צו

God spoke to Moses: “Command Aaron and his sons.” In the Tabernacle, the portable holy tent, priests served at the altar. For the burnt offering, the animal stayed on the altar through the night, and the fire had to keep burning until morning. A priest dressed in linen would lift the ashes and set them beside the altar. Then he changed into other clothes and carried the ashes outside the camp to a pure place. Every morning he added wood, arranged the offering again, and turned the fat parts of the offerings of well-being into smoke. God called it a “perpetual fire,” never allowed to go out.

God also gave rules for the grain offering. Aaron’s sons brought fine flour mixed with oil, with frankincense on top. A handful was burned as a pleasing odor, and the rest was eaten as unleavened cakes in the sacred area. God said these gifts were “most holy,” and anything that touched them became holy too.

Some offerings had extra careful rules. One was the chatat, the “purgation offering,” brought to make things right and to cleanse what needed cleansing. It was slaughtered where the burnt offering was slaughtered, and the priest who offered it ate it in the sacred area. If blood spattered on a garment, it had to be washed there. If the meat was boiled in an earthen pot, the pot was broken; if in copper, it was scrubbed and rinsed. But if any of its blood was brought into the Tent of Meeting to make things right in the sanctuary, none of that meat could be eaten, it had to be burned.

God also described the guilt offering, with its fat parts turned into smoke on the altar. Then came the sacrifice of well-being: thanksgiving offerings were eaten the same day, while votive or freewill offerings could be eaten the next day too, but anything left to the third day was burned. The Israelites were also commanded not to eat blood, and not to eat the fat of ox, sheep, or goat from offerings.

Then God told Moses to begin Aaron’s ordination as priest, together with Aaron’s sons. Moses brought the vestments, anointing oil, a bull for the purgation offering, two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread, and he assembled the whole community at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. “This is what God has commanded,” Moses said.

Moses washed Aaron with water and dressed him in the priestly garments: tunic, sash, robe, ephod, breastpiece (with the Urim and Thummim inside), and a headdress with a gold frontlet. He anointed the Tabernacle and its items, sprinkled the altar, and poured oil on Aaron’s head. Aaron’s sons were dressed in tunics, sashes, and turbans.

Offerings followed: the bull’s blood was put on the altar’s horns and poured at its base; a ram was burned as a burnt offering; and the ram of ordination was offered. Moses placed blood on the right ear, thumb, and big toe of Aaron and his sons, and he sprinkled them with oil and blood. They stayed at the entrance for seven days, eating the ordination food there and keeping God’s charge day and night.