English reader in consequence of inconsistency in the translation into English as between the two Testaments, or of failure to read the Greek Testament in the light of Jewish ideas and terminology; (4) the absence of oblation' from the A.V. and R.V. of the N.T. is offset by the fact that 'gift' is relatively much more frequent in the N.T. than in the O.T. as a term to cover what was presented at the altar. A careful consideration of what is involved in (3) and (4) would show that either 'gift' should be substituted for oblation' in the great majority of the occurrences of the word in the R.V. of the O.T. or ' oblation' should be substituted for 'gift' in such a passage as, 'Therefore if thou bring thy gift before the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee: leave there thy gift before the altar, go thy way: first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift.'

Of the use of the word 'gift' in E.V. it is unnecessary to say anything further at present; but the use of 'offering' must be further considered. This term occurs in the E.V. with great frequency, and most often as a part of the rendering of Hebrew terms which do not etymologically or directly express the idea of offering. The Hebrew terms in question are specific terms, terms for sacrifices or sacred offerings offered in some particular manner, or on some particular occasion or for some particular purpose.

According as the whole or only a part of what was brought to the altar was burnt on the altar, sacred gifts or sacrifices were termed ny, ôlah, or п, zebaḥ. The first of these terms the E.V. regularly renders by burnt-offering, and the synonymous bbby whole burnt-offering, the second by sacrifice. But for this second term there are synonyms: a comprehensive, frequently recurring term for victims of which parts only were burnt on the altar, the remainder being used for sacred meals, is Dp, sholāmīm, which E.V. regularly renders peace-offerings, occasionally giving thank-offering in the margin as an alternative rendering. These 'sacrifices' or 'peace-offerings' are

1 Mt. 599, 24.

3

2 Lev. 615 f. (E.V.22), Dt. 13" (E.V.1), 3310, 1 Sam. 79, Ps. 5121 (E.V. 19). 3 So Lev. 31 A.V., Ezek. 451.

So Lev. 31 R.V.

subdivided in P into what the E.V. calls thank-offerings, vows, and free-will offerings. So again in P these appear not as subdivisions indeed of the burnt-offerings, but resembling them and differing from the peace-offerings in that they are wholly withdrawn from the offerer so that he does not partake of their flesh, what the E.V. calls sin-offerings and guilt-offerings. There are other terms also, such as those for special parts of the sacred gifts or sacrifices, or for sacrifices offered at particular seasons, which contain in English the term 'offering': such are the 'continual offering', the 'heave-offering', the 'wave-offering', the 'drinkoffering the terms we have to examine. The question now is: how far is the idea of gift, which is suggested by the use of offering' in most of these English terms, expressed by any of the Hebrew terms thus rendered?

One of these terms, however, even in English, does not immediately suggest gift. That is 'sacrifice'. Just as little does the Hebrew nat suggest gift. From some points of view, 'sacrifice' is a very inconvenient rendering of nat. I proceed to explain this. In all discussions of Hebrew sacrifice the question arises as to the range of the term; should it, for example, include all gifts at the altar or only animal victims presented at the altar; and again, should it include certain ceremonial slayings of animals which had not been presented at the altar? But it is never suggested that the term 'sacrifice' should be so limited as to exclude such important victims as those used for burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, and guilt-offerings; yet this is what the term 'sacrifice' as used in the English versions implicitly does. On a certain theory of the origin of sacrifice, burnt-offerings, sinofferings, and guilt-offerings are, indeed, further removed from the original character of sacrifice than are 'na; but even if on this ground it seemed well so to revolutionize our terminology of sacrifice as to exclude from it the types just mentioned, the English rendering would remain inexcusable, for the Hebrew term na does not in any sense correspond to sacrifice so understood, it means simply 'what is slain'. If from the Hebrew point of view it is found suitable to comprehend ny and pai alike under the general head of sacred offerings, then a suitable translation of 'n of the same type as 'burnt-offering' would be 'slain-offering'. The Dna were slain animals used mainly

for a sacred meal, the nby were offerings burnt whole on the altar.

We turn now to the other terms. On one theory of its etymology the term ', the synonym of 'л (E.V. sacrifices), rendered in R.V. 'peace-offerings', originally meant payments, a meaning which would be closely connected and easily derived from the idea of gift. This sense of payment was probably sometimes, whether rightly or wrongly, felt to be expressed by the term, as for example by the author of Prov. 714, b

By others it is not the idea of payment but .עלי היום שלמתי גדרי

other ideas that are associated with it (e.g. Greek cipηviká). But with a single possible exception, 77, what is spontaneous or voluntary, none of these Hebrew specific terms either owes its origin to, or expresses, the sense of gift. For example the nby like the nat is derived from a special feature in the treatment of the victim; according to the commonly accepted etymology it is literally the ascender, what goes up on to the altar, or what goes up from the altar in smoke. Even if we connect the term not with the familiar Hebrew and Semitic root by 'to go up', but with the root, the sense is not greatly different, though it is perhaps more directly expressed: it is then what is burnt.1 If we wish to avoid introducing the idea of offering into the translation, we cannot do better than adopt from the Greek version and the Vulgate the rendering holocaust, of which the latter part is actually expressed by ny and the first by the alternative term, whole offering. And so with the remaining terms: it is the first part of the English compound expressions 'sin-offering', 'guilt-offering', 'thank-offering', 'free-will offering', &c., that is alone really expressed by the Hebrew; it is not because these victims were given to God that they received these names; they were so called because, gifts or whatever else they were, they had some relation, which we do not at present more closely define, to sin, guilt, thanks, and spontaneity respectively.

It would be tedious, and it is also unnecessary, to enter into further details with regard to these and other specific terms which do not in themselves express the idea of gift or offering; sufficient has been said to indicate how large a deduction must

1 Hommel, AHT 278-9, but is 'to boil' rather than 'to burn'.

be made from the use of the term 'offering' in compound expressions in the R.V. in estimating the way in which the belief that sacrifices were gifts has affected Hebrew terminology.

I pass to terms, some of which certainly, others of which possibly, express directly the ideas of gift, present, offering. And I remark at once that these terms are different in character: the terms I have just been discussing are specific; they are the names of special classes or applications of sacrifices or whatever we find it best to call them; the terms to which I pass now are generic, terms for the entire kind of which the terms already considered form classes or sub-classes.

, אשה קדשים : Of these generic terms I propose to speak of four

.is narrower זבחים as

nn, jap, of which the two former do not but the two latter do directly express the idea of gift. All four terms are wide, but they are not co-extensive, still less, however, are they mutually exclusive. I have already pointed out that 'n which is commonly translated 'sacrifices' does not really correspond to any meaning commonly placed on that word: the Hebrew Dat is a much narrower term than 'sacrifice' and designates merely a special class of sacrifices. Among the four general terms just quoted, that which most nearly corresponds etymologically, and indeed in the idea which it continued to express, to 'sacrifice', is Dp, sacra, sacred or holy (things). But this term is of course as much wider than sacrifices (as commonly understood) Nevertheless in certain connexions it is used with so much tacit restriction that it would be tolerably correct to render it sacred (gifts) or sacred (offerings): in other words it is in these cases a comprehensive term for all sacrifices or sacred gifts. In Num. 59, for example, the restriction is definitely stated: 'Every contribution, even all the Dp (sacred gifts), which they present to the priest, shall be his' (not R.V.), and so probably in the following verse. So without the restrictive clause in Num. 188: 'I have given unto thee (i. e. Aaron and the priesthood) that which is kept (i. e. from being burnt on the altar) of the contribution made to me, even all the holy gifts'; then in the remainder of the chapter follow the various classes of sacra, which include not only animal victims, and not only vegetable offerings of which some part was burnt on the altar, but also such gifts as tithes none of which came to the altar.

It

may be added that a more or less corresponding use of D'W¬P is found in later Hebrew; in the Mishna the sixth division is termed op, and includes the tracts that deal with the various offerings; while two of these tracts passed at one time under

i. e. the ,שחיטת חלין and שחיטת ק' the names respectively of

slaughter of the sacra and the slaughter of the profane; these dealt the one with the slaughter of animals devoted to the altar, and the other with the slaughter of animals intended for ordinary, common consumption.

We need not pursue this rather evasive use of Dep further; it is well to have it in mind in considering how far Hebrew has an equivalent for 'sacrifice' and by what shifts it makes up for the lack of any complete equivalent, and the significance of this incomplete correspondence between the English and Hebrew views of our subject.

If we neglect etymology and consider only the range of objects covered by the ordinarily restricted use of the English term 'sacrifices', we may find perhaps the nearest equivalent in the word n, DN, which is regularly rendered in the R.V. by the compound expression offering-made-by-fire (A.V. occasionally sacrifice-made-by-fire). As usual with these compound expressions of the English Version, the idea of offering is certainly not conveyed by the word; on the other hand, that the object so termed was burnt with fire, i. e. of course the altar fire, may be expressed by the etymology of the word, and certainly corresponds to the actual treatment such objects underwent. If then by sacrifice is to be understood that of which the whole or a part is consumed on the altar, the English 'sacrifice' and the Hebrews are almost exactly co-extensive. It is, indeed, sometimes said that the term is also used in the case of the shewbread (Lev. 247, 9) of an offering not consumed in the fire.1 But this is incorrect. It is to be remembered that N is used

1 Paterson in DB (Art. Sacrifice).

2 The term is really used with reference to the shewbread in precisely the same way as, for example, in reference to the peace-offerings. Of these last, part was consumed in the fire, part fell to the priest, and part furnished the offerer with his sacred meal. Yet the entire peace-offerings are included under D'UN in Lev. 735 (cp. v. 37) where, too, the very phrasing implies that part of the DN in general fell to the priests for their use.