1And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments and the anointing oil and the offense-offering bull and the two rams and the basket of flatbread. 3And assemble all the community at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.” 4And Moses did as the LORD had charged him, and the community assembled at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. 5And Moses said to the community, “This is the thing that the LORD charged to do.” 6And Moses brought forward Aaron and his sons and bathed them in water. 7And he placed the tunics on them and girded them with the sash and dressed them in the robe and put the ephod over it and girded it with the ornamental band of the ephod, and tied it to him with it. 8And he put the breastplate on him and placed in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim. 9And he put the turban on his head, and he put upon the turban at the front the golden diadem, the holy crown, as the LORD had charged Moses. 10And Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the Tabernacle and everything in it and consecrated them. 11And he sprinkled from it on the altar seven times and anointed the altar and all its implements and the laver and its stand to consecrate them. 12And he poured from the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him to consecrate him. 13And Moses brought forward the sons of Aaron and dressed them in tunics and girded them with sashes and bound headdresses on them as the LORD had charged Moses. 14And he brought close the offense-offering bull, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the offense-offering bull, 15and it was slaughtered. And Moses took the blood and put it on the horns of the altar all around with his finger and rid the altar of offense, and the blood he poured out at the base of the altar and consecrated it to atone over it. 16And he took all the fat that was on the innards and the lobe on the liver and the two kidneys and their fat, and Moses turned them to smoke on the altar. 17And the bull and its hide and its flesh and its dung he burned in fire outside the camp, as the LORD had charged Moses. 18And he brought forward the burnt-offering ram, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. 19And it was slaughtered, and Moses cast the blood on the altar all around. 20And the ram he cut up into its parts, and Moses turned the head and the cut parts and the fat into smoke. 21And the innards and the legs he washed in water. And Moses turned the whole ram to smoke on the altar—a burnt offering it was—as a fragrant odor to the LORD, a fire offering to the LORD it was, as the LORD had charged Moses. 22And he brought forward the second ram, the installation ram, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. 23And it was slaughtered, and Moses took from its blood and put it on the right earlobe of Aaron and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 24And he brought forward the sons of Aaron, and Moses put from the blood on their right earlobe and on the thumb of their right hand and on the big toe of their right foot, and Moses cast the blood on the altar all around. 25And he took the fat and the broad tail and all the fat that is on the innards and the lobe on the liver and the two kidneys and their fat and the right thigh. 26And from the basket of flatbread that is before the LORD he took one loaf of flatbread and one loaf of oil bread and one wafer and placed them on the fat and on the right thigh. 27And he put everything on the palms of Aaron and on the palms of his sons, and elevated them as an elevation offering before the LORD. 28And Moses took them from their palms and turned them to smoke on the altar together with the burnt offering—they were an installation offering for a fragrant odor, a fire offering they were to the LORD. 29And Moses took the breast and elevated it as an elevation offering before the LORD from the ram of installation. For Moses it was for a portion, as the LORD had charged Moses. 30And Moses took from the anointing oil and from the blood that was on the altar and sprinkled it on Aaron, on his garments, and on his sons and on the garments of his sons, with him, and he consecrated Aaron with his garments and his sons and the garments of his sons, with him. 31And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons, “Boil the flesh at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and there you shall eat it and the bread that is in the installation basket, as I have charged, saying ‘Aaron and his sons shall eat it.’ 32And what is left of the flesh and of the bread you shall burn in fire. 33And from the entrance of the Tent of Meeting you shall not go out seven days, until the day of completion of the days of your installation, for seven days shall your installation be. 34As was done on this day, the LORD charged to do to atone for you. 35And at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting you shall sit day and night seven days, and you shall keep the LORD’s watch and shall not die, for thus I have been charged.” 36And Aaron, and his sons with him, did all the things that the LORD had charged by the hand of Moses.
CHAPTER 8 NOTES
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4. And Moses did as the LORD had charged him. A variant of this clause recurs at the very end of the chapter, framing the whole in an envelope structure. What is noteworthy is that in this chapter the Book of Leviticus for the first time moves from lists of cultic regulations to narrative. It is, of course, a limited sort of narrative, strictly concentrating on the rite of consecration that makes both the altar and Aaron and his sons fit for the cult of YHWH. The details of this installation ceremony pick up Exodus 29.
7. the tunics . . . the sash . . . the robe . . . the ephod. The use of the definite article before each of these items of attire is an indication that the item in question has already been publicly stipulated (in Exodus) as part of the attire the priests are to wear when officiating in the cult.
to him. The Hebrew glides from the plural, used for all the sons of Aaron, to the singular, Aaron the high priest, upon whom the focus will be in the next verse.
8. the Urim and the Thummim. See the comment on Exodus 28:30.
10. Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the Tabernacle. Some scholars conjecture that anointment was the rite of consecration because, as some ancient Near Eastern parallels suggest, coating with oil was thought to have a prophylactic effect, warding off evil forces. There may, however, be a more quotidian explanation. Rubbing the body with oil after bathing was a way of both pleasuring the body and putting oneself in a festive state, as when David renounces his ritual of mourning, bathes, rubs himself with oil, changes his clothes, then comes to worship and finally to eat (2 Samuel 12:20). The same procedure might have seemed appropriate to ready the altar and the officiants for service. Anointing was also the ceremony for conferring kingship (rather than crowning), perhaps as an extension of its cultic use. The anointing oil was a special mix of olive oil and fragrant spices, with the latter predominating in quantity.
15. Moses took the blood and put it on the horns of the altar. The two substances upon which the dedication ritual turns are oil and blood. The function of the former is, at least in the view of this commentary, purely consecrational, whereas the blood is understood to have what Jacob Milgrom calls a “detergent” effect, ridding the altar of impurities.
23. Moses took from its blood and put it on the right earlobe of Aaron and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. Both the altar and the priests are smeared with anointing oil and with blood. As Baruch Levine notes of the high priest, “In effect, he was the human counterpart of the altar.” In fact, the ceremony as a whole is a strong instance of what Mary Douglas calls analogical thinking, in which sacerdotal body and altar are part of an intricate system of correspondences. The extremities daubed with blood correspond to the horns and the base of the altar on which blood is sprinkled. At the same time, the right hand and the right foot are the emblems of human agency as the right ear is the emblem of obedience or responsiveness.
33. until the day of completion of the days of your installation. The Hebrew phrasing incorporates an untranslatable pun. The word for “installation,” miluʾim, literally means “fillings” and is linked to the idiom “fill the hands” (the phrase at the end of the verse, “shall your installation be” is literally “your hands will be filled”—that is, you will be entrusted with the priestly functions, having been installed). “Completion” (meloʾt) is another form of this same verbal root, the idea being that a set period is completed when its days are filled out.