to Yahweh; it is not therefore a sin-offering, but it is a means for the removal of sin; it is not an expiatory offering, but it is an expiatory object (Greek äyvioμa). On the analogy of their own rendering in Num. 85 ff. which I cited just now the Revisers might well have rendered 'it is an expiatory object', rather than by the misleading phrase 'it is a sin-offering'.

חטאת

But whereas the term nëл in the ritual of the red cow does not denote a sin-offering, its use in that ritual may cast light on the real flavour of the term non when it is used of what was presented to Yahweh and burnt on his altar, i. e. when it is used of what is customarily called a sin-offering. The term non does not, as I have repeatedly observed, primarily contain the idea of offering; it may well be, then, that when it was applied to certain victims slain before and burnt on Yahweh's altar, it did not so much refer to the fact that they were offerings to Yahweh as that they were victims by means of which the sins of the men who offered them were removed, whether in virtue either of the gift of the animal to God, or of some element in the ritual disposition of it; and to take a single instance, it may well be that we should do more justice to the actual thought of the framers of the ritual if in such a passage as Lev. 48 we were to render the phrase non not as in E.V. by 'the bullock of the sin-offering' but by 'the bullock slain for the removal of sin', on the analogy of the phrase 'water for the removal of sin' to which I have already referred.

By a mere examination of the terms alone it is not possible to determine the precise nature of the derivative meanings that came to be attached to them; the terms must be taken in the entire setting of thought and theory which other evidence enables us to recover for them. But enough has already been adduced to illustrate how the terms лn and DN are associated with ideas of propitiation, or rather of expiation. The question now arises to whom are these terms due? Were they created by the framer of the Levitical law? Are they part of the Mosaic tradition? Do they, therefore, reflect an element in the Mosaic conception or theory of sacrifice? Or are they the creation of a much later period in the history of the Jewish religion? In particular ought we to see in them one sign of the transition from happier associations of sacrifice in early

Israel to the more sombre associations of later post-exilic sacrifice?

A correct view of the history of the terms perhaps lies between the two extremes just indicated. On the one hand it is a fact that the terms on and be as applied to animal victims presented on Yahweh's altar are confined in the O.T. to Ezekiel, the Priestly parts of the Pentateuch (H and P), Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah; and therefore if we accept the view that the Priestly Code is post-exilic these terms occur exclusively in the exilic and post-exilic parts of the O.T., though there they occur with great frequency, as they do in some later, extracanonical Jewish writings.1

Yet we cannot infer from this, at least immediately, that Ezekiel was the first Jew to speak of sacrificial victims by the name of лП. We must, on the other hand, give due weight to three considerations: (1) 2 Ki. 12, in a passage commonly regarded as derived from a pre-exilic source, tells the story of the restoration of the Temple in the days of Jehoash at the end of the ninth century (c. 816-800 B. C.). Money for the purpose was collected in a money-box placed beside the altar; when the box grew heavy it was opened by an officer of the king and by the high priest and paid over to the workmen engaged in the restoration. The narrative closes with the express statement that certain moneys, were not put into the money-box nor used for the repair of the Temple, but were retained by the priests in accordance, as we must infer, with what was already a custom of long standing. These moneys are termed and (MT

mi2, LXX) nnon D, literally 'silver of guilt' and 'silver of sin'. The Hebrew phrases are rendered in the E.V. 'the money for guilt-offerings' and 'the money for sin-offerings', as though the moneys in question were intended to purchase victims to be

Hos. 48 is not an exception. If, indeed, the words 'They (i. e. the Priests) feed upon the л of my people' stood alone, it would be tempting to see in them an allusion to the right of the priests, as it existed later, to use as food parts of some of the victims slain for sin (Lev. 619 (E.V.26)). But these words do not stand alone; they stand in parallelism with: 'and set their heart on their iniquity (y)'; the meaning is that the priests encourage the people in a false view of sacrifice that thereby they may derive profit from the multiplication not only of one special kind but of all kinds of sacrifice. Cp. Hos. 811.

burnt on the altar as sin-offerings and guilt-offerings. If this were correct we should have an early direct reference to sinofferings and guilt-offerings such as appear so frequently in post-exilic literature. But it is now commonly and rightly recognized that this is not correct: the passage makes no allusion to sacrificial victims, but to money payments for ritual offences. The passage does not refer to sin-offerings, but at the same time it by no means proves that such were unknown at the time. It was germane to the story to refer to money; it was not germane to the story to refer to sacrifices. Later in the Priestly Code the guilt-offering accompanied restitution; it may be that in the time of Jehoash the money of guilt, corresponding to the restitution of later law and practice, was accompanied by sacrifice. It may be; the story in Kings leaves the question open, neither proving, nor disproving, the custom of bringing a sacrifice when making a material recompense for a ritual offence.

With the use of both non and Dex in reference to money payments for ritual offences we may recall the use of x in the story of the return of the ark by its Philistine captors. The capture of the ark was obviously an invasion of the rights of Yahweh; and by their question to their priests and diviners, when they are anxious to be rid of a sacred object which had caused them great inconvenience, the Philistines show themselves aware of the necessity of sending back with the ark some material reparation; 'with what shall we send it back?' is their question. The priests reply: 'do not send (back) the ark without anything (DP: cp. ye shall not see my face □p), but by all means render (or pay-awn an) to him (i. e. Yahweh) an 'ashām'. The 'ashām in this case consists of certain golden objects; these are sent away with the ark on a new cart drawn by cows; when the cart reaches the spot in Yahweh's country where it is to stay we must suppose, though the narrative does not clearly or explicitly state this, that the 'asham was received by or on behalf of Yahweh. But what the narrative does explicitly state at the close of the story is interesting; the cows which had drawn the cart and which had been carefully selected by the Philistines are slain and offered up to

Yahweh as a burnt-offering, and when the Philistines had seen, viz. the acceptance of the 'asham and the sacrifice of their cows, they returned home. We find then in this narrative that the 'āshām was at times at least accompanied by sacrifice, but that in this earlier period this accompanying sacrifice was termed a burnt-offering, not as in the law a sin-offering.

(2) I turn now to consider the bearing on our question of the terminology of certain South Arabian inscriptions. Among the Sabaean inscriptions are a group, pre-Christian doubtless, but of how much greater antiquity it is doubtful, which closely resemble the Greek exemplaria collected in Phrygia and brought together by Professor Ramsay in his Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, pp. 149 ff. What he says of these Greek inscriptions applies almost as well to the Sabaean; he says (p. 134): 'In inscriptions of this class the authors are represented as having approached the hieron or engaged in the services of the deity which followed some physical or moral impurity... they are chastised by the god .. they confess and acknowledge their fault; they appease the god by (sacrifices) and expiation; they are freed by him from their chastisement; and finally they narrate the whole in a public inscription as a warning to all not to treat the god lightly.''

...

From these inscriptions Hommel in his Ancient Hebrew Tradition draws the conclusion that the ritual term Khaṭ'at, 'sin-offering', existed in South Arabia from the ancient Minaean period, a period which on Hommel's theory runs back to beyond 1000 B.C. But the conclusion rests on a series of hypotheses, and principally these, (1) that a technical term which is attested a century or two B. C. must have existed also 1000 years or so earlier; and (2) that лon in the Mugilat inscription must not only be of the Pi'el or second conjugation, in which he is probably right, but that it must also mean in particular offer a sin-offering': it may simply mean like the Hebrew on 'to un-sin', 'to eliminate', whatever the precise means of achieving this in any particular case may be.

The Sabaean inscriptions remain an interesting parallel to certain Hebrew usages of son and its derivatives, but they do

1 See Appendix A.

not prove that Sabaean actually possessed the name on as a term for 'sin-offering', still less of course that Hebrew possessed such a term at an early period.

Neither the pre-exilic use of the terms non and be in the O.T. nor the terminology of the South Arabian inscriptions permit us to affirm that sacrifices of animal victims under the terms used with the ritual described in the Priestly Code were made before the exile. But it remains to consider

(3) What follows from Ezekiel's use of the terms. Both terms are confined to the final section of the Book (40-8) written in the year 572, i. e. twenty-five years after Ezekiel with Jehoiachin went into captivity and fifteen years after the fall of Jerusalem. Both terms are referred to in four passages (4039, 4213, 4429, 4620); the лon in three other passages 4319-25, 4427, 4517-25. The first of these passages, like so many others in Ezekiel, is corrupt, and different efforts have been made to reconstruct the original out of the differing texts of MT and LXX. I need not enter into this textual question here, for whatever form of the text we adopt its chief significance for our present purpose remains essentially the same. I adopt here the most readily intelligible reconstruction of the text which runs: 'In the vestibule (of the future Temple seen in vision by Ezekiel) of the gateway there were two tables on each side on which the sin-offerings and the guilt-offerings were slain; outside the door of the gateway on the north were two tables, and on the other side of the vestibule of the gateway two tables on which the peace-offerings were slain; and opposite the peace-offering tables were four tables for the burnt-offerings ' (Ezek. 4039-42, cp. Toy and Bertholet). Now the chief point to observe here is that the sin-offerings and guilt-offerings stand alongside of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings as things equally familiar; Ezekiel does not hesitate elsewhere to note the novelty of such variations from ancient practice as he introduces; he leaves us for example in no doubt that the distinction between the sons of Zadok and other priests which he would introduce in the future had not been a feature of life before the fall of Jerusalem; since now he gives not the slightest indication that sin-offerings and guilt-offerings were something new and additional to the ancient peace-offerings and burnt-offerings, we may