as sacrifices in the place of the larger animals. The directions for sacrificing these, were that the priest was to bring the bird to the altar, to hip off its head, and cause it to ascend in smoke upon the altar. מלק, which only occurs in Lev 1:15 and Lev 5:8, signifies undoubtedly to pinch off, and not merely to pinch; for otherwise the words in Lev 5:8, “and shall not divide it asunder,” would be superfluous. We have therefore to think of it as a severance of the head, as the lxx (ἀποκνίζειν) and Rabbins have done, and not merely a wringing of the neck and incision in the skin by which the head was left hanging to the body; partly because the words, “and not divide it asunder,” are wanting here, and partly also because of the words, “and burn it upon the altar,” which immediately follow, and which must refer to the head, and can only mean that, after the head had been pinched off, it was to be put at once into the burning altar-fire. For it is obviously unnatural to regard these words as anticipatory, and refer them to the burning of the whole dove; not only from the construction itself, but still more on account of the clause which follows: “and the blood thereof shall be pressed out against the wall of the altar.” The small quantity that there was of the blood prevented it from being caught in a vessel, and swung from it against the altar.
verses 16-17
He then took out בּנצתהּ את־מראתו, i.e., according to the probable explanation of these obscure words, “its crop in (with) the foeces thereof,”[1] and threw it “at the side of the altar eastwards,” i.e., on the eastern side of the altar, “on the ash-place,” where the ashes were thrown when taken from the altar (Lev 6:3). He then made an incision in the wings of the pigeon, but without
- ↑ This is the rendering adopted by Onkelos. The lxx, on the contrary, render it ἀφελεῖ τὸν πρόλοβον σὺν τοῖς πτεροῖς, and this rendering is followed by Luther (and the English Version, Tr.), “its crop with its feathers.” But the Hebrew for this would have been ונצתו. In Mishnah, Sebach. vi. 5, the instructions are the following: “et removet ingluviem et pennas et viscera egredentia cum illa.” This interpretation may be substantially correct, although the reference of בנוצתה to the feathers of the pigeon cannot be sustained on the ground assigned. For if the bird's crop was taken out, the intestines with their contents would unquestionably come out along with it. The plucking off of the feathers, however, follows from the analogy of the flaying of the animal. Only, in the text neither intestines nor feathers are mentioned; they are passed over as subordinate matters, that could readily be understood from the analogy of the other instructions.
