he shall carry the whole bull outside of the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire. Where the ashes are poured out, it shall be burned.
Parallel translations
- KJV Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
- BSB all the rest of the bull—he must take outside the camp to a ceremonially clean place where the ashes are poured out, and there he must burn it on a wood fire on the ash heap.
- NKJV the whole bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.
- NASB that is, all the rest of the bull, he is to bring out to a clean place outside the camp where the fatty ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the fatty ashes are poured out it shall be burned.
- NLT 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.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The whole bull is carried outside the camp to a clean place and burned. The sin-bearing carcass is removed from the holy camp and consumed by fire.
Overview
Burning the body outside the camp removed the sin it symbolically bore away from God's dwelling among His people. This act of bearing sin outside the holy place is rich with meaning. Hebrews explicitly applies it to Jesus, who suffered outside the gate, bearing our sin away so that we might be made holy (Hebrews 13:11-13).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Heb 13:11For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside of the camp.
- Lev 6:10–11The priest shall put on his linen garment, and he shall put on his linen breeches upon his body; and he shall remove the ashes from where the fire has consumed the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
- Exod 29:14But the meat of the bull, and its skin, and its dung, you shall burn with fire outside of the camp: it is a sin offering.
- Lev 16:27The bull for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp; and they shall burn their skins, their flesh, and their dung with fire.
- Num 19:3You shall give her to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring her outside of the camp, and one shall kill her before his face.
- Num 19:5One shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her meat, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn.
- Lev 13:46All the days in which the plague is in him he shall be unclean. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. Outside of the camp shall be his dwelling.
- Num 5:3Both you shall put male and female outside of the camp; that they not defile their camp, in the middle of which I dwell.”
- Num 15:35Yahweh said to Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside of the camp.”
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 4:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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