עגלה ערופה: Why This Process? Whose Sin?

(2) And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” ... (13) When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son...

(1) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to the Israelite people thus: When a person unwittingly incurs guilt in regard to any of the LORD’s commandments about things not to be done, and does one of them... (4) He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, before the Lord, and lay his hand upon the head of the bull. The bull shall be slaughtered before the LORD, (5) and the anointed priest shall take some of the bull’s blood and bring it into the Tent of Meeting... (13) If it is the whole community of Israel that has erred and the matter escapes the notice of the congregation, so that they do any of the things which by the LORD’s commandments ought not to be done, and they realize their guilt— (14) when the sin through which they incurred guilt becomes known, the congregation shall offer a bull of the herd as a sin offering, and bring it before the Tent of Meeting...

(5) And from the Israelite community he shall take two he-goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. (6) Aaron is to offer his own bull of sin offering, to make expiation for himself and for his household. (7) Aaron shall take the two he-goats and let them stand before the LORD at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; (8) and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the LORD and the other marked for Azazel. (9) Aaron shall bring forward the goat designated by lot for the LORD, which he is to offer as a sin offering; (10) while the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be left standing alive before the LORD, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel.

(1) If, in the land that the LORD your God is assigning you to possess, someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, (2) your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns. (3) The elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall then take a heifer which has never been worked, which has never pulled in a yoke; (4) and the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to an everflowing wadi, which is not tilled or sown. There, in the wadi, they shall break the heifer’s neck.

(1) To Nachal Eitan ... to my mind, the reason for this is similar to that of the sacrifices that are offered outside [of the Sanctuary premises] -- the goat that is sent away [on Yom Kippur] and the red heifer -- and it is for this reason that the sages count the eglah arufah among the chukkim [i.e. it cannot be explained as part of the procedure of bringing the guilty party to justice]

(6) ...As a rule the investigation, the procession of the elders, the measuring, and the taking of the heifer, make people talk about it, and by making the event public, the murderer may be found out, and he who knows of him, or has heard of him, or has discovered him by any due, will now name the person that is the murderer, and as soon as a man, or even a woman or handmaid, rises up and names a certain person as having committed the murder, the heifer is not killed...

(1) To Nachal Eitan. Which is hard; i.e. one that has never been tilled (2) And they shall strike off. I.e. one breaks its neck with a hatchet. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, as it were, Let a heifer which is only one year old and which therefore has brought forth no fruits (no offspring) have its neck broken at a spot (the untilled valley) which has not brought forth fruits, to expiate for the murder of him whom they did not permit further to beget children (Sotah 46a).

(1) אל נחל איתן, where people do not normally walk. (2) וערפו, a discreet death, not one drawing attention to itself. The animal does not experience pangs of death, not knowing of its impending fate. Naturally, people knew even less about this impending procedure. This procedure parallels what the murderer had done when he ambushed an unsuspecting victim in a location which was isolated so that the court never found out who the murderer was. Had the court known of the identity of the murderer they would have dealt with him instead of this heifer having to be killed.

(5) The priests, sons of Levi, shall come forward; for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to pronounce blessing in the name of the LORD, and every lawsuit and case of assault is subject to their ruling. (6) Then all the elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi. (7) And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. (8) Absolve, O LORD, Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.” And they will be absolved of bloodguilt.

(1) כפר לעמך: Please Lord, grant atonement to Your people, on behalf of the one who has spilled the blood...

(1) כפר לעמך: Since all of Yisrael is responsible one to another:

(1) Forgive your people. For we were negligent, and we did not guard the dangerous highways. [i.e. we allowed the victim to die, and we allowed the murderer to escape]

(1) Forgive your people. For we were negligent, and we did not guard the dangerous highways. [i.e. we allowed the victim to die, and we allowed the murderer to escape]