(3) Place of Offerings. The place where of ferings were exclusively to bc presented was the outer court of the national sanctuary, at first the Tabernacle, afterwards the Temple. Every offering made elsewhere was forbidden under penalty of death (Lev. xvii :4, sq.; Deut. xii sq.; comp. Kings xii :27). The precise spot is laid down in Lev. i :3; iii :2, 'at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.' The object of these regulations was to prevent any secret idolatrous rites from taking place un der the cloak of the national ritual; and a com mon place of worship must have tended consid erably to preserve the unity of the people, whose constant disagreements required precautions of a special kind (1 Kings xii :27). The oneness, how ever, of the place of sacrifice was not strictly pre served in the troubled period of the Judges, nor indeed till the time of David (t Kings iii :2, 3). Offerings were made in other places besides the door of the Tabernacle 0 Sam. vii:t7; Judg. 5). High places, which had long been used by the Canaanites, retained a certain sanctity, and were honored with offerings (Judg. vi :26; xiii: 19). Even the loyal Samuel followed this prac tice (t Sam.), and David endured it 0 Kings iii :2). After Solomon these offerings on high places still continued. In the kingdom of Israel,
cut off as its subjects were from the holy city, the national temple was neglected.
(4) Formalism. Under the load and the multi plicity of these outward oblations, however, the Hebrews forgot the substance, lost the thought in the symbol, the thing signified in the sign•, and, failing in those devotional sentiments and that practical obedience which offerings were in tended to prefigure and cultivate, sank into the practice of mere dead works. Hereupon began the prophets to utter their admonitory lessons, to which the world is indebted for so many graphic descriptions of the real nature of religion and the only true worship of Almighty God (Is. i ; Jer. vi :zo ; vii :21, sq. ; Hos. vi :6 ; -.nos v :22; Micah vi :6, sq.; comp. Ps. xl :6; li :17, sq.; Prov. xxi :3). All these offerings were typical in various forms of the "full, perfect and suffi cient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The Jewish doctrines on offerings may be found in the treatises Sebachint, Menachoth, and Temura ; a selection from which, as well as from the Rabbins, is given in that useful little work, Othon. Lex. Talmud. co. 621, sq. J. R. B.