Consecrating Aaron and His Sons
This is the thing that you shall do to them to make them holy, to minister to Me in the priest’s office: take one young bull and two rams without blemish, 2unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil: you shall make them of fine wheat flour. 3You shall put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bull and the two rams. 4You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and shall wash them with water. 5You shall take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, and the breastplate, and clothe him with the skilfully woven band of the ephod; 6and you shall set the turban on his head, and put the holy crown on the turban. 7Then you shall take the anointing oil, and pour it on his head, and anoint him. 8You shall bring his sons, and put coats on them. 9You shall clothe them with belts, Aaron and his sons, and bind headbands on them; and they shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute; and you shall consecrate Aaron and his sons. 10You shall bring the bull before the Tent of Meeting; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull. 11You shall kill the bull before Yahweh, at the door of the Tent of Meeting. 12You shall take of the blood of the bull, and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger; and you shall pour out all the blood at the base of the altar. 13You shall take all the fat that covers the innards, the cover of the liver, the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, and burn them on the altar. 14But the flesh of the bull, and its skin, and its dung, you shall burn with fire outside of the camp: it is a sin offering. 15You shall also take the one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. 16You shall kill the ram, and you shall take its blood, and sprinkle it around on the altar. 17You shall cut the ram into its pieces, and wash its innards, and its legs, and put them with its pieces, and with its head. 18You shall burn the whole ram on the altar: it is a burnt offering to Yahweh; it is a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to Yahweh. 19You shall take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. 20Then you shall kill the ram, and take some of its blood, and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and on the tip of the right ear of his sons, and on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood around on the altar. 21You shall take of the blood that is on the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons, and on the garments of his sons with him; and he shall be made holy, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons’ garments with him. 22Also you shall take some of the ram’s fat, the fat tail, the fat that covers the innards, the cover of the liver, the two kidneys, the fat that is on them, and the right thigh (for it is a ram of consecration), 23and one loaf of bread, one cake of oiled bread, and one wafer out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before Yahweh. 24You shall put all of this in Aaron’s hands, and in his sons’ hands, and shall wave them for a wave offering before Yahweh. 25You shall take them from their hands, and burn them on the altar on the burnt offering, for a pleasant aroma before Yahweh: it is an offering made by fire to Yahweh. 26You shall take the breast of Aaron’s ram of consecration, and wave it for a wave offering before Yahweh; and it shall be your portion. 27You shall sanctify the breast of the wave offering, and the thigh of the wave offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of consecration, even of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons; 28and it shall be for Aaron and his sons as their portion forever from the children of Israel; for it is a wave offering; and it shall be a wave offering from the children of Israel of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, even their wave offering to Yahweh.
Offerings for Consecration
29The holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, to be anointed in them, and to be consecrated in them. 30Seven days shall the son who is priest in his place put them on, when he comes into the Tent of Meeting to minister in the holy place. 31You shall take the ram of consecration, and boil its flesh in a holy place. 32Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket, at the door of the Tent of Meeting. 33They shall eat those things with which atonement was made, to consecrate and sanctify them, but a stranger shall not eat of it, because they are holy. 34If anything of the flesh of the consecration, or of the bread, remains to the morning, then you shall burn the remainder with fire: it shall not be eaten, because it is holy. 35You shall do so to Aaron, and to his sons, according to all that I have commanded you. You shall consecrate them seven days. 36Every day you shall offer the bull of sin offering for atonement; and you shall cleanse the altar, when you make atonement for it; and you shall anoint it, to sanctify it. 37Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar, and sanctify it; and the altar shall be most holy: whatever touches the altar shall be holy. 38Now this is that which you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old day by day continually. 39The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at evening; 40and with the one lamb a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour mixed with the fourth part of a hin of beaten oil, and the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering. 41The other lamb you shall offer at evening, and shall do to it according to the meal offering of the morning, and according to its drink offering, for a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to Yahweh. 42It shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the Tent of Meeting before Yahweh, where I will meet with you, to speak there to you. 43There I will meet with the children of Israel; and the place shall be sanctified by My glory. 44I will sanctify the Tent of Meeting and the altar: Aaron also and his sons I will sanctify, to minister to Me in the priest’s office. 45I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. 46They shall know that I am Yahweh their God, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them: I am Yahweh their God.
Commentary
29:1 ‘To make holy’ or to ‘sanctify’ is something Jesus often spoke in discussing the meaning of His death. He makes many allusions to the language of the High Priest in His prayer of John 17, e.g. “for their sakes I sanctify Myself so that they also may be sanctified” (Jn. 17:19). We are all called to be part of a new priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5,9); Christ’s death sanctified us, prepared us for service in God’s house. Spiritually serving others is therefore not something just for a specialist minority, but for all who are in Christ, ‘the anointed one’, anointed just as the priests were anointed to serve (:21). The unblemished animals which were sacrificed in order to sanctify the priests therefore represent the sacrifice of Jesus.
29:7 The Septuagint word used for ‘anointing’ here occurs in the New Testament only in 1 Jn. 2:20,27, where we read that we have each been anointed. The idea of anointing was to signal the initiation of someone as they began a specific calling or work. When we are baptized into Christ, the anointed One, then as 2 Cor. 1:21 says, we too are anointed in a sense. We're given a specific mission and purpose. "The anointing that you received" in 1 Jn. 2 would therefore refer to our commissioning at baptism. It seems to imply a one time act of being anointed / commissioned / inaugurated for service. Baptism isn't therefore merely an initiation into a community; it's a specific commissioning for active service, in ways which are unique to us. We do well to bring this point out to those we prepare for baptism.
29:33 Eating the things with which the atonement was made points forward to the breaking of bread service. We can see in this echoes of the consecration of the priests; and we should realize each time we do it that we have been sanctified in order to proactively serve in God’s house.
29:42 Although we are a great multitude of redeemed, yet the communication of the Father and Son to us are still amazingly unique, even though we all hear and read the same actual words, and reflect upon the same facts. Right back at the beginning of God’s relationship with Israel He made the point that “I will meet you [plural] to speak there to you [singular]” [the KJV reflects the Hebrew grammar by making a distinction between you plural and ‘thee’, you singular].
29:45 I will dwell… will be their God- Rev. 21:3 understands this as coming true when Christ returns to earth, seeing that God’s intention for this to happen with Israel didn’t materialize. And yet, having prophesied that He will be their God, He says that He is right now their God (:46). This could mean that even if God’s people choose not to have Him as their God, yet He keeps His side of the covenant; He is their God. In this we see God’s hopefulness for us, His earnest desire to have a relationship with His people.
29:46 Often we read this two fold intention of God- to bring His people out from the world [Egypt], and then to do something positive with them. Our separation from the world isn’t therefore negative; for ‘holiness’ means both separation from and separation unto.