Discovery BoxExodus 29:13-14 
Context29:13 You are to take all the fat that covers the entrails, and the lobe 1 that is above the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, and burn them 2 on the altar. 29:14 But the meat of the bull, its skin, and its dung you are to burn up 3 outside the camp. 4 It is the purification offering. 5
1 tn S. R. Driver suggests that this is the appendix or an appendix, both here and in v. 22 (Exodus, 320). “The surplus, the appendage of liver, found with cow, sheep, or goat, but not with humans: Lobus caudatus” (HALOT 453 s.v. יֹתֶרֶת).
2 tn Heb “turn [them] into sweet smoke” since the word is used for burning incense.
sn The giving of the visceral organs and the fat has received various explanations. The fat represented the best, and the best was to go to God. If the animal is a substitute, then the visceral organs represent the will of the worshiper in an act of surrender to God.
3 tn Heb “burn with fire.”
4 sn This is to be done because there is no priesthood yet. Once they are installed, then the sin/purification offering is to be eaten by the officiating priests as a sign that the offering was received. But priests could not consume their own sin offering.
5 sn There were two kinds of “purification offering,” those made with confession for sin and those made without. The title needs to cover both of them, and if it is called in the traditional way “the sin offering,” that will convey that when people offered it for skin diseases, menstruation, or having babies, they had sinned. That was not the case. Moreover, it is usual to translate the names of the sacrifices by what they do more than what they cover – so peace offering, reparation offering, and purification offering.
