Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth, х wªhowtsiy' (H3318) (in the Hiphil or causative conjugation of the verb yaatsa' (H3318)] - he shall cause to go forth; i:e., to have conveyed (cf. Leviticus 6:10-11; Hebrews 6:3-4; 14:45) or carried, as the word implies (Exodus 12:46; Deuteronomy 24:11; Judges 6:18), in whatever manner, or by whatever instrumentality, he might accomplish the removal (cf. Numbers 19:9, where an attendant is described as gathering up the ashes of the victim). Most probably, however, he employed the Levites (Numbers 2:1-34; Numbers 4:1-49; Numbers 7:1-89; Numbers 18:2), whose special duty it was to transport the tabernacle furniture during the journeyings, as well as to perform all sorts of servile work connected with the tabernacle when it was stationary, except in the direct ministrations of the altar, and who numbered at the time of their consecration 8,580 men capable of active labour.
Without the camp unto a clean place. The tribes were commanded (Numbers 2:1-34) to pitch in a certain specified order, being so arranged as to make the camp in the form of an immense square, with the tabernacle in the center, near which was stationed the tribe of Levi, consisting of three great divisions, with the distinguished families of Moses and Aaron. Each of the tribes was separated by a considerable distance from that on each side of it; the expression of the historian (see the note at Numbers 2:2) indicating that a large, though undefined extent of vacant ground intervened-that space being doubtless left for the purpose of having all refuse deposited and buried there.
The "clean place without the camp," then, to which the offal of the sacrificed bullock was directed to be taken was that which lay on the outskirts of the camp of the Levites; so that, with this explanation, the objection which has been recently dwelt upon as so fatal to the veracious character of this history, vanishes; and instead of the carcass having to be carried, through a dense population of two million people, six miles to the extremities of the camp, the distance would not exceed half-a-mile in any direction.
The reference to "the camp," in the injunctions given here and elsewhere, has also been made an argument for maintaining that the whole sacrificial system is described as put in operation in the wilderness, and that, as insuperable difficulties lay in the way, this history cannot be historically correct. Now, it is true that these laws were intended to be immediately acted upon; because in due course the Israelites would soon have arrived in the promised land. Some of the oblations were doubtless presented in "the camp;" but many of them were never intended to be made until the people's settlement in that country (see the notes at Leviticus 2:14; Leviticus 23:39, etc.); and, as will be shown afterward, in consequence of the covenant being suspended through rebellion (see the notes at Numbers 14:1-45; Joshua 5:2-9), there is reason to believe that no sacrifices were offered during the greater part of the sojourn in the wilderness.