Regular and Festival Offering Regulations

Regular and Festival Offering Regulations organize Israel’s worship around a rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual sacrifices. Their detailed schedules combine offerings of animals, flour, oil, and wine with holy convocations and rest from servile work, making ritual repetition a means of marking sacred time and sustaining communal remembrance.

The Daily and Monthly Cycle

The continual burnt-offering consists of two unblemished year-old lambs each day, one in the morning and one at dusk. Each is accompanied by fine flour mixed with oil; a drink-offering of strong drink is poured out in the holy place. The text identifies this as the offering made at Mount Sinai and requires the evening lamb to be presented with the same meal- and drink-offerings as the morning one.

The Sabbath adds two lambs, two tenths of an ephah of flour mixed with oil, and a drink-offering to the continual daily sacrifice. At each new moon, the prescribed burnt-offering is larger: two young bulls, one ram, and seven lambs, with measured flour-and-oil portions and wine drink-offerings. One male goat is offered as a sin-offering alongside the regular sacrifice.

Passover and the Feast of Weeks

The annual cycle begins with Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. The fifteenth opens a seven-day feast of unleavened bread. Its first and seventh days are holy convocations on which servile work is forbidden; each day of the feast has additional burnt-offerings and accompanying meal- and drink-offerings, with a male goat for atonement, besides the continual daily offering.

At the day of first-fruits, during the Feast of Weeks, the people bring a new meal-offering and assemble in holiness, doing no servile work. The additional burnt-offering consists of two young bulls, a ram, and seven lambs, with flour mixed with oil and a male goat for atonement. These offerings, too, supplement rather than replace the continual sacrifice.

The Seventh-Month Observances

On the first day of the seventh month, a holy convocation and the blowing of the horn accompany a burnt-offering of one bull, one ram, and seven lambs, with their meal-offerings and a male goat for a sin-offering. These are presented in addition to the new-moon and continual offerings, so the calendar’s overlapping observances are explicitly maintained.

The tenth day is another holy convocation, marked by self-affliction and abstention from work. Its additional burnt-offering consists of a bull, a ram, and seven lambs, accompanied by a male goat for a sin-offering, as well as the offerings of atonement and the regular daily service.

The Feast of Tabernacles begins on the fifteenth day and lasts seven days. On its first day, thirteen bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs are offered, with their meal- and drink-offerings and a male goat for a sin-offering. The number of bulls decreases by one each successive day, from twelve on the second day to seven on the seventh; the two rams, fourteen lambs, and male goat continue. The eighth day brings a solemn assembly, no servile work, and a concluding offering of one bull, one ram, seven lambs, and a male goat, alongside the continual sacrifice.

Continuity, Memory, and Appointed Worship

The regulations distinguish the continual offering from sacrifices added for Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals: additions are repeatedly required beside the daily service. At the same time, appointed occasions include holy assemblies and restrictions on work, so the calendar governs both ritual action and communal time.

The Passover provisions connect observance with the departure from Egypt: the month of Abib recalls the night of deliverance, unleavened bread is called the bread of affliction, and the seven-day observance is meant to preserve that memory throughout life. The offering itself is to be sacrificed and eaten at the place chosen for the LORD’s name, not within any of the people’s gates. At the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles, households are told to rejoice together with Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows; the year’s appointed offerings thus sit within a broader pattern of worship, remembrance, and shared celebration.

The schedule closes by placing these prescribed sacrifices alongside vows and freewill offerings. Moses conveys the regulations to Israel as commands for the appointed seasons, binding recurring acts of worship to a shared calendar and a common place of service.