Leviticus 8: Aaron Barely Does Anything on Ordination Day

Leviticus 7 ends by pointing forward, and the share of the peace offerings that goes to the priests is called "the portion of the anointing of Aaron, and of the anointing of his sons" (Leviticus 7:35), and it's theirs "in the day that he anointed them" (Leviticus 7:36). So the book has been describing a day it hadn't shown us yet, and chapter 8 is that day.

I sat down with it expecting to write about the blood on the ear, since that's the part people ask about. What held me up first was something plainer, which is how little Aaron does.

Who is actually doing the work in Leviticus 8?

If you read the verbs it's Moses. He brought Aaron and his sons and "washed them with water" (Leviticus 8:6). He puts the coat on Aaron, girds him, clothes him with the robe, sets the ephod on him and binds it. Moses puts the breastplate on, and the Urim and Thummim into the breastplate, and the mitre on his head with the golden plate on the front of it. Moses pours the oil. Moses kills the animals and handles the blood.

Aaron and his sons lay their hands on the head of the bullock (verse 14), then on the first ram (verse 18), then on the second (verse 22). They have their hands filled for the wave offering in verse 27. They eat. They wait.

Aaron doesn't say a word in the whole chapter, and the first offering he makes on his own, going up to the altar himself, doesn't come until the next chapter, on the eighth day (Leviticus 9:8).

Even the meat goes the other direction, because in verse 29 Moses takes the breast of the ram of consecration and waves it, "for of the ram of consecration it was Moses' part." Back in Leviticus 7:31 the breast of a peace offering belongs to "Aaron's and his sons'," so on ordination day it goes to the man who did the work instead.

The last time I stood in a circle of men with my hands on a boy's head, it was over in about two minutes, and I never thought of that as short until this chapter made me compare.

What the chapter does give the congregation is a view of it. The Lord tells Moses to gather everyone "unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation," and Moses, before he's touched anybody, tells them what they're about to watch:

And Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which the Lord commanded to be done.

Leviticus 8:5

Nobody in Israel could say afterward that they hadn't seen how it began, or that Aaron had arranged it himself. That's my reading of why it's done at the door in front of everyone, and of why Moses narrates as he goes.

Why does the sin offering come first?

If you've been reading Leviticus in order, this looks backwards. Chapter 1 opens with the burnt offering. Here the bullock for the sin offering goes first (verses 14-17), then the burnt ram (verses 18-21), then the ram of consecration (verses 22-29).

Leviticus 4:3 is the reason, where "If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people," he brings a young bullock, which is the animal Moses brings here. Aaron is wearing the breastplate and the golden plate by verse 9 and he still stands at the door with the same problem as everybody else in the crowd. I wrote about the sin offering back in Leviticus 5, the one where a man is guilty before he knew it, and this chapter is that law applied to the man at the top.

Verse 17 is easy to skip, since the fat of the bullock goes up on the altar and then the hide and the flesh and the dung are burned "without the camp." The first thing done on the priests' behalf that day is carried out of the camp and burned.

What is the blood on the right ear, thumb and toe about?

The verse describing it is short enough to quote whole.

And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot.

Leviticus 8:23

His sons get the same in verse 24. The usual explanation is that the ear is for hearing, the hand for work and the foot for walking, and it fits well enough, though nothing in the verse says so.

What surprised me is that the marking isn't peculiar to priests. Leviticus 14 is the chapter about a person cleansed of leprosy, and this is what the priest does there:

And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot.

Leviticus 14:14

It comes again in verse 25, which is in the section for a man too poor to bring the full offering (verses 21-25), so the three spots survive even when the price of the animals doesn't, and in both places the oil goes on top of the blood afterward (verses 17 and 28). Leviticus 8:30 has the oil and blood together, sprinkled. The cleansed man gets a week of his own as well, seven days "abroad out of his tent" (Leviticus 14:8), and then on the eighth day he's brought to "the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" (Leviticus 14:11).

So a man who'd been put outside the camp and a man about to stand in the holy place get the same three spots, and both wait a week before the eighth day. I don't have a reading that accounts for that. A badge of rank wouldn't turn up on both of them, and that's as far as I'll go.

What did Aaron get that his sons didn't?

The sons get coats and girdles and bonnets in a single verse (verse 13), where Aaron's outfit, with the breastplate and the golden plate, runs through most of verses 7 to 9. And verse 12 is the only place anything is poured on a head: "And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him."

The sons aren't left out of the oil, though. In verse 30 Moses sprinkles oil and blood "upon his sons, and upon his sons' garments with him," and Aaron is sprinkled there too. So the head gets poured on, and everyone gets sprinkled.

Why seven days at the door?

The last six verses are the part I'd have trimmed if I were editing the chapter, and they're the part I've come to think matters most. Moses tells them to boil the flesh at the door and eat it there with the bread from the basket. Whatever's left gets burned (verse 32). Then comes this:

And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation in seven days, until the days of your consecration be at an end: for seven days shall he consecrate you.

Leviticus 8:33

Verse 35 adds "day and night," and then ends on a line that's hard to read quickly, "and keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not."

Last week's clock was on the meat, in the three-day rule in Leviticus 7. Here the clock is on the men. They can't leave, and the chapter says to boil the flesh and eat it and burn what's left and stay, and it doesn't say what the days were like.

Leviticus 10 opens with two of those four sons, Nadab and Abihu, who offer fire the Lord hadn't commanded and die for it (Leviticus 10:1-2). I don't want to read all of chapter 8 through that, because the chapter doesn't. It ends in obedience. But I can't read "that ye die not" anymore without hearing it, and a week of sitting still where everybody can see you looks to me like a slow way of being told the office is dangerous.

The chapter ends on a verse with nothing dramatic in it.

So Aaron and his sons did all things which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses.

Leviticus 8:36

Seven days sat on top of one verse that says they did it all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Moses ordain Aaron instead of Aaron doing it himself?

Because Aaron didn't get to pick himself. The Lord gives the command in verses 1 and 2, and Moses carries it out with the whole congregation standing there. Moses holds the oil, but the commands in this chapter aren't his idea either.

Is the blood on the ear, thumb and toe symbolic?

Probably, and the reading I keep seeing is ear for hearing, hand for working and foot for walking, which I can't improve on. I'd point you to Leviticus 14 before you lean on it hard, since a cleansed leper gets the same marks.

How does this compare with priesthood ordination today?

It doesn't look much like it and I wouldn't force it, since we have no animals and no week at a door. Two things carry over, the laying on of hands by someone holding the authority and witnesses in the room.

Why does verse 35 say they would die?

The verse doesn't say how. It ties staying at the door to keeping "the charge of the Lord," so I read the warning as being about the charge and not about the week itself. Leviticus 10 is where two of those sons actually die.

I'm going to read Leviticus 14 straight through on Saturday morning with chapter 8 open beside it. I've only lined up the ear, thumb and toe verses so far, and I haven't read the rest of the chapter in one sitting.

— D.