For such a high priest was fitting for us, holy, guileless, undefiled, having been separated from sinners and become higher than the heavens, who does not have need day by day, just as the high priests, to offer up sacrifices [θυσίας ἀναφέρειν], first on behalf of his own sins, then on behalf of (the sins of) the people, for this he did once for all having offered himself up [ἑαυτὸν ἀνενέγκας].
These verses contain a famous interpretive puzzle, since they ascribe a double covering for sin (one animal for the sins of the priest and another for those of the people) to the daily sacrifices, whereas the Hebrew scriptures reserve this double covering only for the sacrifices made on the Day of Atonement. It is true that two animals and an offering of fine flour were sacrificed daily in the tabernacle or temple (Exodus 29.38-42; Numbers 28.3-8), but, as George Wesley Buchanan explains on pages 128-129 of his Anchor Bible commentary on Hebrews:
The author's familiarity with liturgical customs is reflected here. The law instructs that the high priest, on the Day of Atonement, must first offer a bull as a sin offering for himself and his family, and afterward he was to offer a goat as a sin offering for the sins of the people (Lev 16:6-28; Yoma 4:3-6:3). There is a problem, however, in the claim that high priests do this "daily" (kath' hēmeran) whereas the atonement offerings the author described took place only on the Day of Atonement, so far as is generally known. Some possible explanations for this situation are these: (a) The author may have rendered the Aramaic yōmā' which literally means "the day," but was used as a technical term for "the Day of Atonement," by kath' hēmeran, meaning "daily" (cf. Heb. yōmām, "by day"). This would have been caused by a misunderstanding of the Aramaic of some document and a faulty attempt to give the expression sense in Greek. The document may have been one that compared the action of the high priest on the Day of Atonement with that of Jesus. (b) He may have tried to increase the contrast by confusing the high priest's function on the Day of Atonement, which Lev 16 spells out clearly, with the daily sacrifices which were also performed (Lev 6:13, 19-22; Num 28:3-4; Tamid 7:3; Sir 45:14). (c) The author may have meant by "every day", "every day on which he ministered to atone for the people." (d) Daily sacrifices may have been understood as atoning sacrifices.
Of the four options offered (a-d), I prefer the last (d): Daily sacrifices may have been understood (by some, at least) as atoning sacrifices. I prefer this option because scholars, including Buchanan, are aware of texts which seem to ascribe atonement for sin to the daily sacrifices.
First we have Jubilees 6.14, concerning the posterity of Noah:
And for this law there is no limit of days, for it is forever. They shall observe it throughout their generations, so that they may continue supplicating on your behalf with blood before the altar; every day and at the time of morning and evening they shall seek forgiveness on your behalf perpetually before the Lord that they may keep it and not be rooted out.
This text appears both to derive the daily sacrifices from the time of Noah, long before the giving of the law, and to ascribe atoning power, the power to gain forgiveness from the Lord, to these sacrifices.
More interestingly, given that scholars often connect the epistle to the Hebrews with Alexandrian thought, we have Philo of Alexandria, who writes in Who Is the Heir of Divine Things 36 (174a):
But you also see that the continuous [ἐνδελεχεῖς] sacrifices are divided into equal parts, one which the priests present their own behalf, which is of fine flour, and that which is on behalf of the people, which is of two lambs, which they are enjoined to offer up.
This passage specifies that one daily sacrifice is for the priest and the other for the people. Philo also writes in The Special Laws 3.23 (131a):
Moreover, I said before, he has appointed a time for their return, the death of the high priest, for the following reason. As the relations of each individual who has been slain treacherously lie in wait to secure themselves revenge and justice upon those who treacherously slew him, in like manner the high priest is the relation and nearest of kin to the whole nation, inasmuch as he presides over and dispenses justice to all who dispute in accordance with the laws, and offers up prayers and sacrifices every day [καθʼ ἐκάστην ἡμέραν] on behalf of the whole nation.
It appears that at least some Jews interpreted the daily sacrifices as being offered specifically on behalf of the priest(s) and on behalf of all the people. This background may well explain how our author comes to attribute atoning power to sacrifices offered daily, despite the silence of scripture on this topic and the apparent limiting of atonement language to the yearly sacrifices offered on Yom Kippur.
Two more observations on this passage, both of which will become relevant in future posts.
First, in my note on Leviticus 1.1-17 & Exodus 24.4-6 (in the Jewish Texts and History forum) I pointed out that ἀναφέρω, the term twice translated in our passage above as offer up, when used in sacrifial contexts may especially apply to the part of the sacrifice in which smoke, fragrance, incense, or flames rise up from the altar, but it may also be used of the entire sacrificial process, with all relevant steps included. This passage, with no mention of the altar or indication of any one point of reference within the various steps of offering up animal victims, appears to point to the act of sacrifice as a whole.
Second, the verb ἀναφέρω appears only two other times in our epistle. Hebrews 9.28 uses it in terms of Jesus himself bearing sin by being offered forth, and Hebrews 13.15 enjoins its readers to offer up a sacrifice of praise, an obvious metaphor based on sacrificial protocols. Thus, Hebrews 7.26-27 is the only passage in our epistle to use the term ἀναφέρω specifically in a sacrificial context applying either to Jesus or to the Levitical priests making a sacrifice (in this case, one instance for each). The epistle to the Hebrews prefers another verb for sacrificial activities, a verb I will discuss in an upcoming post.
Ben.