Here the sin-offering naturally held the first place; for this, as its name indicates, was wholly expiatory and propitiatory, bringing the offerer into a state of forgiveness and divine favor.  The sin-offerings had reference (1) to sin generally, as when Aaron and his sons were consecrated and the people sanctified, and when, on the annual day of atonement, expiation was made for the sins of the past year; (2) to specific offences (Lev. chaps. 4, 5), The exact distinction between the sin-offering and the trespass-offering is of difficult determination.  Both were alike expiatory, were in fact subdivisions of the same class of offerings.  A comparison of the passages in which trespass-offerings are prescribed (Lev. 5:1; 6:1-7; Numb. 5:6-8) seems to indicate that they belonged especially to trespasses for which restitution could be made.

Next in the order of sacrifices, though first in dignity, came the burnt-offering, also called holocaust (Heb. kalil) that is, whole burnt-offering, the characteristic mark of which was the consuming of the whole by fire (Lev. chap. 1).  It is conceded by all that this was a symbol of completeness; but in what respect is a question that has been answered in different ways.  Some refer the completeness to the offering itself, as that form of sacrifice which embraces in itself all others (Rosenmueller on Deut. 33:10); or, as the most perfect offering, inasmuch as it exhibits the idea of offering in its completeness and generality, and so concentrates in itself all worship.  Baehr, Symbolik, vol. 2, p. 362.  But we cannot separate, in the intention of God, the completeness of the form from the state of the offerer’s mind.  The burnt-offering was indeed, in its outward form, the most perfect of all sacrifices, for which reason it excluded female victims, as relatively inferior to the male sex.  But because of this its completeness and generality it signified the entire self-consecration of the offerer to God.  Winer and others after Philo.  But this, let it be carefully remembered, was a self-consecration that could be made only through the blood of expiation, to indicate which, the blood of the burnt-offering was sprinkled by the priest “round about upon the altar;” or, in the case of a bird, where the quantity was too small to be thus sprinkled, was “wrung out at the side of the altar.”

The peace-offering (more literally, offering of renditions; that is, offering in which the offerer rendered to God the tribute of praise and thanksgiving which was his due) was in all its different subdivisions—­thank-offering, votive offering, free-will offering (Lev. 7:11-16)—­a eucharistic offering.  Hence its social character.  After the sprinkling of the blood, the burning of the prescribed parts on the altar, and the assignment to the priest of his portion, the offerer and his friends feasted joyfully before the Lord on the remainder.