Exodus29chapter 29

Exodus 29:1-3

Chapter 28 made the garments and this chapter fills them. The command runs for seven days, and Exodus never reports it carried out, because the ordination itself is recorded in Leviticus 8, which follows this text almost line by line. The bread brought in the basket is unleavened, the bread of the passover night, carried now for a priesthood rather than for a road.

Exodus 29:4-7

The consecration runs water, then garments, then oil, and each of the three falls differently on Aaron than on his sons. Aaron alone has the anointing oil poured on his head at verse 7, while the sons receive theirs at verse 21 by sprinkling, with blood mixed into it. Psalm 133:2 remembers the ointment running down upon the beard of Aaron. Verse 6 sets the holy crown on the mitre, and Exodus 39:30 gives the words engraved on it, HOLINESS TO THE LORD.

Exodus 29:8-9

The English word consecrate here stands for a Hebrew idiom that reads to fill the hand, and verse 24 acts the idiom out by putting the offering into the priests' hands. The office is granted as a perpetual statute, the first use of that phrase in Scripture, and it is granted to a family rather than to a man. Three chapters later Aaron makes the calf, and the priesthood promised here is still given to him.

Exodus 29:10-11

This is the first place in Scripture where hands are laid on the head of a sacrifice, and it happens three times in this chapter, at verses 10, 15 and 19. The men who will stand at the altar begin by putting their hands on the animal that is killed in the same hour. Leviticus 4:15 makes the same act the opening of a sin offering for the whole congregation, and Leviticus 16:21 puts the confession of the people's sins into it.

Exodus 29:12-14

The words sin offering occur here for the first time in Scripture, and they arrive at the ordination of the priests rather than at the passover. The flesh, the skin and the dung are burned outside the camp, which is also the first occurrence of that phrase on the floor. Hebrews 13:11-13 takes up the arrangement by name and reads the crucifixion outside the gate against it, so the link is one the New Testament makes itself.

Exodus 29:15-18

The first ram goes up whole, and the two animals are handled in opposite directions. The body of the sin offering was carried out of the camp and burned there, while this one is cut, washed and burned on the altar with every part kept. The phrase sweet savour goes back to Genesis 8:21, where the LORD smelled it after the flood and said he would not curse the ground again for man's sake.

Exodus 29:19-21

Blood goes on the tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand and the great toe of the right foot, so what a priest hears, handles and walks on is marked before he serves. Leviticus 8:23 and 8:24 record Moses doing it, and Leviticus 14:14 puts the same three marks on a leper being cleansed, the only other place in Scripture they appear. Blood from the altar and anointing oil are then sprinkled together on the men and on their clothes, so the two things used separately in this chapter are finally used at once.

Exodus 29:22-25

The fat, the right shoulder and three pieces of bread are put into the hands of Aaron and his sons and waved, which is the first wave offering in Scripture. Moses then receives them back and burns them, so the first thing placed in a priest's hand is the thing he gives up. This is the verse the idiom at verse 9 was pointing at, since to consecrate in Hebrew is to fill the hand.

Exodus 29:26-28

take the breast of the ram: Moses takes the breast as his own portion, and he performs every priestly act in this chapter while the office itself passes to his brother. The breast and the shoulder then become a standing share for Aaron and his sons out of the people's peace offerings, and this is the first heave offering in Scripture. The men who stand between the people and God are fed by the people they stand for, which is the beginning of the arrangement Paul argues from at 1 Corinthians 9:13.

Exodus 29:29-30

The garments outlast the man who wears them and pass to the son who takes his place, which makes the clothing of chapter 28 an office rather than a wardrobe. Each successor puts them on for seven days before he ministers in the holy place. Hebrews 7:23-24 turns on this very arrangement, that the Levitical priests were many because death would not suffer them to continue, and that Christ holds an unchangeable priesthood.

Exodus 29:31-34

The word atonement occurs for the first time in Scripture at verse 33, seventeen chapters after the passover and four after the tabernacle instructions began. It arrives with the priesthood, and the priests eat the very offering by which the atonement was made, so their first meal in office is the sacrifice that put them there. Nothing may remain until the morning, which is the rule Exodus 12:10 laid down for the passover lamb.

Exodus 29:35-37

Seven days are required, and a bullock is offered every one of them for the altar as well as for the men, so the furniture is cleansed alongside the priests. The section closes with a sentence it leaves unexplained, that whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. Jesus takes up that clause at Matthew 23:19, asking whether the gift is greater or the altar that sanctifieth the gift. Haggai 2:11-13 puts the reverse question to the priests and gets the answer that uncleanness spreads by touch in a way holiness does not.

Exodus 29:38-41

The daily service of Israel begins here, a lamb in the morning and a lamb at evening with flour, oil and wine, without a break. Numbers 28:3-6 repeats the order and calls it the continual burnt offering ordained in mount Sinai. The evening lamb fixed an hour that the rest of Scripture keeps returning to, at 1 Kings 18:36 where Elijah prays at the time of the evening sacrifice, at Ezra 9:4-5, and at Acts 3:1 where Peter and John go up to the temple at the ninth hour.

Exodus 29:42-43

The tent is given its purpose in one clause, where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. The name used all through these chapters, the tabernacle of the congregation, renders a Hebrew phrase that reads tent of meeting, and this verse is the meeting it is named for. Verse 43 promises that the place will be sanctified by God's glory, and Exodus 40:34-35 reports it, when the cloud covers the tent and Moses cannot go in.

Exodus 29:44-46

Three verses give the reason for everything commanded since chapter 25, that I may dwell among them. Exodus 25:8 had asked for a sanctuary in those same words, and this is the answer to it. The refrain that ran through the plagues, that they shall know that I am the LORD, was first spoken to Israel at Exodus 6:7 and lands here again on Israel, and what they are to know it by is the dwelling. John 1:14 uses a Greek verb built on the word for a tent when it says the Word dwelt among us.