Exodus 29 - Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)

The Ordination of the Priests

29 This is what you shall do to them to set them apart as holy, so that they can minister to me in the priest’s office:

Take one young bull and two rams without defect, ² unleavened bread, unleavened rolls mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed^[a] with oil. Make them from fine wheat flour. ³ Put them into one basket and bring them in the basket when you bring the bull and the two rams. ⁴ Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water. ⁵ Take the garments and put them on Aaron: the tunic, the robe to be worn under the vest, the vest, and the pouch. Clothe him with the sash of the vest. ⁶ Set the turban on his head and put the holy crest on the turban. ⁷ Then take the anointing oil and pour it on his head to anoint him. ⁸ You shall bring his sons and put tunics on them. ⁹ Clothe them with sashes—Aaron and his sons—and bind small pointed turbans on them. Then they shall possess the priesthood by means of a perpetual regulation. You shall ordain Aaron and his sons for their work.^[b]

¹⁰ Bring the bull in front of the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull. ¹¹ Slaughter the bull in the presence of the Lord at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. ¹² Take some of the bull’s blood and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and pour out all the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. ¹³ Take all the fat that covers the internal organs, the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and burn them on the altar. ¹⁴ But the meat of the bull, its hide, and its intestines and their contents, you shall burn with fire outside of the camp. This is a sin offering.

¹⁵ Then take the first ram. Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. ¹⁶ Slaughter the ram, and take its blood and splash it all around on the altar. ¹⁷ You shall cut the ram into pieces, wash its internal organs and its legs, and put them with the other pieces and with its head. ¹⁸ You shall burn the whole ram on the altar. This is a whole burnt offering to the Lord. It is a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire^[c] to the Lord.

¹⁹ Then take the other ram. Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. ²⁰ Then you shall slaughter the ram. Take some of its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron’s right ear, on the tip of the right ear of his sons, on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, and splash the blood all around on the altar. ²¹ Take some of the blood that is on the altar and some of the anointing oil and spatter it on Aaron and on his garments and on his sons and on the garments of his sons, who are with him. So he and his garments and his sons and his sons’ garments shall be consecrated. ²² From this ram take the fat, the fat tail, the fat that covers the internal organs, the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and the right thigh (for this is a ram for the dedication), ²³ and one loaf of bread, one roll made with oil, and one wafer out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before the Lord. ²⁴ You shall put all of this in Aaron’s hands and in his sons’ hands, and you shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord. ²⁵ Then you shall take them from their hands and burn them on the altar for the burnt offering as a pleasant aroma before the Lord. This is an offering made by fire to the Lord.

²⁶ Take the breast from Aaron’s ram of ordination and wave it as a wave offering before the Lord, and it shall be your portion of the sacrifice. ²⁷ Consecrate the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the elevated offering, which are waved and lifted up,^[d] from the ram of ordination. They are for Aaron and for his sons. ²⁸ It shall belong to Aaron and his sons perpetually as their portion of the offering from the people of Israel, because it is an elevated offering. It shall be an elevated offering from the people of Israel from their sacrifices, from their fellowship offerings, that is, their elevated offering to the Lord.

²⁹ The holy garments of Aaron shall belong to his descendants after him, so they are to wear them while they are being anointed and ordained for their work. ³⁰ The son who is to be high priest in Aaron’s place shall put them on for seven days when he comes into the Tent of Meeting to minister in the Holy Place.

³¹ Take the ram of ordination and boil its meat in a holy place. ³² Aaron and his sons shall eat the meat of the ram and the bread that is in the basket at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. ³³ They shall eat those things with which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration, but a non-priest^[e] shall not eat them, because they are holy. ³⁴ If any of the meat or the bread from the ordination remains until the next morning, you shall burn the remainder with fire. It must not be eaten, because it is holy.

³⁵ This is what you shall do to Aaron and to his sons, exactly as I have commanded you. You shall ordain them^[f] for seven days. ³⁶ Every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to make it holy. ³⁷ For seven days you shall make atonement for the altar to make it holy. The altar shall be most holy. Whatever touches the altar shall become holy.

The Regular Daily Offerings

³⁸ Now this is what you shall offer on the altar regularly, every day: two lambs a year old. ³⁹ The first lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight.^{[g] 40} With the first lamb offer two quarts^[h] of fine flour mixed with a quart^[i] of beaten olive oil,^[j] and a quart of wine for a drink offering. ⁴¹ The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and you shall offer with it the same grain offering and the same drink offering as in the morning, for a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire^[k] to the Lord. ⁴² It shall be presented as a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting before the Lord. There I will meet with you to speak to you. ⁴³ There I will meet with the people of Israel, and the place will be made holy by my glory. ⁴⁴ I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate Aaron and his sons to minister to me in the priest’s office. ⁴⁵ I will dwell among the people of Israel and I will be their God. ⁴⁶ They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, so that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.

Footnotes

1. Exodus 29:2 Or smeared
2. Exodus 29:9 Literally fill the hands
3. Exodus 29:18 Or perhaps a food offering or a special offering. The Hebrew term isheh was traditionally thought to be an offering made by fire because of its similarity to the Hebrew word for fire, but some contexts and some similar words in other Semitic languages suggest it may, at least at times, mean a gift of food. The Lord, of course, does not literally need food.
4. Exodus 29:27 Waved and lifted up or elevated refer to the respective gestures with which these offerings were usually presented. This does not mean that all wave offerings and elevated offerings were literally elevated or waved.
5. Exodus 29:33 Literally a stranger
6. Exodus 29:35 Literally fill their hands
7. Exodus 29:39 Literally between the evenings
8. Exodus 29:40 That is, one tenth (of an ephah). The unit of measure is not specified. It is assumed that it is an ephah.
9. Exodus 29:40 A fourth of a hin
10. Exodus 29:40 The basic meaning of the Hebrew verb ktt is “beat.” The translation assumes that oil from beaten olives is the highest grade “extra virgin” olive oil from the first crushing or pressing of the olives, done by hand.
11. Exodus 29:41 Or perhaps a special offering or food offering