cheenc03a.pdf

SACRIFICE
festival ('Passover') and the Arab Rajab sacrifices has
6, Firstlwe been thought to be established by
them, evidence that both were primitively
offerings of firrtlings.' In the Pentateuch.
Inwz prescribing the dedication of firstlings
stand in iuxtaoosition to ordinances for the Feast of
~nleaven;d ~kead or the Passover (see Ex.3418 f.
Dt. 1519-33 16x3 Ex. 1243-10 1313.~011-13 ~4.16); the
slaying of the firstborn of the Egyptians has been
interpreted as a reprisal upon them for withholding
from Ynhw.?, by their rrf~~sai ro let Israel go. the firstlings
that were hi:, due (see Ex.318 8 1 102+fl; ~ ~
Wellh. 86). It has been shoirn, howrver. under
PAssovEn (5 8). that the passages cited, though com-
~ntible with such a theorv of the original - character of
the Pasrover, by no means require it ; and opposing
consideration5 of much weight are to be drawn from the
peculiar ritual of the Passover (see beloru, 5 6). in
rrhich-to name but a single point-one victim is required
for each household, rich or poor, \%,hereas the
llumber of firstlings - must have varied with the owner's
posseslions.
Xor is it satisfactorily established that the Arab Rajab
sacrifices were firstlinm.
e~
It is true that the term
'aliroh, by which these victims are usually designated,
is by some lexicographerr made equivalent to ford,
fir~tling.~ This is, however, nothing more than the
confusion which freauentlv occurs in their accounts of
the religious custom.^ of ;the timer of ignorance,' and
over against it must be put the fact that not only the
traditionista3 but a150 the Leniconr generally distinguish
the two clearly enough.
The Passover differed connpicuourly from all other
I~raelite sacrifice^. and oreserved to the Last, essentiailv
B, eCUl ilV unaltered, its primitive peculiarities. I"
the earliest times, the carcass of the
~te,
victim war orobablv roasted whole. either
over an open fire or in a pit in the earth (as by the
modern Samaritans), and the flesh sometimes eaten half
raw or merely softened by fire. Dt. 16r prescribes that
it shall be boiled, like other sacrifices. This, however,
did not prevail ; P preserves the primitive curtom while
euardine - - neainst " abuse : the Passover is neither to be
eaten raw nor boiled in water, but roasted in the fire
(Ex. 1Z9), with head, legs, and inwards. The sacrificial
feast was held bv , nieht
e
at full nlmn :. the oarticioanrs . .
were in their everyday garb, not in ceremonial apparel ;
everything was done with haste ; the whole victim was
devoured-including, doubtless, in ancient times the
erla which in later sacrificial ritual were offered to God
by fire, and therefore strictly forbidden as food; only
the bones must not be broken ;' the flesh must all be
consumed heiore daybreak: if aueht remained it was
to be burnt up at once; with the flesh war eaten-not
originally unleavened cakes, but-a salad of bitter herbs
(Ex.1Z9 f, cp No.SirJ, also Dt.16+b).5
With this singlllar ritual has been compared the
description given by Nilus of the customs of the Arabr in
the desert S, of Palestine and in the Sinaitic peninsula
in his own time-the end of the fourth century A.D.
They sacrificed a white camel to Venus, the morning
star ; after the chief or priest who presided at the
sacrifice had slain the animal. all rushed upon the
CBTC~SS with knives, hewed it to pieces, and devoured
it in wild haste, hide, inwards, bones, and all, that not
.1 scrap of it might be left for the rising sun to look
up0n.e
-
SACRIFICE
In 0.12~~-27 (ultimately from J) the elders are
hidden to take shrep or goats, one for each clan (mi;-
,, =ohtee tion p=hba), slaughter them, and. dipping
a bunch of herbs ('hyssop') into the
by blood, blood, to strike it upon the Lintel and
door-posts; Yahw.? will not s~ffer 'the destroyer' to
enter a house on which he sees these blood-"larks.
This, an editor adds, is the historical origin and erplanation
of a cujtom in use in later timer ; with it he
connects etymologically the name 'Passover' (pe'roh).
because Yahwe ' passed over' (pd~ob) the marked
houses of the Israeliter (Ex. 12z+-27). The object of
the rite is to protect the inmates of the house from 'the
destroyer' ; that is, in primitive conception, from the
demons of disease and death. Similar customs with
the same motive are found among many peoples.'
Whether this ritc was originally connected with the
Hebrrw spring feast is not clear. J, who prescriber
the marking of the houses, rays nothing about a feast,
and, indeed, repeatedly insists that the festival of
Yahwa cannot be celebrated in Egypt (Ex. 53825-27);
P orders that the blood of the lamb slain for the feast
he applied to the door of every house in which it is
eaten (EX. 1z7, cp I,). a direction which Jewish tradition
and practice regarded as applying only to the 'Egyptian
Pwover' : 2 Dt. makes no mention of this use of the
blood at the PASSOVER (9.u.. 5 r3)= It is nor i~nlikely
that a rite originally occasional, as in the outbreak of
an epidemic. came to be practised annually for the
protection of the household during the coming year,
and in connection with the old spring feast.' The
name $&ah probably belonged, notwithstanding J's
atymology, to the feut rather than to the hlood
marking.
Some Semitic peoples, both nomadic and settled,
offered in sacrifice animals taken in the chase. Gazelles
Wild were offered by the Babylonians
(Jastrow, Re1 Bad. -Ass 661) and
sJLimalB;
probably by the Phornicians (Sacrificial
spoils Of war' Tariffs. CIS 16559 ; cp lsnnc,
3 4. n. 2). Among the heathen Arabs, also, gazelles
were sacrificed, but were regarded as an inferior offer^
ing; men who had vowed sheep or goats from their
flocks sometimes substituted ga~elles.~ The nomadic
forefathers of the Israelites "lay have made similar
3fferings ; but there is no renliniscence of this in the
OT. The requirement that the blwd of animals taken
In the chase be poured ont and covered with earth (Lev.
liq. cp Dt. 1216 Q*) is not necessarily an attenuated
iurvival of a sacrificial rite : the helief that the sou1 is
n the blood (Lev, lir4, on which see below, 5 46) is
:earon enoughs
Sacrifice was doubtlerr offered also of the spoil of
war, as id later times (I S. 15x5 zr cp 143r ; see olro
Gen. 14n) Similarly the Arabr on their remm from
a foray sacrificrd one beast of those they had taken and
feasted on it before dividing the booty.' The Arabs of
whom Yilvr wrote took by preference a human victim,
a fair youth, from among their captives ; in default of
such, they offered a white camelVhe Carthaginianr.
after a victory, sacrificed the faireat of their captives
by night as burnt offerings (Diodorur Sicuhs, 206s) :
1 Sec, e.g., Zimmem, Eeifr.2no. 26, col. g, 1 a d : Palmer,
Dm. Zzad.wxz8, etc.: Doughty, Ar h. 1 4 ~ 4 lra,z~s.:
s ~
Kingrley, Trove/? in Wmt Apia, 444 IS'. A la re^ colieciion
of matcriz~l is found in Curtlrr, 2'""cifiuc Sanitic Raligivn
To-day, chap. 15fl
a SO =lro the modern szmritanr : ~ ~ R*;~, 1 237. t ~ ~ ~
'5'1,.
ifice, of Nil-.
bclow. See WRS
risi\.i.~i~~. ' ' .'
0 Cp the burying of blood drawn in bload-letting, or from a
nose-bleed, rg, Doughty. A?. Dm. 1492; Kingiley, Tr.urir
in war* Africa, 447.
7 WRS h'ri. Senr.ll! +gr and fha Arab authors there cited.
8 ~ig";, GI. i~&f: axax; xee WRS RII. scrn.i2~,
361 fi