In the line of this teaching, the command went forth: “What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp, and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to offer it [with its blood] as an oblation unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord: blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood [improperly]; and that man shall be cut off from among his people: to the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace-offering unto the Lord. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting; and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the Lord.”[512] The children of Israel were, at all times and everywhere, to reach out after communion and union with God, through the surrender of their personal selves in the surrender of their substitute blood--with its divinely appointed symbolism of communion and union with God “in the blood of the eternal covenant” of divine friendship.[513] And again: “Whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, which taketh in hunting any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with the dust.”[514] If he be at a distance from the tabernacle, so that he cannot bring the blood for an oblation at the altar, he must, at all events, reverently pour out the blood as unto God, and cover it as he would a human body in a grave. And to this day this custom prevails widely throughout the East; not among Jews alone, but among Christians and Muhammadans, as also among those of other religions.[515]