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Neofiti Exodus

About this book

Consecrating Aaron and His Sons

Chapter 29

1 “This is what you must do to consecrate them to serve before him in the high priesthood: take one young bull and two rams, sound and without blemish, 2 unleavened bread, unleavened cakes soaked in oil, and unleavened wafers brushed with oil. Make them from fine wheat flour. 3 Put them ⟨in a basket and bring them⟩ in the basket, along with the bull and the two rams. 4 Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and sanctify them with water. 5 Take the garments and dress Aaron in the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, and the breastpiece. Secure it on him with the ephod’s sash. 6 Put the turban on his head and put the sanctuary’s crown on the turban. 7 Take the anointing oil, pour it on his head, and anoint him. 8 Bring his sons forward and dress them in tunics. 9 Tie sashes on Aaron and his sons and put ⟨caps⟩ on them. The priesthood ⟨will belong to them⟩ as a perpetual statute. Complete the offering of Aaron’s hands and the offering of his sons’ hands. 10 Bring the bull before the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons must lay their hands on the bull’s head. 11 Slaughter the bull before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 12 Take some of its blood and put it on the altar’s horn with your finger. Pour out all the remaining blood at the altar’s base. 13 Take all the fat covering the entrails, what remains of the liver’s lobes, the two kidneys, and the fat on them, and arrange them on the altar. 14 Burn the bull’s meat, hide, and dung in a fire outside the camp. It is a sin offering. 15 Take one ram, and Aaron and his sons must lay their hands on the ram’s head. 16 Slaughter the ram, take its blood, and sprinkle it all around the altar. 17 Cut the ram into pieces, wash its entrails and legs, and put them on its pieces and head. 18 Arrange the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Name of the Lord for a pleasing aroma, an offering before the Lord. 19 Take the second ram, and Aaron and his sons must lay their hands on the ⟨ram’s⟩ head. 20 Slaughter the ram, take some of its blood, and put it on the tip of Aaron’s ear and the tips of his sons’ right ears, on their right thumbs, and on the big toes of their right feet. Sprinkle the blood all around the altar. 21 Take some of the blood on the altar and some anointing oil and sprinkle Aaron and his garments, his sons and their garments with him. He and his garments, his sons and their garments with him, will be consecrated. 22 Take from the ram the fat, the fat tail, the fat covering the entrails, what remains of the liver’s lobes, the two kidneys with their fat, and the right thigh, because it is a ram of ordination. 23 Take one loaf of bread, one bread cake soaked in oil, and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread before the Lord. 24 Put all these on the palms ⟨of Aaron’s hands and the palms⟩ of his sons’ hands and wave them as a wave offering before the Lord. 25 Receive them from their hands and arrange them on the altar over the burnt offering as a pleasing aroma before the Lord. It is an offering before the Lord. 26 Take the breast of Aaron’s ram of ordination and wave it as a wave offering before the Lord. It will be your portion. 27 Consecrate the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the reserved offering, which was waved or set aside from the ram of ordination belonging to Aaron and his sons. 28 It will belong to Aaron and his sons as a perpetual statute from the sons of Israel, because it is a reserved offering. There will be a reserved offering from the sons of Israel, from your sacrifices of sacred offerings, your reserved offering to the Name of the Lord. 29 Aaron’s sacred garments will belong to his sons after him, for his sons to be anointed in them and to complete the offering of their hands in them. 30 The priest who succeeds him must wear them for seven days when entering the tent of meeting to serve inside the sanctuary. 31 Take the ram of ordination and boil its meat in a holy place. 32 Aaron and his sons must eat the ram’s meat and the bread in the basket at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 33 They must eat the things with which atonement was made to complete the offering of their hands and consecrate them. An unconsecrated person must not eat them, because they are holy. 34 If any meat from the ordination or any bread remains until morning, burn what remains in a fire. It must not be eaten, because it is holy. 35 Do this for Aaron and his sons, in accordance with everything I commanded you. Complete the offering of their hands for seven days. 36 Offer a bull every day as a sin offering for atonement. Anoint the altar when you make atonement on it, and anoint it to consecrate it. 37 Make atonement on the altar for seven days and consecrate it. The altar will be most holy; everything that touches the altar will become holy.

The Daily Offerings

38 This is the arrangement for your offerings on the altar: two year-old lambs every day continually. 39 Offer one lamb in the morning and the second lamb at twilight. 40 Follow this arrangement when you offer with one lamb a mekilta of fine flour soaked in a quarter hin of pressed oil, and a libation of a quarter hin of wine. 41 Offer the second lamb at twilight, with a grain offering and a libation like those of the morning lamb. It will be accepted as a pleasing aroma, an offering before the Lord. 42 This is a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak with you there. 43 My Memra will meet the sons of Israel there, and it will be sanctified within my Glory.⁠ 44 I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. I will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve before me in the high priesthood.⁠ 45 I will make my Shekinah dwell among the sons of Israel, and my Memra will be their redeeming God. 46 They will know that I am he, the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that the Glory of my Shekinah might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.

Texts in conversation

Compare John 8:28 and Neofiti Exodus 29:46

New Testament · Targum

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Summary

In John 8, Jesus says that when he is lifted people will know that he is sent by God, using the phrase “I am he.” This may be based on an Aramaic tradition similar to Targum Neofiti, where God through the “Memra” says “I am he” to show authority.

Passages

John 8:28

New Testament
21 Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will look for me but will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” 22 So the Jewish leaders began to say, “Perhaps he is going to kill himself because he says, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’” 23 Jesus replied, “You people are from below; I am from above. You people are from this world; I am not from this world. 24 Thus I told you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” 25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus replied, “What I have told you from the beginning. 26 I have many things to say and to judge about you, but the Father who sent me is truthful, and the things I have heard from him I speak to the world.” 27 (They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.) 28 Then Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak just what the Father taught me.
90–110 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in John

Neofiti Exodus 29:46

Targum
41 Offer the second lamb at twilight, with a grain offering and a libation like those of the morning lamb. It will be accepted as a pleasing aroma, an offering before the Lord. 42 This is a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak with you there. 43 My Memra will meet the sons of Israel there, and it will be sanctified within my Glory. 44 I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. I will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve before me in the high priesthood. 45 I will make my Shekinah dwell among the sons of Israel, and my Memra will be their redeeming God. 46 They will know that I am he, the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that the Glory of my Shekinah might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
300–1000 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Neofiti Exodus

References

"... We can also compare John 8:28 to similar sayings of Targum Neofiti where eight times in Exodus the Lord says, "you/they will know that I am he, the Lord", usually spoken by the divine Word (as in John 8:28) ... John 8:58 is often related directly to Exodus 3:14, where the Hebrew is often interpreted "I am who I am" ... Such a notion would explain why the Jews took up stones. But as I argued in chapter 3, Exodus 3:14 is better understood as "I will be who I have been, and John is more likely to be related to the divine "I am he of Deuteronomy 32:39 and Isaiah as well as the additional "I am he" sayings in the Palestinian Targums ..."
John L. Ronning, The Jewish Targums and John's Logos Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 209–210.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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John 8:28 and Neofiti Exodus 29:46

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