Oil and Salt have not been separately mentioned, as they were never offered separately, but only as the accompaniments of other offerings. Salt was indispensable. Thou shalt offer salt with all thy offerings' (Lev. ii. 13).
III. The HISTORY OF SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP demands some notice.
I. In the ANTE-MOSABil PERIOD our materials for such an history are scanty. The first instance of sacrifice on record is that of Cain and Abel (Gen iv. 3-5). Cain presented some of the fruits of the ground, Abel some of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat (in) thereof, an offering unto the Lord. Each is called a Mincha (riri)n)= gift ; but Abel's was a bloody, Cain's an unbloody of fering. To what class of sacrifice Abel's offering belonged we are not informed. Most probably it was a burnt-offering. If so, we can understand how God's acceptance of it may have been expressed, Viz., by fire from the Lord (Le'v. ix". 24 ; Judg. vi. 21 ; I Kings xviii. 38 ; 2 Chron. vii. r). There is no evidence in favour of a sin-offering. The nNuri of verse 7 is not a sin-offering—although Faber and Magee, and others, contend for this meaning —but sin.—`If thou. doest well,' i.e., as Abel, `shalt thou not be accepted?' as well as he ; but if thou doest not well, sin,' like a ravenous beast of prey, croucheth at the door,' ready to spring on thee and devour thee. And to thee is its desire,' —it desires thee for its victim. but thou mayest rule over it ' (see Kalisch, in lora). Taking Chatath as a sin-offering in this place, converts the words into a direct encouragement ofsin.
Until the time of Noah, we have no other instance of sacrifice ; • but Noah, after the flood, offered of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, a burnt offering unto the Lord' (Gen. viii. 20), and God was well pleased (21). Abraham constantly built altars, hut only on one occasion are we told what victims he offered, viz.—Gen. xv. 9, a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, each three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon •, and these constituted a burnt offering (17). The virtual sacrifice of Isaac is wholly exceptional [IsAAc] ; but it is a burnt offering' which was indicated and designed (Gen. xxii. 2, 3, 6, 7). Jacob ratified his covenant with Laban by sacrifice Sacrified a 1121 on the mount,' which seems to indicate a peace-offering (Gen. xxxi. 54). So in Exod. x. 21, which belongs to this
period, Moses says to Pharaoh : Thou must give us sacrifices and burnt-offerings,' Ii53,71 wry, 'that we may offer them to Jehovah,' where the zevachim, as distinguished from the 'cloth, seem to denote peace-offerings. So in Exod. xviii. 12, Jethro took a burnt-offering and wnzt, sacrifices. The book of Job, which relates to patriarchal times, or rather to an extra-Israelitish sphere, presents us with the spectacle of that patriarch himself offering burnt offerings for the sins of his children ; and his three friends doing the same for their own sins, in not speaking of God the thing that was right (Job i. 5 ; xlii. 8). Thus it appears that in the ante-Mosaic period, only peace-offerings and burnt-offerings were sacrificed, but that to the latter an expiatory value was attached ; i.e., it partook of the nature of a sin-offering,. It must be added, that the drink offering existed during this period, for we read that Jacob set up a pillar at Bethel, and poured a drink-offering, ti=, upon it,' as well as oil (Gen.
xxxv. 14 ; see xxviii. 18).
The Passover, coming in between the ante Mosaic and the Mosaic period, was of a wholly unique character, uniting the features of all the other sacrifices of the period it introduced ' • ex. gr., the sprinkling of blood, as in the case of the sin offering (Exod. xii. 7, 13) ; the roasting of the flesh (' roast with fire '), giving it the resemblance of the burnt-offering (8) ; and the feast upon the flesh, as in the peace-offering (8, 9). In this first observance of the Passover, the ancient priestly character of the heads of families comes into notice —a character henceforth to be restricted to th2 family of Aaron. [PASSOVER.] 2. The Mosaic period properly begins with the great sacrificial occasion recorded Exod. xxiv. 3-8, when Israel entered formally into covenant rela tionship with God, and offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed peace-offerings of oxen unto the Lord,' and Moses sprinkled the blood' upon the altar, the book of the covenant, and the people, saying, Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord bath made with you concerning these words,' i. e. , of the law which he had read to them, and to which they had professed adhesion (see Heb. ix. 19). The offerings ordained by Moses were,—daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.