The Dwelling, the Priesthood and the Sacrifices

After the covenant sealed at Sinai, God gives Moses the plan of a sanctuary, so that he may come to dwell in the midst of his people. The whole end of Exodus, from chapters 25 to 40, describes the building of this Dwelling, the sacred tent also called the Tabernacle; and the book of Leviticus regulates the worship that takes place there. The thrice-holy God comes to dwell among a sinful people and opens for them a way to draw near to him: this way passes through a sanctuary, a priesthood, and sacrifices, which fill these long, often-neglected pages.

The Dwelling

The sanctuary has first an end: that God may dwell among his own. He says it to Moses in commanding its construction: “They shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in their midst.” Exodus 25:8. The Dwelling is a precious tent, divided into spaces of increasing holiness: a court where the people bring their offerings, then the holy place where the priests enter, and at the far end the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, which the high priest alone may enter, once a year. There rests the ark of the covenant, the chest that contains the tables of the Law, those two tablets of stone on which God had engraved the ten commandments received at Sinai. The ark is surmounted by a cover of gold called the mercy seat, at whose ends stand two cherubim, two figures of gold representing the heavenly beings who stand by the throne of God. It is from there that God makes himself present and speaks to Moses: “There I will meet with you, and I will commune with you, from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, all the orders that I will give you for the children of Israel.” Exodus 25:22. To build it, God filled with his Spirit the craftsmen charged with the work: “I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge for all kinds of work.” Exodus 31:3. And the people bring their gifts with such generosity that Moses must stop the collection: “The objects prepared were enough, and more than enough, for all the work to be done.” Exodus 36:7. When the Dwelling is finished, the glory of God comes to fill it, in the form of the cloud: “The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Dwelling.” Exodus 40:34. God keeps his promise and now dwells in the midst of his people.

The priesthood of Aaron

For this people to draw near to the holy God, there must be men set apart, who stand between God and the others. God chooses Aaron, the brother of Moses, and his sons, to serve him as priests: “Bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, that he may be priest in my service.” Exodus 28:1. The priest is a mediator: he offers to God the sacrifices of the people and bears the people before God. The high priest signifies this even in his garment, on which are engraved the names of the twelve tribes, which he carries on his heart as he enters the sanctuary: “Aaron shall carry on his heart the names of the sons of Israel engraved on the breastpiece of judgment, as a perpetual remembrance before the Lord.” Exodus 28:29. The priest appears before God laden with the whole people he represents.

The sacrifices

At the heart of this worship are the sacrifices, by which the people render homage to God, ask his pardon, and enter into communion with him. Leviticus regulates several kinds. The holocaust is offered entire: the victim is wholly burned on the altar, a sign of the total gift one makes of oneself to God. The sacrifice for sin obtains the pardon of a fault. The peace offering ends in a shared meal, a sign of communion regained with God. In all of them, the one who offers lays his hand on the head of the victim, a gesture by which he unites himself to it and puts it in his place: “He shall lay his hand on the head of the holocaust, and it shall be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.” Leviticus 1:4. And it is the blood poured out that obtains this pardon, because life resides in the blood: the life of the victim is offered in place of that of the sinner. “It is by the soul that the blood makes atonement.” Leviticus 17:11. To make atonement is to cover the fault and restore the bond that sin had broken.

The inauguration of worship

Once the Dwelling was raised and the priests consecrated, worship begins. Aaron offers the first sacrifices, and God answers with a striking sign: his glory appears, and a fire from him consumes the offering on the altar: “The fire, coming out from before the Lord, devoured the holocaust and the fat on the altar. And all the people saw it; and they shouted for joy, and they fell on their faces.” Leviticus 9:24. The fire from heaven accepts the sacrifice and shows that God consents to dwell among his own. But the holiness that lets itself be approached must be respected. That very day, two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, come forward to offer incense before the Lord with a profane fire, taken from elsewhere than the altar, which God had not commanded. The same fire that had received the offering strikes them: “A fire came out from before the Lord and devoured them: they died before the Lord.” Leviticus 10:2. Moses gives Aaron the reason, and Aaron receives in silence the death of his sons, without a word of revolt: “I will be sanctified in those who come near me, and I will be glorified in the presence of all the people.” Leviticus 10:3. The holy God himself prescribes the manner in which he is approached. By offering a fire he had not asked for, Nadab and Abihu put their own initiative in place of his will, and it is this presumption that the fire strikes. The holiness of God is revered; it is not improvised.

The great Day of Atonement

Once a year, a day is consecrated wholly to the purification of the people: the great Day of Atonement. On that day alone, the high priest crosses the veil and enters the Holy of Holies, carrying the blood of a sacrifice to purify the sanctuary and the people: “On this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you; you shall be pure of all your sins before the Lord.” Leviticus 16:30. The rite involves two goats. One is offered in sacrifice; over the other, the high priest confesses the faults of the people, then drives it into the desert: “Aaron shall confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions; he shall put them on the head of the goat, and send it away into the desert.” Leviticus 16:21. This goat, called the scapegoat, carries away the sin of the people: “The goat shall carry on it all their iniquities into an uninhabited land.” Leviticus 16:22. Each year, thus, Israel is washed and can continue to live before its God.

The holiness of life

Holiness overflows the tent and reaches the whole life of the people. Because God dwells in the midst of Israel, Israel must resemble him and bear in its ways the holiness of its God: “Be holy, for I am holy, I the Lord, your God.” Leviticus 19:2. This holiness touches work, justice, respect for the poor and the stranger, speech and the body, and it culminates in a single commandment that sums up one’s relation to the neighbor: “You shall not take vengeance, and you shall not bear a grudge against the children of your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18. Christ will join this commandment to the love of God, making the two the supports of the whole Law.

Holiness marks the body and its states as well. The pure and the impure do not designate good and evil, but fitness or unfitness to approach God: contact with a dead body, certain diseases, the discharges of the body make one impure, that is, unfit to appear at the sanctuary, until a rite has restored purity. These laws teach Israel that death and corruption cannot stand before the living God. The gravest case is that of the leper: “He shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” Leviticus 13:46. Cut off from the people and from worship as long as his affliction lasts, he returns through the examination of the priest, who verifies the healing and restores him. Christ will reverse this movement: by touching the lepers, instead of contracting their impurity, he communicates to them his holiness and heals them.

The sacred times

Time itself is sanctified. The feasts order the year around God and recall his benefits: “These are the solemnities of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy assemblies.” Leviticus 23:2. The Passover celebrates the going out of Egypt, the night when God brought his people from servitude to freedom. The feast of Weeks, seven weeks later, offers him the firstfruits of the harvest. The feast of Tabernacles recalls the life under tents in the desert: since the going out of Egypt, God shelters and leads his people toward the promised land, and he wills that Israel and its descendants keep the memory of it. And each week, the sabbath gives Israel rest on the seventh day, in the image of God who rested after creating the world.

This rhythm of the sabbath extends to the years. Every seven years, the land itself rests, left uncultivated. And every fifty years the year of jubilee returns: “You shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.” Leviticus 25:10. In that year, the lands a family had been forced to sell are returned to it, and those who had sold themselves as servants recover their freedom and return to their family. No one is dispossessed forever, no one is a slave forever. All this rests on a word of God: “The land is mine, and you are with me as strangers and sojourners.” Leviticus 25:23. The land is not a permanent possession; Israel holds it from God and is only its guest. The people sanctify their days and their years as they sanctify their acts.

Toward Christ

This whole economy prepares Christ and finds in him its full meaning. The Dwelling announces the Word who will pitch his tent among men; the priesthood of Aaron, the high priest who offers himself; the blood of atonement, the one sacrifice of the cross; the goat that carries away the sins, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. What the tent and its rites accomplished in figure, and which had to be begun again each year, Christ accomplishes once for all.