Leviticus 4:10, commentary and pictures

The verse shows that the fat of the sin offering for a priest or for the whole congregation was burned on the altar of burnt offering in the court. In the same ritual the victim's body was burned outside the camp. Its blood was carried into the holy place, sprinkled before the veil, and placed on the horns of the golden altar.

In the Mosaic dispensation God required sin offerings in addition to the tenth of all increase, so the tithe did not cover them and was not the full standard of giving. The sin-offering stands as part of God's paramount claim on property, joined with thank-offerings, sacrificial offerings and trespass-offerings as a required return. That return was meant to remind of the Giver and to sanctify the property to sacred uses. The required offering was proportioned to what was possessed, so the larger the capital entrusted the more valuable the gift required. A Christian with ten or twenty thousand dollars must still present his sin-offerings and thank-offerings to God.

The sin-offering belongs with the ransom for the firstborn son, the firstfruits of flocks and harvest, the corners of harvest fields and dropped grain left for the poor, and the land producing spontaneously every seventh year for the needy. It belongs also with the remission of all debts every seventh year, assessments on property, expenses for hospitalities and gifts to the poor, and special freewill offerings such as those for the wilderness tabernacle and the Jerusalem temple. In that system conscientious givers returned about one-third of all income for religious interests and the poor.