4:1-12 Burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and peace-offerings, had been offered before the giving of the law upon mount Sinai; and in these the patriarchs had respect to sin, to make atonement for it. But the Jews were now put into a way of making atonement for sin, more particularly by sacrifice, as a shadow of good things to come; yet the substance is Christ, and that one offering of himself, by which he put away sin. The sins for which the sin-offerings were appointed are supposed to be open acts. They are supposed to be sins of commission, things which ought not to have been done. Omissions are sins, and must come into judgment: yet what had been omitted at one time, might be done at another; but a sin committed was past recall. They are supposed to be sins committed through ignorance. The law begins with the case of the anointed priest. It is evident that God never had any infallible priest in his church upon earth, when even the high priest was liable to fall into sins of ignorance. All pretensions to act without error are sure marks of Antichrist. The beast was to be carried without the camp, and there burned to ashes. This was a sign of the duty of repentance, which is the putting away sin as a detestable thing, which our soul hates. The sin-offering is called sin. What they did to that, we must do to our sins; the body of sin must be destroyed, Ro 6:6. The apostle applies the carrying this sacrifice without the camp to Christ, Heb 13:11-13.

And the skin of the bullock,.... Not taken off; for the sin offerings that were burnt were not flayed at all, but were cut in pieces with their skins on them (a); in other burnt offerings the skin was taken off, and was a perquisite of the priest, Leviticus 7:8 but this being an offering for the priest, the skin was burnt with the rest:

and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung; the burning of these denoted the sufferings of Christ, and these several parts the extent of them, they reaching to all parts of his body as stretched upon the cross; and the dung particularly the reproach of them, he dying the death of the cross, and was made sin and a curse for his people.

(a) Ib. (Maasch Hakoranot) c. 5. sect. 18. & 7. 2.

11. the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh—In ordinary circumstances, these were perquisites of the priests. But in the expiation necessary for a sin of the high priest, after the fat of the sacrifice was offered on the altar, the carcass was carried without the camp [Le 4:12], in order that the total combustion of it in the place of ashes might the more strikingly indicate the enormity of the transgression, and the horror with which he regarded it (compare Heb 13:12, 13).

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