A Call from Inside the Tabernacle

“Called” is vayyiqra, the first word of the book and its Hebrew title. Scribes write it with a small aleph, and without that letter it would read vayyiqar, “happened upon”, the word used of God meeting Balaam (Numbers 23:4). Rabbinic tradition read the small letter as Moses’ modesty about being called.

“Offering” is qorban, from qarav, to come near; it is the word Mark 7:11 leaves untranslated as “Corban”. “Any man” is adam, a human being, not ish, a male. In 1611 “cattle” meant livestock of every kind, and the verse divides it into the herd, bovine, and the flock, sheep and goats.

The burnt sacrifice is the olah, “that which goes up”. “Without blemish” is tamim, whole, the word Genesis 6:9 uses of Noah as “perfect”. “Of his own voluntary will” translates lirtsono, which may instead mean “for his acceptance”, as most modern versions take it; the King James reading follows older Jewish interpreters.

The verb is samakh, to lean or press, not a light touch; the rabbis required the offerer to lean with his full weight. From it comes semikhah, the later Jewish term for rabbinic ordination by laying on of hands. “Accepted for him” is the language of a gift received on someone’s behalf.

“Kill” is shachat, the technical verb for ritual slaughter by cutting the throat, and the offerer does it himself. The priests’ “sprinkle” is zaraq, to dash or throw: the blood was splashed from a bowl against the altar, the mizraq of Exodus 38:3, not scattered in drops.

“Into his pieces” means its own pieces, the natural joints of the carcass, nettachim, cut apart rather than hacked. Flaying comes first because the hide is not burned; Leviticus will assign it to the priest in 7:8.

The priests put fire on the altar, yet 9:24 has fire come from the LORD, and 6:13 says it must never go out. Rabbinic readers harmonised the three by holding that ordinary fire had to be brought even though fire from heaven burned there. “Lay the wood in order” is arakh, the verb of arranging used for the shewbread.

“The fat” here is peder, a rare word found only in this chapter and 8:20, apparently the suet or fatty tissue around the organs, and distinct from chelev, the fat reserved to God in chapter 3. The head was separated at the flaying and goes on the fire with the other parts.

“Burn” is hiqtir, to turn into smoke, the verb used for burning incense, not saraf, which means to burn up or destroy. “Sweet savour” is reach nichoach, a soothing or restful smell, first used in Genesis 8:21 when the LORD smelled Noah’s burnt offering after the flood.

The flock, tson, covers both sheep and goats, which grazed together. A male is required again. “Namely” is the 1611 way of introducing a list, “that is to say”. A poorer household might own no cattle but still have a few sheep or goats.

The north side is specified for the flock, and 6:25 will make it the slaughtering place for other offerings too. The ashes lay east (verse 16); the Mishnah (Middot 3:5) later places the rings for tethering animals at the north of the temple altar.

No flaying is mentioned for the sheep or goat, though it is assumed; the procedure is being abbreviated because the bull passage already gave it in full. The head and the fat are named with the cutting, since they are what the priest lays on first.

Here the priest “shall bring it all”, using hiqriv, to bring near, from the same root as qorban. “An offering made by fire” is isheh, traditionally derived from esh, fire, though some scholars connect it instead with a word meaning gift, which would suit offerings that are never burned.

Turtledoves are migrants, plentiful in season; the pigeons are “young”, literally “sons of the dove”. The rule allowed what a poor household could catch or rear, and the same two birds, a turtledove and a young pigeon, were part of Abram’s covenant offering in Genesis 15:9.

With a bird, the priest does everything himself. “Wring off” is malaq, to nip, a verb found only here and in 5:8; the rabbis understood it as nipping the neck with the thumbnail. A bird has too little blood to catch in a basin, so it is drained directly against the altar’s wall.

“With his feathers” renders notsah, which may mean feathers or the crop’s contents; the Greek has the crop and its feathers, and many modern versions have the crop and its filth. Either way the waste goes to the ash heap on the east side, the side nearest the entrance.

“Shall not divide it asunder” recalls Genesis 15:10, where Abram cut the larger animals in two “but the birds divided he not”. The bird is opened at the wings and left in one piece. It is a single small carcass, laid on the same wood and the same fire as the bull.