Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/801

 all: he also transferred the desire to walk before God in holiness and righteousness, which he could not do without the grace of God. This, and no more than this, is contained in the words, “that it may become well-pleasing to him, to make atonement for him.” כּפּר with Seghol (Ges. §52), to expiate (from the Kal כּפר, which is not met with in Hebrew, the word in Gen 6:14 being merely a denom. verb, but which signifies texit in Arabic), is generally construed with על like verbs of covering, and in the laws of sacrifice with the person as the object (“for him,” Lev 4:26, Lev 4:31, Lev 4:35; Lev 5:6, Lev 5:10., Lev 14:20, Lev 14:29, etc.; “for them,” Lev 4:20; Lev 10:17; “for her,” Lev 12:7; for a soul, Lev 17:11; Exo 30:15, cf. Num 8:12), and in the case of the sin-offerings with a second object governed either by על or מן (חטּאתו על עליו Lev 4:35; Lev 5:13, Lev 5:18, or מחטּאתו עליו Lev 4:26; Lev 5:6, etc., to expiate him over or on account of his sin); also, though not so frequently, with בּעד pers., ἐξιλάζεσθαι περὶ αὐτοῦ (Lev 16:6, Lev 16:24; 2Ch 30:18), and חטּאת בּעד, ἐξιλάζεσθαι περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτίας (Exo 32:30), and with ל pers., to permit expiation to be made (Deu 21:8; Eze 16:63); also with the accusative of the object, though in prose only in connection with the expiation of inanimate objects defiled by sin (Lev 16:33). The expiation was always made or completed by the priest, as the sanctified mediator between Jehovah and the people, or, previous to the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, by Moses, the chosen mediator of the covenant, not by “Jehovah from whom the expiation proceeded,” as Bähr supposes. For although all expiation has its ultimate foundation in the grace of God, which desires not the death of the sinner, but his redemption and salvation, and to this end has opened a way of salvation, and sanctified sacrifice as the means of expiation and mercy; it is not Jehovah who makes the expiation, but this is invariably the office or work of a mediator, who intervenes between the holy God and sinful man, and by means of expiation averts the wrath of God from the sinner, and brings the grace of God to bear upon him. It is only in cases where the word is used in the secondary sense of pardoning sin, or showing mercy, that God is mentioned as the subject (e.g., Deu 21:8; Psa 65:4; Psa 78:38; Jer 17:23). The meaning “to make atonement” lies at the foundation in every passage in which the word is used metaphorically, such as Gen 32:21, where Jacob seeks to expiate the face of his angry brother, i.e., to appease his wrath, with a present; or Pro 16:14, “the wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man expiates it, i.e., softens, pacifies it;” Isa 47:11, “Mischief (destruction) will fall upon thee, thou will not be able to expiate it,” that is to say, to avert the wrath of God, which has burst upon thee in the calamity, by means of an expiatory sacrifice. Even in Isa 28:18, “and your covenant with death is disannulled” (annihilated) (וכפּר), the use of the word כפר is to be explained from the fact that the guilt, which brought the judgment in its train, could be cancelled by a sacrificial expiation (cf. Isa 6:7 and Isa 22:14); so that there is no necessity to resort to a meaning which is altogether foreign to the word, viz., that of covering up by blotting over. When Hoffmann therefore maintains that there is no other way of explaining the use of the word in these passages, than by the supposition that, in addition to the verb כפר to cover, there was another denominative verb, founded upon the word כּפר a covering, or payment, the stumblingblock in the use of the word lies simply this, that Hoffmann has taken a one-sided view of the idea of expiation, through overlooking the fact, that the expiation had reference to the wrath of God which hung over the sinner and had to be averted from him by means of expiation, as is clearly proved by Exo 32:30 as compared with Exo 32:10 and Exo 32:22. The meaning of expiation which properly belongs to the verb כּפּר is not only retained in the nouns cippurim and capporeth, but lies at the root of the word copher, which is formed from the Kal, as we may clearly see from Exo 30:12-16, where the Israelites are ordered to pay a copher at the census, to expiate their souls, i.e., to cover their souls from the death which threatens the unholy, when he draws near without expiation to a holy God. Vid., Oehler in Herzog's Cycl.