Exodus 29 Summary and Study Guide

God’s instructions for making a priest begin with a man being washed at the door of a tent in the open, dressed in clothes he did not make, and marked with blood on the tip of his right ear, his right thumb and his right big toe. This Exodus 29 summary and study guide walks the ordination in order and explains what those marks were for.

Setting the Stage

At Mount Sinai, before any building instructions began, God told Israel what He was making them: “ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). A whole nation of priests. Then He asked for a tent: “let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8).

The chapters since have supplied everything except the men. Exodus 25 to 27 gave the furniture, the curtains and the courtyard, and Exodus 28 gave the clothes. Exodus 29 supplies the priests who would wear them. For where this sits in the wider story, see our Book of Exodus summary by chapter.

Comprehensive Exodus 29 Summary

God gives Moses the order of service for making priests. Moses is to gather one young bull, two rams without blemish, and three kinds of unleavened bread in a single basket. Then he brings Aaron and his sons to the door of the tent, washes them with water, dresses Aaron in the coat, robe, ephod, breastplate and mitre, and pours anointing oil over his head. Aaron’s sons are dressed in coats, girdles and bonnets.

Three animals follow, in a fixed order. Aaron and his sons press their hands on the bull’s head and Moses kills it as a sin offering. Its blood goes on the horns of the altar and the rest at the base, the fat and inner organs burn on the altar, and the body is burned outside the camp.

The first ram is killed and burned whole as a burnt offering. The second ram is the ram of consecration. Moses puts its blood on every man’s right ear, right thumb and right big toe, then mixes blood from the altar with the anointing oil and sprinkles both on the men and their clothes.

Moses then loads the best parts of that ram, together with bread, into the priests’ own hands and waves them before the LORD. What is left they boil and eat at the door, and nothing may be kept until morning. All of it repeats for seven days, with a fresh bull each day, until the altar itself is holy.

The chapter closes with the offering that follows the ordination: two lambs every day, morning and evening, for as long as Israel has a tabernacle. Then God says what it is all for. He will meet Israel at that door, and He will live among them.

One Word Summary

• Consecration: the chapter’s own word, and in Hebrew a filled hand
• Blood: put on the altar, then on living men
• Dwelling: verse 46 makes it the reason for the exodus

In One Sentence

Moses washes, dresses and anoints Aaron and his four sons, marks them with the blood of a ram on the right ear, thumb and toe across seven days of offerings, and God promises to dwell among Israel as their God.

Theme of Exodus 29

Exodus 29 is about God making a way to live close to people who could not survive His nearness on their own terms. The ceremony is that way, and the priesthood is who carries it. Three ideas run alongside it: that holiness is given rather than earned, that God claims a whole person rather than a part of one, and that the entire apparatus exists for His presence rather than for its own sake.

Exodus 29 Outline

• Exodus 29:1-3: God tells Moses what to gather, a young bull, two rams and three kinds of unleavened bread in one basket.
• Exodus 29:4-9: Aaron and his sons are washed at the door, dressed in the priestly garments, and Aaron is anointed with oil.
• Exodus 29:10-14: The bull is offered as a sin offering, its blood put on the altar and its body burned outside the camp.
• Exodus 29:15-18: The first ram is killed and burned whole on the altar as a burnt offering.
• Exodus 29:19-21: The second ram is killed and its blood put on each man’s right ear, thumb and toe, then sprinkled with the anointing oil on the men and their garments.
• Exodus 29:22-25: The best parts of the ram and three pieces of bread are placed in the priests’ hands, waved before the LORD, and burned on the altar.
• Exodus 29:26-28: Moses receives the breast as his portion, and the waved breast and heaved shoulder are set apart for the priests from then on.
• Exodus 29:29-30: Aaron’s holy garments pass to the son who succeeds him, who wears them seven days.
• Exodus 29:31-34: Aaron and his sons boil the ram of consecration and eat it with the bread at the door, and nothing is kept until morning.
• Exodus 29:35-37: The whole ceremony runs seven days, with a bull each day, until the altar is most holy.
• Exodus 29:38-41: Two lambs are offered every day, one in the morning and one at evening, with flour, beaten oil and wine.
• Exodus 29:42-46: God promises to meet Israel at the door, to sanctify the tent, the altar and the priests, and to dwell among His people.

The Promises of Exodus 29:42-46

For forty-one verses the chapter tells Moses what to do. At verse 42 God takes over the work Himself, and the last five verses are God’s own commitments.

This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest’s office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the LORD their God.

Exodus 29:42-46

There are five commitments in those verses, and they answer the four chapters before them:

• I will meet you (v. 42). The daily offering is not maintenance work. It is an appointment.
• I will meet with the children of Israel (v. 43). Not only Moses and not only Aaron. The whole nation is included at the door.
• I will sanctify the tabernacle, the altar, Aaron and his sons (v. 44). Said in the future tense, once every instruction has already been given.
• I will live among Israel and be their God (v. 45). This is the promise of Exodus 25:8 restated as a certainty.
• They shall know that I am the LORD their God (v. 46). What God names at the end of it all is a nation that knows Him.

Observations from Exodus 29

Every Act of the Ordination Happens at the Door (Exodus 29:4, 29:11, 29:32, 29:42)

The washing takes place “unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation” (v. 4). The bull is killed “by the door” (v. 11). The consecration meal is eaten “by the door” (v. 32). The daily offering is made “at the door” (v. 42). The ordination itself never moves inside the tent, and the chapter looks in there only once, to say what a future high priest will do after his seven days are over (v. 30).

That is where the priest belonged. He stood at the boundary between a holy God and an ordinary camp, in view of both, and the chapter puts him there before it puts anything on him.

Moses Does the Priest’s Work Before There Is a Priest (Exodus 29:11, 29:16, 29:26)

Moses kills the bull, throws the blood, cuts the ram, burns the parts and waves the offering. He is not one of the men being ordained, and the office passes to Aaron’s line rather than to his own, and yet verse 26 hands him the officiating priest’s portion outright: “and it shall be thy part.”

Somebody had to begin. God appointed a man outside the priesthood to make the first priests, which quietly says that the office does not create itself and no man can claim it on his own account.

“Consecrate” Means Filling a Man’s Hands (Exodus 29:9, 29:24)

Verse 9 ends “and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons.” The Hebrew behind that word is an idiom for filling the hand, and the chapter shows the filling fifteen verses later. Moses puts the fat, the shoulder and the bread into their palms and moves their hands (v. 24).

Aaron’s first act as a priest was performed with somebody else’s strength while his own hands were full of what God had given him. The English word hides a picture of hands being filled, and that picture is what the whole chapter is doing.

The Order of the Three Animals Carries the Argument (Exodus 29:10-25)

The bull comes first, and it is a sin offering (v. 14). The first ram follows and is burned entire (v. 18). The second ram comes last, and its blood goes on the men (v. 20).

Guilt is dealt with, then the whole self is given, and only then is anyone commissioned. Read in that order, the ceremony puts a man’s disqualification in front of his commissioning, and deals with the first before it grants the second.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Was Blood Put on Aaron’s Right Ear, Thumb and Toe?

Exodus 29:20 gives the act and not the reason, so the meaning has to be read from the parts chosen. An ear hears, a hand works and a foot walks, and marking all three claims the man’s hearing, his working and his going. Commentators read the choice of the right side as standing for the stronger and more prominent side, which would make the point that God claimed the best of each rather than the spare.

Exodus itself has already used a marked ear for something close. A bondservant who said he loved his master and his family and would not go out free was brought to the door, and his ear was bored through there, and he served for life (Exodus 21:5-6). The priest’s ear is marked at a door too.

What Does “Whatsoever Toucheth the Altar Shall Be Holy” Mean?

Exodus 29:37 has been read three ways, and Scripture settles part of it. Some read it as holiness passing by contact, so that whatever touched the altar became God’s property and could not be taken back for ordinary use. Others read the future tense as a command, meaning that nothing unholy may touch it at all. A third reading limits the clause to what was lawfully offered there.

Haggai puts the question to the priests directly and rules out the loosest version of the first reading: holy flesh in the fold of a garment does not make the bread it touches holy, though a dead body does make a man unclean (Haggai 2:11-13).

Uncleanness spreads by touch in a way that holiness does not. Jesus takes up the altar side of it when He asks which is greater, “the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift” (Matthew 23:19). What the altar sanctifies is what is brought to it.

Who Is the “Stranger” Who May Not Eat?

In Exodus 29:33 a stranger means anyone outside the priestly family rather than a foreigner. That covered the great majority of Israelites. The meal belonged to the men the offering had just consecrated, and a fellow Israelite from another tribe had no share in it.

The reason given is not exclusion for its own sake: “because they are holy.” The food had been set apart for a use, and eating it casually would have denied the very thing the seven days were establishing.

What Is “the Rump” of the Ram?

The King James “rump” in Exodus 29:22 is the broad fat tail of the sheep bred across the Near East, which commentators describe as weighing anywhere from six to twenty pounds. It was the richest part of the animal and prized as food.

Verse 22 lists it alongside the fat, the kidneys and the right shoulder, all of which went into the priests’ hands and then onto the fire. What God asked for was the part a family would have kept for itself.

Common Misunderstandings

• That Exodus 29 records an ordination. It records the instructions for one. The day they were carried out is narrated in Leviticus 8, which repeats this chapter almost line for line, and at this point in the story the tabernacle has not been built.
• That “the tabernacle of the congregation” was a building the congregation entered. The phrase means the tent of meeting, and verse 42 fixes the sense: “where I will meet you.” Ordinary Israelites were not permitted inside it.
• That the ceremony was performed once. Verse 35 requires seven days for Aaron, and verses 29 to 30 legislate the same investiture for every high priest who followed him.
• That the ceremony is what made the priests holy. God says otherwise in verse 44: “I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons.” The rite removed what stood in the way; the sanctifying is God’s own work.
• That being consecrated guaranteed a man’s safety. Nadab and Abihu went through this ordination when it was carried out, blood and all (Leviticus 8:22-24), and both died soon afterward for offering fire God had not commanded (Leviticus 10:1-2).

Christ Connection

Every ordination in Exodus 29 starts with a bull for the priests’ own sin, because the men who would carry Israel to God needed carrying themselves. That is the exact point the New Testament presses.

Jesus is the high priest “who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27). The chapter shows the office; Hebrews shows the man who fills it without needing the first half of the ceremony.

The connections the New Testament makes directly:

• The body burned outside the camp (Exodus 29:14). Hebrews reads this as a picture of the crucifixion: “Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12).
• A priesthood no one inherits. Aaron’s garments pass to his son because Aaron dies, and Numbers 20:28 records Eleazar being dressed in them on the mountain where his father died. Christ has “an unchangeable priesthood” because “he continueth ever” (Hebrews 7:24).
• The daily lamb that stopped. Two lambs a day, for generations (Exodus 29:38-39), against one offering “for ever” (Hebrews 10:12). John the Baptist gives the title the chapter was pointing toward: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
• The hour the second lamb was offered. Josephus and the rabbinic sources place the evening sacrifice of verse 39 at about the ninth hour, which is three in the afternoon, and the same hour was still the hour of prayer in the temple centuries later (Acts 3:1). It was at the ninth hour that Jesus cried out and gave up the ghost (Mark 15:34-37). Scripture does not comment on the timing, so this is an observation rather than a claim the New Testament makes.
• The promise to dwell. “I will dwell among the children of Israel” (Exodus 29:45) is answered in a sentence John writes about a person: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and finally in “the tabernacle of God is with men” (Revelation 21:3).

There is one more thing the chapter opens. Israel was told at Sinai that it would be a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6), and Exodus 29 hands that ministry to one family on the nation’s behalf. The New Testament gives it back to everyone who belongs to Christ: believers are “an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices” (1 Peter 2:5), made “kings and priests unto God” by the One who washed them in His own blood (Revelation 1:5-6).

When, Where, and Why

• When: at Mount Sinai, in the months after Israel left Egypt, while Moses was on the mountain receiving the tabernacle instructions of Exodus 25 to 31. Nothing described here had been built yet.
• Where: on the mountain, in a set of instructions describing the door of a tent that did not exist. The people named are Moses, his brother Aaron, and Aaron’s four sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
• Why: Moses is writing the founding document of Israel’s worship. The nation had a covenant, a law and soon a sanctuary, and none of it could function without men authorised to stand between God and the camp. The chapter exists to say who those men were, how they were made, and what God intended to do once they were in place.

Key Verses

And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest’s office

Exodus 29:1

This is the purpose of everything that follows, stated before a single instruction. The word “hallow” means to set apart, and the forty-five verses after it are the method.

And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon his garments

Exodus 29:21

Blood and oil are applied together, not in turn. The sacrifice that dealt with sin and the oil that marked a man for God’s service arrive on him in the same motion.

This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee

Exodus 29:42

The reason for a sacrifice repeated twice a day for centuries is a meeting. God ties His willingness to speak to a place where blood is being offered.

And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them

Exodus 29:46

God gives His reason for the exodus in a purpose clause. He brought Israel out of Egypt so that He could live among them, which makes the tabernacle the point of the rescue rather than an addition to it.

Key Lessons from Exodus 29

• No one takes the office of serving God by his own decision, since God chose Aaron and his sons and prescribed every step of their appointment (Exodus 29:1, 29:9).
• Those who lead others to God need cleansing before the people do (Exodus 29:10-14).
• God asks for the whole person rather than a share of one, marking the ear, the hand and the foot of every man He set apart (Exodus 29:20).
• God claimed the choicest parts of the animal rather than the leftovers, taking the fat, the fat tail and the right shoulder from the priests’ hands and burning them (Exodus 29:22, 29:25).
• Costly and repeated preparation is not wasted when its purpose is God’s presence (Exodus 29:35, 29:45).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Exodus 29.

Bible Study Questions

1. Read Exodus 29:1-9 slowly. What is done to Aaron and his sons in these verses, and what do they do for themselves?
2. The sin offering comes before the burnt offering and the ram of consecration (Exodus 29:10-25). Why does that order matter?
3. In Exodus 29:20 the blood is put on the ear, the thumb and the toe. What would a consecrated ear, hand and foot look like in an ordinary week of your life?
4. God says “I will sanctify” in verse 44, after describing a ceremony that took seven days. How does that change the way you read the seven days?
5. What reason does God give in Exodus 29:46 for rescuing Israel from Egypt, and how does that reason reshape what you thought the exodus was for?

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 29, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest’s office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish,

2 And unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened tempered with oil, and wafers unleavened anointed with oil: of wheaten flour shalt thou make them.

3 And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bullock and the two rams.

4 And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water.

5 And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod:

6 And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre.

7 Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him.

8 And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them.

9 And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them: and the priest’s office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute: and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons.

10 And thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock.

11 And thou shalt kill the bullock before the LORD, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

12 And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar.

13 And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar.

14 But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin offering.

15 Thou shalt also take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram.

16 And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar.

17 And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head.

18 And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

19 And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram.

20 Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.

21 And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon the garments of his sons with him: and he shall be hallowed, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons’ garments with him.

22 Also thou shalt take of the ram the fat and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and the right shoulder; for it is a ram of consecration:

23 And one loaf of bread, and one cake of oiled bread, and one wafer out of the basket of the unleavened bread that is before the LORD:

24 And thou shalt put all in the hands of Aaron, and in the hands of his sons; and shalt wave them for a wave offering before the LORD.

25 And thou shalt receive them of their hands, and burn them upon the altar for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour before the LORD: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

26 And thou shalt take the breast of the ram of Aaron’s consecration, and wave it for a wave offering before the LORD: and it shall be thy part.

27 And thou shalt sanctify the breast of the wave offering, and the shoulder of the heave offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of the consecration, even of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons:

28 And it shall be Aaron’s and his sons’ by a statute for ever from the children of Israel: for it is an heave offering: and it shall be an heave offering from the children of Israel of the sacrifice of their peace offerings, even their heave offering unto the LORD.

29 And the holy garments of Aaron shall be his sons’ after him, to be anointed therein, and to be consecrated in them.

30 And that son that is priest in his stead shall put them on seven days, when he cometh into the tabernacle of the congregation to minister in the holy place.

31 And thou shalt take the ram of the consecration, and seethe his flesh in the holy place.

32 And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

33 And they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy.

34 And if ought of the flesh of the consecrations, or of the bread, remain unto the morning, then thou shalt burn the remainder with fire: it shall not be eaten, because it is holy.

35 And thus shalt thou do unto Aaron, and to his sons, according to all things which I have commanded thee: seven days shalt thou consecrate them.

36 And thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement: and thou shalt cleanse the altar, when thou hast made an atonement for it, and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it.

37 Seven days thou shalt make an atonement for the altar, and sanctify it; and it shall be an altar most holy: whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy.

38 Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually.

39 The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even:

40 And with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering.

41 And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

42 This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee.

43 And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.

44 And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest’s office.

45 And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.

46 And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the LORD their God.