41 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. This is how you are to deal with those who sin unintentionally by doing anything that violates one of the Lord 's commands. 3 "If the high priest sins, bringing guilt upon the entire community, he must give a sin offering for the sin he has committed. He must present to the Lord a young bull with no defects. 4 He must bring the bull to the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle, lay his hand on the bull's head, and slaughter it before the Lord . 5 The high priest will then take some of the bull's blood into the Tabernacle, 6 dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the inner curtain of the sanctuary. 7 The priest will then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar for fragrant incense that stands in the Lord 's presence inside the Tabernacle. He will pour out the rest of the bull's blood at the base of the altar for burnt offerings at the entrance of the Tabernacle. 8 Then the priest must remove all the fat of the bull to be offered as a sin offering. This includes all the fat around the internal organs, 9 the two kidneys and the fat around them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver. He must remove these along with the kidneys, 10 just as he does with cattle offered as a peace offering, and burn them on the altar of burnt offerings. 11 But he must take whatever is left of the bull-its hide, meat, head, legs, internal organs, and dung- 12 and carry it away to a place outside the camp that is ceremonially clean, the place where the ashes are dumped. There, on the ash heap, he will burn it on a wood fire.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Leviticus 4:1-12
Commentary on Leviticus 4:1-12
(Read Leviticus 4:1-12)
Burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and peace-offerings, had been offered before the giving of the law upon mount Sinai; and in these the patriarchs had respect to sin, to make atonement for it. But the Jews were now put into a way of making atonement for sin, more particularly by sacrifice, as a shadow of good things to come; yet the substance is Christ, and that one offering of himself, by which he put away sin. The sins for which the sin-offerings were appointed are supposed to be open acts. They are supposed to be sins of commission, things which ought not to have been done. Omissions are sins, and must come into judgment: yet what had been omitted at one time, might be done at another; but a sin committed was past recall. They are supposed to be sins committed through ignorance. The law begins with the case of the anointed priest. It is evident that God never had any infallible priest in his church upon earth, when even the high priest was liable to fall into sins of ignorance. All pretensions to act without error are sure marks of Antichrist. The beast was to be carried without the camp, and there burned to ashes. This was a sign of the duty of repentance, which is the putting away sin as a detestable thing, which our soul hates. The sin-offering is called sin. What they did to that, we must do to our sins; the body of sin must be destroyed, Hebrews 13:11-13.