Looks like I might have goofed a little, but not completely in that I said that the people were able to hold the horns of an animal that was being sacrificed. Also, maybe a female from the flock being offered didn't have horns either, so it might have to be holding the head for all cases. I just read there are over 210 different breeds of goats now and that some females do have horns. I must have read something in between the lines to say they had to hold the horns, but going back it just says holding on to the head of the animal. Maybe, they could have but I'm not going to stand by it anymore. I'm basically going to change that comment from my posts to reflect myself on being more up to date.
Leviticus 9 starts out with after the seven-day, consecration period had ended for Aaron and his sons, Moses commanded Aaron to do another sin offering with a young bull and then a burnt offering of a ram, both without any blemish. This would mean that the bull would not be eaten and completely burnt down because it was used for atonement. The ram, on the other hand, could be chowed down upon after being offered to the Lord. I wonder if Aaron and his sons were forced to fast, but no verse says they had to so far. Also, it looks like maybe Aaron felt like questioning his role of becoming a priest for a little bit because Moses told him to do a sin offering. I would be so bored being stuck in one place for a whole week and not really moving around! That alone would make me feel like going crazy and possibly sin unintentionally.
Leviticus 4:3 talks about how if an anointed priest like Aaron sinned, then he had to sacrifice a young bull without blemish as a sin offering, which looks like what happened. Leviticus 4:13 says if the whole congregation sinned, then the elders laid their hands on the head of a bull before it was killed right outside the tabernacle of meeting. From verses 1-2, it looks like Moses said it directly to Aaron, the anointed priest, to offer a young bull for a sin offering so therefore Aaron was the one at fault for having sinned.
Verses 3-4 sounds pretty amazing in that the Lord said He was going to appear before the children of Israel. Therefore, God commanded them to use a kid of a goat as a sin offering, take a calf and a lamb of the first year, both without blemish, for a burnt offering, a bull and ram for as peace offerings, and a grain offering mixed with oil. Wow, this is such a handful of stuff to sacrifice!
These were talked about from the earlier chapters. Loosely, I recall from Leviticus 4:23 that a male kid of a goat without blemish had to be a sin offering of a ruler. Here, it doesn't mention if the kid had to be male. The burnt offering originally goes back to Leviticus 1:3 and Leviticus 1:10. So far the only exception I've seen for allowing a female to be sacrificed voluntarily deals with the peace offering. From Leviticus 4:28 and 4:32, it gets interesting in that it's mandatory to use a female kid or lamb for a sin offering, which would have be done by common folks like you and me!
From visiting verses 3-4 again, it looks like females could have been used for the peace offering. I'm not sure if a female kid of a goat was used for the sin offering because it dealt with the common people of Israel getting together, but it would have been that way anyway if they went separately. From what I've read so far, the burnt offerings had to be a male without blemish. I think there's some meaning to all of this and I'm a little out of time with blogging so I'm going to cut it short here and go again tomorrow.
From having dedicated myself so far to studying verse by verse out of this tedious book Leviticus on a daily basis, I'm amazed at how much it's been really putting my heart at ease. I'm just going through reading the Bible and trying to make sense of what's going on and that's about it.
Academy of Scrappy Credible Undergraduate Desire
