The priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt-offering— I subjoin here the learned note of Bishop Patrick: "All the flesh of the burnt-offerings being wholly consumed, as well as the fat, upon the altar, (ch. Leviticus 1:8-9.) there was nothing that could fall to the share of the priest, but the skin; which is here given him for his pains. I observed upon Genesis 3:21 that it is probable Adam himself offered the first sacrifice, and had the skin given him by GOD, to make the garments for him and his wife. In conformity to which, the priests ever after had the skin of the whole burnt-offerings, for their portion; which was a custom among the Gentiles, (as well as the Jews,) who gave the skins of their sacrifices to their priests, when they were not burnt with the sacrifices, as in some sin-offerings they were among the Jews; (see ch. Leviticus 4:11.) and they employed them to a superstitious use, by lying upon them in their temples, in hopes to have future things revealed to them in their dreams. Of this we have a proof in Virgil's 7th AEneid, ver. 127 of Dryden's translation:
The priest on skins of offerings takes his ease, And nightly visions in his slumbers sees; A swarm of thin aerial shapes appears, And, fluttering round his temples, deafs his ears: There he consults, the future fates to know From powers above, and from the fiends below.
And in the Eleusinia, the Daduchus put on the skin of the beasts which had been sacrificed to Jupiter; and which was called Διος κωδια, the fleece of Jupiter."