This is the law for expiating the guilt of a national sin, by a sin
offering. If the leaders of the people, through mistake concerning the
law, caused them to err, when the mistake was discovered an offering
must be brought, that wrath might not come upon the whole congregation.
Observe, 1. It is possible that the church may err, and that her guides
may mislead her. It is here supposed that the whole congregation may
sin, and sin through ignorance. God will always have a church on earth;
but he never said it should be infallible, or perfectly pure from
corruption on this side heaven. 2. When a sacrifice was to be offered
for the whole congregation, the elders were to lay their hands upon the
head of it (three of them at least), as representatives of the people
and agents for them. The sin we suppose to have been some common
custom, taken up and used by the generality of the people, upon
presumption of its being lawful, which afterwards, upon search,
appeared to be otherwise. In this case the commonness of the usage
received perhaps by tradition from their fathers, and the vulgar
opinion of its being lawful, would not so far excuse them from sin but
that they must bring a sacrifice to make atonement for it. There are
many bad customs and forms of speech which are thought to have no harm
in them, and yet may bring guilt and wrath upon a land, which therefore
it concerns the elders both to reform and to intercede with God for the
pardon of, Joel ii. 16. 3. The blood of this sin-offering, as of the
former, was to be sprinkled seven times before the Lord, v. 17. It was
not to be poured out there, but sprinkled only; for the cleansing
virtue of the blood of Christ was then and still is sufficiently
signified and represented by sprinkling, Isa. lii. 15. It was to be
sprinkled seven times. Seven is a number of perfection, because when
God had made the world in six days he rested the seventh; so this
signified the perfect satisfaction Christ made, and the complete
cleansing of the souls of the faithful by it; see Heb. x. 14. The blood
was likewise to be put upon the horns of the incense-altar, to which
there seems to be an allusion in Jer. xvii. 1, where the sin of Judah
is said to be graven upon the horns of their altars. If they did not
forsake their sins, the putting of the blood of their sin-offerings
upon the horns of their altars, instead of taking away their guilt, did
but bind it on the faster, perpetuated the remembrance of it, and
remained a witness against them. It is likewise alluded to in Rev. ix.
13, where a voice is heard from the four horns of the golden altar;
that is, an answer of peace is given to the prayers of the saints,
which are acceptable and prevalent only by virtue of the blood of the
sin-offering put upon the horns of that altar; compare Rev. viii. 3. 4.
When the offering is completed, it is said, atonement is made, and the
sin shall be forgiven, v. 20. The promise of remission is founded upon
the atonement. It is spoken here of the forgiveness of the sin of the
whole congregation, that is, the turning away of those national
judgments which the sin deserved. Note, The saving of churches and
kingdoms from ruin is owing to the satisfaction and mediation of
Christ.