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The LORD further institutes permanent, daily sacrifices.  We aren't told where the animals are to come from, but I would guess either donations or some sort of national tax.  Although it's not stated here, I believe the priests also eat from the daily sacrifices (and not just the sacrifices for their consecration), which will become their daily provision while they minister by maintaining the lampstand and also overseeing the sacrifices and other rituals.


We are not told what is the purpose or reason for these sacrifices, but I would speculate that they are intended as a sacrifice of worship, not atonement or consecration.  We have seen a few sacrifices of worship before, such as Gen 4:3-4 and arguably also Gen 22:13.  In both instances, there is no obvious sign that the men offering sacrifices are atoning for anything, they are just offering sacrifices as a token or respect or worship to God.  I believe it's similar here because there is nothing specifically being atoned.  I believe this is partly the basis for God's "dwell[ing] among the sons of Israel".  Alternatively, one could view it as sacrificial atonement for sins the Israelites commit on a daily basis, in which case they would have daily atonement in addition to the annual Passover festival.


However, I think there's a lingering question, which is, "why does a sacrifice of worship make sense?"  I already tried to address the reasoning of substitutionary atonement back in Ex 12, and I think I was able to find a sort of logic in the sense that one can transfer one's sins to the animal and then kill the animal.  In this case, for the daily sacrifices, there is no apparent "transfer", so what purpose does it serve that an animal die?  I honestly don't have a good answer for this, but I have some ideas.  Back in Gen 4, we saw that Cain offered of the fruit that he grew from the soil, while Abel offered fat from the flocks he raised.  In both cases, they offered food which was the direct result of their labor.  I think this represents the duality between the results of labor and the food that we need to eat to live.  These two concepts are intertwined first in Gen 3 when God says that it is by harsh labor that man shall bring plants from the ground, which he shall eat.  This is analogous to the harsh labor required to shepherd a flock and eat the slaughtered lambs of that flock.  This further explains why there are sacrifices of bread and oil (and in v. 40, wine) in addition to animals, because this represents the approximate diet of the Hebrews.  There was no sacrifice of bread in the Passover or when the covenant is confirmed in Ex 24, because those were sacrifices of atonement, while these are sacrifices of consecration and worship.


Like the offering of firstfruits, I believe the sacrifices in this chapter are intended as an acknowledgement that God is the source of all the food we eat, that our success comes from God.  God sends down rain and causes the sun to shine, and provides us all the tools we need to have a successful crop.  Offering a sacrifice to God, then, shows that we recognize our dependence on him and his favor towards us.


Does it take a sacrifice to acknowledge one's dependence on God?  I'd lean towards no, I don't think it does.  I think the sacrifice here is instituted in part to teach the Israelite's their dependence on God, possibly more than as an acknowledgement.  And why a sacrifice?  Probably the logic is, "from God this came, to God shall it return."

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