Commentaria in Exodum
Verse 19. “Thou shalt take also another ram.” This is the third victim in order. For the first was for sin, namely the calf. The second was for a holocaust, namely the ram. The third here is the other ram, which is offered as a peace-offering, that the new priests might undertake the priesthood prosperously, and that it might be peaceful to them and to the people, that is, happy and fortunate.
Verse 20. “And when thou hast killed him,” when by slaying him thou hast sacrificed him to God. For afterwards this ram was to be burned for the full completion of the sacrifice. “And thou shalt put (of the blood of the ram) upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron and of his sons, and upon the thumbs of their right hand and foot.” As Isaias, about to prophesy, in chapter 6, had his lips cleansed by an angel with a burning coal, as though thenceforth, with the Holy Spirit assisting, he were to speak most pure and most holy things: so here the ears, hands, and feet of the priests are stained with blood, to intimate that these in them ought to be most pure and best ordered, and that they must ask for grace to this end from God who calls them, and obtain it by prayers and sacrifices.
Further, the tip of the right ear is stained with blood, that they may have tender ears and a most ready obedience to hear and fulfil the law and doctrine (both the old, and the new and Evangelical, which offers us the blood of Christ as a cleansing draught). Again, to signify that this obedience is perpetual and must extend to the end. For the tip signifies this, says St. Cyril, book 11 On Worship in Spirit and in Truth, fol. 229.
The thumb of the right hand (for that alone was sprinkled with blood on each) is stained with blood for the firm execution of obedience to the law; likewise also the great toe of the right foot, for the swift motion of carrying it out and of walking in it, says Radulphus on Leviticus. The right ear and thumb are anointed, not the left: both because the right is more excellent than the left; and that by this symbol it may be tacitly asked that this anointing, and all things, may be right, favourable, and fortunate to them.
“And thou shalt pour the blood upon the altar round about,” that is, along the sides of the altar all round, from all its four sides; this blood, therefore, was not poured upon the horns of the altar above, because this was done in no peace-offerings, as is plain from Leviticus chapter 3; nor upon the pavement beside the altar; but along its four walls: for this peace-offering had this peculiarity, that it might be signified by this sacrifice that contact with the altar would be prosperous and salutary to these new priests.
Verse 21. “And of the oil of unction (of whose composition it will be said in chapter 30, verse 23) thou shalt sprinkle Aaron and his vestments.” With blood, then, and oil, whether each separately, or, which is more likely, mingled together, both the priests and their vestments were purified and as it were consecrated, that they might be fit for their functions and for the expiation of sins; just as now also priestly vestments are blessed by the bishop. This oil, therefore, with the blood was sprinkled on the vestments, and so a slight stain was cast on the vestments, to signify that the priest clothed in these vestments would cleanse and purge away the stains and sins of the people. The same anointing had to be applied when other new priestly vestments were afterwards made, those old ones being worn out.
Verse 22. “Thou shalt take the fat of the ram, and the rump.” For these parts are the fatter and more delicate in the animal. God therefore here wills that all the fat, and whatever covers the vitals, as the worthiest and best, be burned to Him. Tropologically, St. Gregory, book 1 of the Morals, chapter 40: “The tail,” he says, “is commanded to be burned to God, that every good thing which we begin we may complete also by the end of perseverance.” Again, the fat signifies gluttony, the kidneys signify lust, the fibre of the liver signifies bile and the irascible power, and the liver is joined and possessed in the body, as belonging to it, as being dedicated and offered to it.
Note: to sanctify here and elsewhere is the same as to offer, of which again verse 27. In Hebrew it is: thou shalt put all upon the hands of Aaron and of his sons, and thou shalt wave them with a waving before the Lord. For the Hebrew word nuph signifies to lift up, or to wave; whence the waving is called tenuphah; and hence the offering itself, from this rite of lifting up, is called tenuphah. Rabbi Solomon and the Hebrews relate that there was a certain ceremony of this lifting up and offering, the tenuphah. Morally, all these things, the victims, must die, and be consecrated to God by the priest through mortification. So Theodoret and St. Basil, book On True Virginity.
To this the frequent meditation on death greatly helps. “When the flesh is desired,” says St. Gregory, chapter 18 of the Morals, “let it be weighed what it is when lifeless, and it will be understood what is loved. For nothing so avails to tame the appetite of carnal desires as that each man consider what that is like dead which he loves alive.” So in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, chapter 1, number 7, Abbot John says: “In the morning think of every virtue, and of every vice to be mortified, shutting thyself in a sepulchre as though already dead, that death may seem to thee near every day.” In the same place, chapter 10, number 63, Abbot Moses, being asked, “What kind of man mortifies himself?” said: “Unless a man set in his heart that he has been three years in the grave, he does not arrive at this word.”
“Because it is the ram of consecration,” namely offered in the consecration of the priests, for their prosperity; as if to say: In peace-offerings the right shoulder, like the breast, falls to the priest; that therefore this victim of the consecration of priests may have something peculiar above the others, I will that besides the rump, the shoulder also be burned to me, but that the breast alone fall to thee, O Moses, as priest and consecrator, that thou mayest eat it with thy family; but the rest of the flesh shall fall to Aaron who offers, as is wont to be done in the offering of a peace-offering. So Hugh.
Verse 23. “That is set in the sight of the Lord,” namely before the altar of holocausts.
Verse 24. “And thou shalt put all upon the hands of Aaron and of his sons, and shalt sanctify them, elevating them before the Lord.” This sanctification of the priests was therefore nothing else than the lifting up of their hands with the gifts, done by Moses: by which lifting up or offering it was signified that those gifts belonged to God, and that thereafter like things were to be sanctified to God and offered by the hands of priests. For when Moses here offered the hands of the priests to God, he consequently offered to God also what they held in their hands. Hence, again, the priest was held holy, and admitted to the familiarity of God, who is holiness itself.
The rite was this: Moses put his hands under the hands of the new priests, and lifted them up, and then lowered them down;
then he drew them from the south to the north; and so he formed the figure of a threefold cross, as if to indicate that God to whom he sacrificed is Lord of the whole heaven and earth (hence also noph, from which tenuphah descends, signifies the regions and climates of the world), and at the same time prefigured the sacrifice of the Cross of Christ. That the same ceremony of tenuphah, and the rite of lifting up the victim, was used in the sacrifice of jealousy is plain from Numbers chapter 5, verse 25, and in the sacrifice of the Nazarite, Numbers chapter 6, verse 20, and in any other peace-offering, Leviticus chapter 7, verse 30, where our Interpreter has translated, when he shall have consecrated both to God; in Hebrew it is, when he shall have lifted up both to God; indeed the Hebrews call the offering itself terumah or tenuphah, of which verse 27. Finally St. Jerome to Fabiola refers tenuphah, that is, lifting up, also to the thing sacrificed, as if to say: Thou shalt offer to God a thing lifted up, eminent, choice, first and chief, which therefore deserves to be lifted up and offered to God with solemn rite.
Verse 26. “Wherewith Aaron was initiated,” as if to say: which ram, namely, was immolated for the happy consecration of Aaron. The Hebrew and the Septuagint have, which is Aaron’s, as if they said: which thereafter in sacrificing shall fall to Aaron’s right.
thou shalt offer the breast to God. For all things that are offered to God are holy, not physically but morally, and are sanctified by being offered, because they are dedicated and wholly assigned to God.