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where they kill the burnt-offering before the Lord." We see then what incompetent judges our own authors are in Jewish customs and antiquities. The Jewish doctors and antiquaries (which are so much contemned by some of our magisterial dictators in all learning) would have taught us here another lesson. For thus Maimonides, in Biath Hammik. speaks to this point, mop

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בודים אפילו קודשי קודשים בין קורשי יחיר ובין קורשי ציבור that is, the killing of the holy שנא ושחט את בן הבקו

things may lawfully be done by strangers, yea, of the most holy things, whether they be the holy things of a private person, or of the whole congregation: as it is said, Lev. i." And he shall kill the bullock; and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall take the blood."-The same is avouched again afterward, by the same author, in Maaseh Korban, chap. v.

But if any one would therefore fain know, what were properly the priests' actions about the sacrifice, which might not be done lawfully by any stranger, the same Jewish authors have a trite

מקבלה ואילך :rule amongst them concerning it

, the receiving of the blood, and all the other parts, that were to be offered up, and all that followeth after that, belongeth to the priests' office. And Isaac Abarbanel will teach us more particularly, in his comment on Leviticus, that there were five things to be done by the owners of the sacrifice that brought it, and five things by the priest that offered it. The first five were, laying on of hands, killing, slaying, cutting up, and washing of the inwards; the other five were, the receiving of the blood in a vessel, the sprinkling of it upon the altar, the

* Of this vide

putting of fire upon the altar, the orderMagistrorum ing of the wood upon the fire, and the Placita. ordering of the pieces upon the wood. Hence it is, that upon the forequoted place of the Misna (which I brought to shew, that the people did kill the passovers), Rabbi Obadiah of Barte

שחט ישראל אס ידצה שהשחיטה,nora thus glosseth i. e. The people of Israel בישרה. בזרום בכל הקרבנות

might all kill the passovers themselves, if they pleased, because the KILLING OF ANY SACRIFICE might be done lawfully by strangers; but the priests received the blood.

Now, I come to prove what I have undertaken. And, first, that the passover was always brought to the tabernacle or the temple, and there offered unto God as the other sacrifices were, is clear enough from Deut. xvi. 5. "Thou shalt not sacrifice the passover within any of the gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee; but at the place which the Lord thy God chooseth to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice." And that this is to be understood not of Jerusalem in general, but of the tabernacle or temple, appears, both because the same expressions are used of the other sacrifices, Deut. xii. ver. 5, 6. 11. 14. where it is clearly meant, that they were to be brought to the temple; and because it is certain, that every thing that was killed amongst the Jews, was either to be killed at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, or else might be killed indifferently in any part of the whole land.

Let us now see, how the Jewish doctors comment upon this place, men better skilled in these rites than our own authors are, R. Moses BEN MAIMON, in Halachah Pesach, cap. i. romu ra

ПD л, &c. They kill not the passover but in the court, as the rest of the holy things; yea, in the time when high places were permitted, they sacrificed not the passover in a private high place; for it is said, Deut. xvi. "Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover in any of thy gates." We have learnt, that this is a prohibition to kill the passover in any private high place, although it be in a time when high places are permitted.From which excellent gloss of theirs, it appeareth, that there was more preciseness in bringing of the passover to the place where God's name was put, and offering it at the tabernacle or the temple, than of any of the other sacrifices. And this was the reason, as was before intimated out of KIMCHI, why in Hezekiah's passover the Levites had the charge of killing, because the passovers were to be killed in the court of the temple, whither the people being unclean could not enter; for otherwise, if it had been done without the court, they might as well have killed their own passovers as have eaten them. And this may be further confirmed, in that the passover is called a korban : (Numb. ix. vii.) "When certain men were defiled by a dead body, that they could not keep the Passover, they came to Moses, and said, Wherefore are we kept back, that we may not OFFER an OFFERING to the Lord in his appointed season ?" And again,ver. xiii. "If any one be clean, and forbeareth to keep the Passover, even that soul shall be cut off, because he brought not an OFFERING (or a KORBAN) to the Lord in his appointed season." Nothing was called an OFFERING, or a KORBAN, but that which was brought and offered up to

God at the tabernacle or temple where his name: was put.

That the blood of the passovers was to be sprinkled by the priest, and fat only to be burnt upon the altar, although this must needs follow from the former, yet I prove it more particularly thus: (Exod. xxiii. 18.) "Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain until the morning." For by the general consent of the Jewish scholiasts, and all those Christian interpreters that I have seen, this place is to be understood only of the passover; and therefore ONKELos, that famous Chaldee paraphrast, for at OT the blood of my sacrifice-made no question but to read it no the blood of my Passover.— But it appears undoubtedly from a parallel place in the 34th chapter of the same book, ver. 23. 25, 26, where those 17, 18, and 19th verses of the 23d: chapter are again repeated: "Thrice in the year shall all your men-children appear before the Lord. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left unto the morning. The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." Here what was wanting in the former is supplied; "Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the PASSOVER be left unto the morning." And I have set down the whole context with it, becausé it will be needful, for the better clearing of it, to consider its coherence with other verses, which is the very same in both chapters; and Isaac Abar

Abarbanel hath set it down excellently in this

manner.

First therefore, saith he, when God had spoken of the Jews appearing thrice before him every year, viz. at the feast of the Passover or of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks or Pentecost, the feast of tabernacles or in-gathering, nube Tu m'a

i. e. When חחגנים החם נתן בכל אחד מהם משפט מיותר

he had spoken of these three feasts, he subjoins immediately, some rule concerning every one of them in particular:-First, for the Passover, in those words, "Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left until the morning:" Secondly, for the feast of Pentecost, in those, "The first of the first-fruits of the land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God:" Thirdly, for the feast of tabernacles or ingathering; Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk;" which words, for want of this light of the context, were never yet sufficiently explained by any of our interpreters. And the thread of this coherence alone led Abarbanel very near the true meaning of them, ere he was aware:

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היותר נראה בזה שהיה ממעשה עובדי עבודת אלילים בזמן קבוציהם לעשות כן רל לבשל הגדוים בחלך בזמן אסיפת i. e. It seems התבואית לחשבם שבזה יתרצו לאלהיהם

most probable, that this command was occasioned from a custom among the idolatrous Heathens, that at the time of their gathering in of fruits, they were wont to boil a kid in the dam's milk, thinking, that by this means, they were made acceptable to their gods, and did procure a blessing by it. To confirm which gloss, he tells us of a cus

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