Leviticus 4:12

(12) Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth.—This does not mean that the high priest himself had to carry the whole bullock all that distance, but in accordance with the idiom so common in Hebrew, where the singular is used for the plural, or the indefinite or impersonal form, denotes that those who assisted in doing the rough work of the altar shall carry the victim. Hence the ancient Greek Version (LXX.) and the Samaritan rightly render it by “and they shall carry,” in the plural: i.e., the whole bullock shall be carried forth. In Leviticus 4:24 of this very chapter the Authorised Version properly translates the same idiom into “in the place where they kill the burnt offering,” though the verb, as in the verse before us, is in the singular. (See also Leviticus 4:14.)

Without the camp.—During the time of the second Temple there were three places for burning: one place was in the court of the sanctuary, where they burnt the sacrifices which were unfit and rejected; the second place was in the mountain of the house called Birah, where were buried those sacrifices which met with an accident after they had been carried out of the court; and the third place was without Jerusalem, called the place of ashes. It is this place to which the Apostle refers when he says, “for the bodies of those beast whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:11-12).

And burn him on the wood with fire.—Whilst special wood was required for the burning of those victims which were consumed in the court of the sanctuary (see Leviticus 1:7), the sacrifices which were taken outside the city could be burnt with any wood, or even straw or stubble. All that was insisted on was that it should be burned with fire, as the text before us has it, but not with cinder, coals, or lime.