Table, seems to justify the conclusion that the show-bread also was coupled with a drink-offering. In later times, wine and oil were kept, in casks, in the inner Court of the Temple, and the overseer of the drink-offerings was one of the fifteen chief officers of the Sanctuary. We need hardly remark, that the libation as ordained in the Pentateuch reveals no trace of its pagan origin; it was evidently understood as an additional means of marking the victim as consecrated to God and of hallowing the ceromony; it was retained as essential because wine formed, like cattle and corn, a chief part of Palestine's wealth; and it was, therefore, like the meat and the flour, also termed "a sweet odour to the Lord." But it is significant that the expiatory sacrifices were, according to the enactments of the Pentateuch, not coupled with drink-offerings, for reasons probably kindred to those which recommended the omission of cereal accompaniments in the same solemn classos of sacrifice. A libation of wine was also suppressed in burnt-offerings of birds which were generally confined to the poor, and the purification-offering of the loper which involved peculiar and exceptional rites. In later times, libations of wine could even be offered alone as free-will gifts. 15 6 The mode of libation is not described in the Law, but it appears that at least a part of the wine was out of golden vessels poured into the flames, and thus came upon the brazen altar, like the meat and the fat, the flour and the cakes, the oil and the inconse, as "food to the Lord" or "an offering made by firo, a sweet odour to the Lord", while the rest was probably either, like the blood, poured at the sides of the brazen altar, and perhaps partly round its base, as is confirmed by statements of later Jewish writers, or at the south-western corner of it, as Rabbinical tradition fixed. In this manner all the wine was disposed of, and the priests who were forbidden to drink any strong beverage when they entered the holy precincts, received no part of it. Libations of wine very commonly accompanied ancient sacrifices, even if these consisted of human victims. They were, at all periods, offered by the Israelites to the worshipped idols of surrounding tribes. They formed in some instances the chief religious act connected with offerings, as among the Syrians in Hierapolis, who in certain cases simply led the victim bofore the altar, and there poured the libation upon it, after which it was conducted home, and killed by the offerer with suitable prayers. They were indispensable at the sacrifices of the Greeks and Romans, who put a part of the wine on the head of the • Exod. XXV. 29; Num. IV..7. 4 Num. XV. 7. 5 Comp. Num. XV. 5; VI. 17, 6 Lev. XIV. 10 sqq. victim which was thereby consecrated, or into the flame by which the flesh dedicated to the gods was burnt. But they were also offered by themselves, before the cup was tasted, as a tribute and homage due to the gods; at the commencement of meals, or after their conclusion when the "pledge-cup" was presented to the good Deity, or if the party remained for drinking, in which case three libations were usually poured out, one to the Olympian Zeus and the other celestials, one to the heroes, and the third to Zeus the Saviour and Accomplisher, although the custom varied according to time and place; or as "sleep-libations" before retiring to rest to ask the gods of night, especially Hermes, for propitious dreams; or morely to add solemnity to prayers, and sometimes to impart strength and sanctity to treatios and alliances, whence they occasionally were compounded of wine and blood. Thoy consisted not only of wine, whether pure or mixed with water - the former especially at offerings, the latter at or after meals but also of honey, oil, or milk, whether puro and individually, or diluted with water, or mixed together. Some deities, solemn and severe, required "sober libations" not comprising wino; others, as the gods of Hades, were honoured with libations of honey currently considered as an emblem of death. Oedipus to propitiate the Eumenides was advised, first to draw water from a perennial spring, to put it into skilfully wrought urns which he was to wreathe with the new-shorn wool of a young lamb, and to pour it out as a libation, turning to the rising morn; but then he was to fill another cup "with water and with honey but to add no wino", and to pour it out on the ground, aftor which, fixing on the spot with both his hands three times nine olive-boughs, he should pronounce a prayer to the goddesses with inaudible voice, and then depart, taking care not to turn back an instructive ceremony combining many characteristic features of ancient worship. For water also was deemed acceptable as a libation. The early Greeks used water with their victims, in timos of urgency and in default of wine, and sometimes water and milk together with wine. Firo and water were by the Egyptian priests frequently presented to the statues of the gods, because they were considered both by the Egyptians and Persians as the two purest elements; and every day when the temple of Serapis in Alexandria was opened, a singer standing on the steps of the portico, sprinkled water over the marble-floor, while he held forth fire to the people. For it was an axiom extensively held, "the water is the best of all things", or "the water sanctifies"; it was deemed sacred, because "free from putrefaction", and conducive to generation and calm reflection, in fact "to add vigour to the mind and body"; 1 it was believed to possess nutritious and remedial powers, and was therefore chiefly used for libations in casos of danger and illness, or at offerings for the dead, as was the case among the Hindoos, and is still usual among the Dahomans; especially the water of certain rivers, as the Nile and Ganges, was regarded as hallowed and divine, and pre-eminently desirable for all solemn lustrations, for which purposes it was sent in vessels sealed by priests to all parts of the country and even into foreign lands. Now the Hebrows also seem primitively to have employed water for libations. Thus it is related that in the time. of Samuel, at a period of distress and misfortune, they assembled in Mizpah, "and drew water and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day", when wine, the great exhilarator, which rejoices God and men, would not have been in harmony with the mournful occasion; and David is stated to have "offered as a libation to the Lord" the water which three of his heroes had procured for him at the peril of their lives. A later Jewish custom, alleged to be founded on a tradition from Moses, but not acknowledged by the Sadducees, was the solemn ceremony of drawing water from the rivor Shiloah for the sacrifices of the Feast of Tabernacles, a ceromony carried out with such rejoicings that the saying became proverbial, "whoever has not scen the joy of carrying the water, has never in his life seen joy": the water was poured out at the altar together with the wine, and allowed to flow off through one of the two aporturos at the south-western side of the altar. Howover, the sacrificial system of Leviticus could not sanction libations of wator, since it started from tho fundamental principle that all offerings must represent the life, the labour, or the wealth of the worshipper. XIII. THE BURNT-OFFERING. 1. ITS GENERAL CHARACTER. HOLOCAUSTS form probably the most important kind of primitive offerings; for they involve most strikingly the idea of sacrifice, and express most completely the absolute submission to the power of the deity. They were certainly a principal characteristic in the public worship of the Hobrows, nay its very foundation. Thoir interruption at the common Sanctuary was regarded as a national disaster involving almost the annihilation of the theocracy. They sometimes reprosented the whole class of animal sacrifices. Killed at the central 1 1 Sam. VII. 6. 2 2 Sam. XXIII. 16; comp. 1 Ki. XVIII. 34. 3 3 2 Chr. XXIX. 7; Dan. VIII. 11; XI. 31; 1 Macc. IV. 38–59. 4 Am. V. 22; Jer. XIV. 12. 8 2 9 3 1 Sanctuary, they were designed by the Law to keep alive the feeling of humble dependence on Jehovah, and were used as a chief acknowledgment of His theocratic rule. They marked the habitual tone of the religious life of the nation, for which reason the fire was to be permanontly maintained on the brazen altar, both by day and night. They were the most unselfish offerings, "sacrificed for God Himself alone, who ought to be honoured for His own sake and not for that of any other being or thing." Therefore, they were to be presented in the name of the people, regularly and throughout the year, every morning and every evening as "continual burnt-offerings", on every sabbath and day of the new-moon; on the three great agricultural festivals," when the people assembled "to appear before the Lord";" on the Day of Memorial celebrated on the first day of the seventh month, and on the Day of Atonement. They were moreover prescribed to individuals on various important occasions after recovery from leprosy 10 or "a running issue", 11 to women after childbirth, 12 and to the Nazarite, when he had been defiled by contact with a corpse, 13 and when the time of his separation terminated. 14 And they were ordained as a part of ceremonials of consecration when the Tabernacle or Temple was dedicated, 15 when Aaron and his sons were initiated into the functions of hereditary priesthood, 16 and the Levites were appointed the privileged ministers of the priests; 17 they typified, on such occasions, the Divino authority to which the offices were subjected, and to which the functionaries owod their power as delegates and instruments. But their principal weight lay in applications unconnected with positive procepts of the Law. They wore, in a great measure, left to the option of the pious, when anxious to testify in any emergency of life, whether sorrowful or joyous, their reverential allegiance 1 Lev. VI. 2, 5, 6. 2 Exod. XXIX. 38-12; Num. XXVIII. 3-8, 23, 31; XXIX. 11, 16; 2 Ki. XVI. 15. 3 Exod. XXIX. 38, 42; Num. XXVIII. 3, 6, 23, 31; Ezek. XLVI. 15; Ezr. III. 5. 4 Num. XXVIII. 9, 10. 5 Num. XXVIII. 11–14; XXIX. 6. • Exod. XXIII. 15; XXXIV. 20; Lev. XXIII. 12, 37; Num. XXVIII. 19, 27; XXIX. 13, 17, 20, etc.; Deut. XVI. 6, 7; 2 Chr. XXXV. 12, 14, 16. 7 Exod. XXXIV. 24; Deut. XXXI. 11; comp. Isai. I. 12. 8 Num. XXIX. 2. 9 Num. XXIX. 8; Lev. XVI. 24. The public burnt-offerings amounted annually to no less than 1244 animals; see the computation in Sect. XX. 10 Lev. XIV. 19, 22, 31. 13 Num. Vl. 9-11. 15 Num. VII. 15, 21, 27, etc.; Ezra VI. 17; comp. 1 Chr. XXIX. 21, 22; 2 Chr. XXIX. 31, 32. 10 Exod. XXIX. 18, 25; Lev. VIII. 18; IX. 2, 7, 12, 16. 17 Num. VIII. 8, 12. 21 to God's sovereignty; 18 and on national occasions their vast numbers indicated the spontaneous impulse of the heart. 1o Indeed they preponderated so decidedly among the Hebrews that foreign observers. and historians described them as their only kind of offerings. Thus particularly calculated to foster the feeling of humility, because not presented after a special trespass, but as a general expression of frailty and sinfulness, they partook of the character of expiatory offerings, and in earlier periods formed their substitute, 20 as, on the other hand, even in the time of Ezra, sin-offerings were occasionally burnt as holocausts. If the whole congregation had unwittingly erred and transgressed a Divine commandment, they were ordered to offer for their expiation both a bullock as a burnt-offering and a goat as a sinoffering. 22 Holocausts were professedly designed as an atonement for those who presented them in a proper spirit; and the imposition of the hand had there nearly the same meaning as in sin-offerings; 23 hence the Rabbinical maxim is justified "the burnt-offering expiates the transgressions of Israel"; there is some truth in the paraphrase of Jonathan, who after the command, "the one lamb for a burnt-offering thou shalt offer in the morning", adds the explanation, "to atone for the sins of the night", and after the words, "and the second lamb tbou shalt offer towards the evening", inserts, "to atone for the sins of the day"; and Abarbanel described them not incorrectly, if vaguely, to aim at "uniting man's intellectual aspirations with God." Their true nature is, perhaps, most clearly discernible in the account that Job, whenever his sons had completed their cycle of foasts, "sont and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burntofferings according to the number of them all: for Job said, 'It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.'"'24 It is, therefore, hardly an oxaggeration if Philo, Ebn Ezra, and others termed the holocaust the "best" and "highest", the "choicest" or "most exquisite" kind of sacrifice; it was certainly, according to the Pentateuch, to consist of an unblemished male animal- - whether bullock, ram or goat which was considered the superior species; and though the Law permitted or prescribed also holocausts of pigeons and turtledoves of either sex, particularly in order to rondor them accossible to persons of limited means, the larger quadrupeds were selected in 18 Judg. XX. 26; 1 Sam. VII. 9; Ps. LXVI. 13-15; 2 Chr. XXXI. 2. 19 Comp. 2 Sam. VI. 13; 1 Ki. III. 4; VIII. 5; Ezra VI. 17; VIII. 35; 1 Chr. XXIX. 21; 2 Chr. XXIX. 32, 33. 20 Comp. Lev. XVII. 11; see Sccl. XV. 21 Ezra VIII. 35. 22 Num. XV. 22—26. 23 Lev. I. 4, comp. XIV.20; XVI. 24; also Gen. VIII. 21. 24 Job. I. 5; comp. XLII. 8 (offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering). |