Commentaria in Leviticum
Chapter 6
The victim for the sin of injury to a neighbour is described. Then what is to be burnt of the several victims, and what to be eaten; wherefore in verse 9 the law and rite of the holocaust and of the perpetual fire are described in this matter; in verse 14, the rite of the mincha; in verse 20, the rite of the victim at the consecration of priests; in verse 25, the rite of the victim for sin.
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2. The soul that shall sin, and despising the Lord shall deny to his neighbour the thing delivered to him to keep, which was committed to his faith, or shall by force extort any thing, or commit a calumny, 3. Or shall find a thing lost, and denying it, shall swear falsely, or shall do any other of the many things wherein men are wont to sin, 4. Being convicted of the offence, he shall restore 5. All that he would have gotten by fraud, in the principal, and the fifth part besides, to the owner whom he wronged. 6. And for his sin he shall offer a ram without blemish out of the flock, and shall give it to the priest, according to the estimation and measure of the offence: 7. And he shall pray for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him for every thing that he hath done in which he sinned. 8. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 9. Command Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the holocaust: It shall be burnt on the altar all night until morning: the fire shall be of the same altar. 10. The priest shall be vested with the linen tunic, and the linen breeches, and shall take up the ashes of that which the devouring fire hath burnt, and putting them beside the altar, 11. He shall put off his former garments, and being clothed with others, shall carry them forth without the camp, and shall cause them to be consumed to ashes in a very clean place. 12. And the fire on the altar shall always burn, and the priest shall feed it, putting wood on it every day in the morning, and laying the holocaust thereon, shall burn thereon the fat of the peace-offerings. 13. This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar. 14. This is the law of the sacrifice and of the libations, which the sons of Aaron shall offer before the Lord, and before the altar. 15. The priest shall take a handful of the fine flour that is tempered with oil, and all the frankincense that is put upon the flour, and shall burn it on the altar for a memorial of most sweet savour to the Lord: 16. And the remnant of the flour Aaron shall eat with his sons, without leaven; and he shall eat it in the holy place of the court of the tabernacle. 17. And therefore it shall not be fermented, because part of it is offered for the burning of the Lord. It shall be the holy of holies, as that which is for sin and for trespass. 18. The males only of the race of Aaron shall eat it. It shall be a law for ever in your generations concerning the sacrifices of the Lord: every one that toucheth them shall be sanctified. 19. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 20. This is the oblation of Aaron, and of his sons, which they must offer to the Lord on the day of their anointing. The tenth part of an ephi of fine flour they shall offer for a perpetual sacrifice, the one half thereof in the morning, and the other half in the evening: 21. Which shall be fried in a frying-pan, tempered with oil. And he shall offer it hot for a sweet savour to the Lord, 22. The priest that by right succeedeth his father; and it shall be wholly burnt on the altar. 23. For every sacrifice of the priests shall be consumed with fire, neither shall any man eat thereof. 24. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 25. Say to Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the victim for sin: In the place where the holocaust is offered, it shall be immolated before the Lord. It is the holy of holies. 26. The priest that offereth it shall eat it in the holy place, in the court of the tabernacle. 27. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be sanctified. If a garment be sprinkled with the blood thereof, it shall be washed in the holy place. 28. And the earthen vessel, wherein it was sodden, shall be broken: but if the vessel be of brass, it shall be scoured, and washed with water. 29. Every male of the priestly race shall eat of the flesh thereof, because it is the holy of holies. 30. For the victim that is slain for sin, the blood of which is carried into the tabernacle of the testimony to make atonement in the sanctuary, shall not be eaten, but shall be burnt with fire.
Verse 2. The soul that shall sin, and despising the Lord shall deny to his neighbour the thing delivered to him to keep.—
Note “despising the Lord,” as if to say: He who falsely denies a deposit hidden and secret sins against the Lord, who alone saw it deposited, because the matter was done without witnesses. For he despises the presence of the Lord, His omniscience, judgment and vengeance. It is not treated here, then, of him who formally despises the Lord, saying in pride: I will not obey God; for such a one was to be put to death, according to the law, Numbers 15:30. See Abulensis there, Question 43.
Or shall commit a calumny—that is, shall injure someone by calumny and fraud; so the Septuagint, namely by doing damage and by seizing another’s goods by fraud. Hence Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, according to Hesychius, render: if he has calumniated anyone.
Verse 3. Or any other.—The Hebrew adds “of those,” namely in which fraud is wont to be done, or other damage inflicted on a neighbour, as happens in all the cases here enumerated.
Calvin will have this sacrifice, of which Scripture here speaks, by synecdoche extended also to other sins committed willingly and knowingly; and so that there was no expiation of any sin among the Jews except by sacrifice, and this to the end that in this way he may elide and enervate works of satisfaction. “Whence,” he says, “is refuted the diabolical fiction of satisfactions, by which the Papists imagine they are redeemed from God’s judgment. To this end works of supererogation, as meritorious for redeeming punishment; thence Purgatory also emerged.”
But that this is false is plainly proved (to pass over other things) from this clause, which plainly teaches that this sacrifice is commanded only for like injuries and damages inflicted on a neighbour. Hence for voluntary idolatry, divination, schism, murder of parents, etc., no sacrifices were particularly appointed; likewise for interior sins no victims are appointed here, but only for exterior ones; yet it is certain that all could be expiated by an act of contrition, to which all the prophets exhort sinners, promising them pardon. Moreover this does nothing for satisfaction, which avails only for redeeming temporal punishment; nay hence I retort the argument for satisfaction: Those old Sacraments did not avail for the expiation of guilt of themselves, but only of temporal punishment, as I showed in chapter 1, verse 4: therefore they availed by way of satisfaction. For Catholic doctors call satisfaction the redemption of the temporal punishment which remains when the guilt is remitted. See Bellarmine and Suarez on that matter.
Verse 4. Being convicted of the offence.—The Hebrew is, when he shall have offended; so also the Septuagint; but they take “to offend” abusively for “to acknowledge his offence.” So Vatablus. So also the Chaldee explains in chapter 5, last verse. By a like abuse “to offend” signifies to expiate the offence, and the offence itself is here often the name of the very victim that expiates the offence; so “to cleanse” signifies to declare clean, chapter 13, verses 14, 25, 27. In the same way understand what our version renders, “convicted of the offence,” namely not by witnesses, but by himself and his own conscience, which pricking, he confesses this offence to the priest. This is expressed more clearly in Numbers 5:7, where the same case is repeated here; for that a secret sin is treated here is plain from the fact that Moses has already treated of public sin, and ordained laws in the whole of chapter 21 of Exodus, and particularly verse 8, where the defrauder, convicted of fraud, is commanded to pay not the single but the double. The same is plain from Josephus, who, being a priest, could best know these things. These are his words, book 3 of the Antiquities, chapter 10: “He who knowingly has sinned, no one being privy, offers a ram, the law so commanding”; therefore he who sins knowingly, though secretly, is commanded here to go to the priest and disclose the sin to him, that at his discretion a ram may be chosen, and he pray for the sinner. So also Philo: “If anyone,” he says, “has lied concerning a partnership, or a deposit, or robbery, or the finding of a lost thing; then, to avoid suspicion, has not refused to swear; and at length, his conscience accusing him within, himself condemning his perjury and denial, has confessed and asked pardon, he shall deserve forgetfulness of the offence.”