, so the second details the commands regarding the minchah, which, according to the whole tenour of that code of laws, is no less a distinct class of sacrifice than the two kinds between which it is introduced, and than the expiatory offerings by which it is followed. It may be that the bread and flour (or corn) of the bloodless offerings corresponded with the body or flesh of the bloody sacrifices, the oil of the one with the burnt fat of the other, and the (red) wine of the former with the blood of the latter; but these very analogies tend to corroborate the independent nature of the minchah, which in every essential point consisted of its own components and rites, and did not require the support of the more imposing class of offerings.

12 Comp. Lev. XXIII. 12. 13 Lev. XXIII. 17, 18.

15 1 Ki. XVIII. 29; 2 Ki. III. 20; Dan. IX. 21.

14 Lev. XXIII. 13.

10 2 Ki. XVI. 15.

2. MODE OF OBLATION.

Tho minchah which formed the accompaniment of burnt-offerings and thank-offerings, was always fine wheaton flour, merely mingled with oil.

Now, if it bolongod to a holocaust, it is most natural to supposo that it was, like the animal, burnt entirely on the altar, in accordance with the nature of the class; and thus the Law ordains it in one particular case; though it appears that the practice was not settled in this respect, and that, in some instances, a small part only was burnt, so that the minchah strikingly maintained its distinct character, as is clearly stated in one passage at least. If it belonged to a thankoffering, it sufficed in all cases to devote to the altar a part only, as was the case with the victim which constituted the principal sacrifice. But if the minchah was presented alone as a voluntary gift or in consequence of a vow, it could be offered in various forms and with different ceremonies.

If it simply consisted of fine flour, unprepared, the offerer mixed it with salt, poured oil, and put frank-incenso upon it. In this state he handed it over to the priests, one of whom then took off a portion, designated as "a handful", 3 of the flour together with the oil that was upon it and all the frank-incense, and burnt it to God on the brazen altar in the Court, as "a memorial" or a tribute of homage; the rest belonged to "Aaron and his sons", that is, to the priests generally, as common property."

If the oblation was composed of unleavened cakes or wafers baked in the oven, the offeror carefully mingled the former and "anointed" or brushed over the latter with oil, not forgetting the indispensable salt, and brought them to the officiating priest; the latter took off a part, probably a handful, and burnt it on the altar of holocausts as "a memorial" to God; the remainder belonged to himself, or was, according to a later regulation, left to his whole order, like the offerings of the precoding class."

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If the minchah was to be baked in the pan, the offerer mingled it with oil and salt, and after having baked the dough, divided it into

1 Lev. XIV. 20, "and the priest shall burn the burnt-offering and the bloodless offering upon the altar."

2 Lev. IX. 16, 17, "and he brought the burnt-offering, and offered it according to the law; and ho brought the bloodless offering, and took a hand

ful thereof and burnt it upon the altar."

3 Lev. II. 2; V. 12; VI. 8.

4 Lev. II. 1-3, and Comm. in loc.;

VII, 10; p. 143.

5 Lev. VII. 9.

6 Lev. II. 4; 8-10; VII. 9.

small pieces, over which he again poured oil; the priest then acted precisely as in the former case."

If it was cooked in a pot or cauldron, it was mixed with salt and oil, and when ready, taken by the offerer to the priest, who proceeded in precisely the same manner as has just been stated.

The minchah which formed a part of the praise-offering consisted of unleavened cakes mingled with oil, unleavened wafers anointed, and cakes poured over with oil and prepared of fine flour that had been soaked in that fluid; to these three kinds of cake were added loaves of leavened bread to be caten at tho repast which followed the offering: the acting priest received one piece of each of the four cereal oblations. The High-priest, on the day of his inauguration, presented both in the morning and in the evening half an omer of fine flour, thoroughly saturated with oil, prepared in a pan, and divided into small pieces, after which it was burnt entirely. 10 As a firstfruit-offering from the harvest it was orduinod to present roasted cars of corn from the choicest fields, upon which oil and frank-incense were put; then the priest took off and burnt "the memorial" with all the inconse upon the altar, and kept the rest for his own use.

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These were the principal private minchahs. Besides them some were to be presented in the name of the nation.

A regular and permanent oblation of this kind were the twelve unleavened shew-bread which, each consisting of two omors of fino flour, and arranged in two equal rows on the Table of the Iloly, were renewed every Sabbath, and thon oaten by the priosts in the sacred place; on each row frank-incense was put in a golden cup to be burnt "as a memorial", and to typify that the cakes were consocrated to God, to whom the people of Israel submitted their supplication for their daily sustenance and who bountifully grants their prayer.

The firstfruit-shoaf of barley prescribed for Passover was presented with the rite of waving; a part of it was burnt as "a memorial" on the altar; the rest was left for the benefit of the priests. The ceremony, but slightly touched upon in the Pentateuch, 12 is thus described in the Mishnah. After the corn that was to compose the omer had been cut, in the night of the fifteenth of Nisan, with much ceremonial by three persons with three scythes, and put into three baskets, it was taken to the Court of the Temple; the grains were gently beaten out with

7 Lev. II. 5, 6, 8-10.

8 Lev. I. 7-10.

9 Lev. VII. 12-14.

10 Lev. VI. 12-16.

11 Lev. II. 14-16.

12 Lev. XXIII. 10, 11.

canes or stalks of plants to prevent their being crushed, thrown into an iron pan perforated at the bottom to allow the fire to pass through everywhere, and then spread on the ground of the Court, so that the wind blew through them; they were next put into a coarse grits'-mill, and ground till one tenth of an ephah of flour, that had passed through 13 sieves, was obtained. Oil, then the flour, and oil again were put into a vessel, mixed, and waved together with frankincense; a handful was taken off by the priest and burnt, and the rest reserved to the sacerdotal order. Such minute and pedantic observances were derived from a few general statements of Scripture, which do not even warrant the grinding of the grains; and indeed Josephus mentions a much simpler mode of procedure.

The two leavened loaves from the new wheat presented on the Feast of Weeks, and consisting of one omer of fine flour each, were also submitted to the rite of waving, like the two lambs at the same time killed as thank-offerings, and then entirely given over to the priests for food; for boing leavened, nothing of thom could be burnt on the altar. The Mishnah doscribes the manner as follows: the priest places the two loaves on the two lambs, puts both his hands underneath, and lifts them to and fro, upwards and downwards.

XII. THE DRINK-OFFERING.

IN harmony with the anthropomorphic notions which guided early generations in their religious customs, a complete sacrifice, like a complete meal, was composed of meat, bread, and wine. This practice obtained among the Hebrews also, and it was in the Levitical code consolidated by the law that every animal holocaust and thank-offering, whether private or public, if consisting of a quadruped, was to be accompanied not only by a cereal gift but also by a libation of wine, the quantity of which was, like the flour and the oil of the bloodless oblations, carefully graduated according to the animal which constituted the chief sacrifice; for the measure was in every case identical with that of the oil, the fourth part of a hin being proscribed with each lamb, the third part of a hin with each ram, and half a hin with each bull. Whether a libation was to be added to the independent cereal offerings also, is not distinctly stated, but it is not improbable, and accords well with the nature of the minchah; and the circumstance that the vessels used for libations were ordinarily placed on the golden

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1 See 2 Ki. XVI. 13; Hos. IX. 4; Jocl I. 9, 13; II. 14; comp. Gen. XXXV. 14; 1 Chr. XXIX. 21; 2 Chr. XXIX. 35 (the drink-offerings for every burnt-offering).

2 Num. XV. 3-11; comp. XXVIII. 7, 9, 14; XXIX. 6, 16, 24; VI. 15, 17, etc.; Exod. XXIX. 40, 41; XXX. 9; Lev. XXIII. 13, 18; Num. VI. 15.

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