II.II.4.  What the thank-offering has lost, the sin and trespass offering have gained; the voluntary private offering which the sacrificer ate in a joyful company at the holy place has given way before the compulsory, of which he obtains no share, and from which the character of the sacred meal has been altogether taken away.  The burnt-offering, it is true, still continues to be a meal, if only a one-sided one, of which God alone partakes; but in the case of the sin-offering everything is kept far out of sight which could recall a meal, as, for example, the accompaniments of meal and wine, oil and salt; of the flesh no portion reaches the altar, it all goes as a fine to the priest.  Now, of this kind of sacrifice, which has an enormous importance in the Priestly Code, not a single trace occurs in the rest of the Old Testament before Ezekiel, neither in the Jehovist and Deuteronomist, nor in the historical and prophetical books. 1

********************************************** 1.  How great is the difference in Deuteronomy xxi. 1-9; how very remote the sacrificial idea! *********************************************

`Olah and Zebah comprehend all animal sacrifices, `Olah and Minhah, or Zebah and Minhah, all sacrifices whatsoever; nowhere is a special kind of sacrifice for atonement met with (1Samuel iii. 14).  Hos. iv. 8 does indeed say:  “They eat the sin of my people, and they are greedy for its guilts,” but the interpretation which will have it that the priests are here reproached with in the first instance themselves inducing the people to falsification of the sacred dues, in order to make these up again with the produce of the sin and trespass offerings, is either too subtle or too dull. 2

**************************************** 2.  The sin and guilt are the sacrificial worship generally as carried on by the people (viii. 11; Amos iv. 4); in the entire section the prophet is preparing the way for the here sharply accentuated reproach against the priests that they neglect the Torah and encourage the popular propensity to superstitious and impure religious service.  Besides, where is there any reproach at all, according to the Pentateuch, in the first section of iv. 8?  And the second speaks of (WNM, not of )#MM. *******************************************

It would be less unreasonable to co-ordinate with the similarly named sin and trespass offering of the Pentateuch the five golden mice, and the five golden emerods with which the Philistines send back the ark, and which in 1Samuel vi. 3, 4, 8 are designated asham, or, still better, the sin and trespass monies which, according to 2Kings xii. 17 [A.V. 16], fell to the share of the Jerusalem priests.  Only the fact is that even in the second passage the asham and hattath are no sacrifices, but, more exactly to render the original meaning of the words, mere fines, and in fact money fines.  On the other