PERMANENT ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DAILY SACRIFICE, THE SET FEASTS, AND THE OFFERING OF FREE-WILL OFFERINGS (Ezra 3:5, Ezra 3:6). Having set up the altar, and celebrated the particular festival which the revolving year happened to have brought round, and which it would have been wrong to neglect, the exiles re-established permanently three things:—
1. The daily sacrifice;
2. The celebration of the new moons and other regular feasts; and
3. The practice of allowing the people to bring offerings whenever they pleased, to be offered on the great altar by the priest or priests in attendance.
The first of these was for atonement; the second for public thanksgiving and acknowledgment of God's mercies; the third for private devotion, the payment of vows, and the like.
The continual burnt offering. This is beyond a doubt the daily morning and evening sacrifice, called "the continual burnt offering" in Exodus 29:42 and Numbers 28:3-6. The clause is not modified by the succeeding words, which are additional, not exegetical, and which should not be translated, as in the A. V both of the new moons, but, "and those of the new moons." The returned exiles kept henceforth regularly both the daily morning and evening sacrifice, and also that appointed for the new moons (Numbers 28:11-15), and those appointed for the other "set feasts,"such as the passover and the feast of Pentecost. And of every one that willingly offered. Nor was this all. The practice was resumed of sacrificing on the great altar at any time any free-will offerings that individual Israelites might bring (see Leviticus 1:1-17; Leviticus 2:1-16; Leviticus 3:1-17; etc.). Thus provision was made for all that was most essential in the ritual of religion, while the temple itself still remained unbuilt (see Numbers 28:6).