Under the Mosaic ritual, the forms and the symbolisms of sacrifice were various. But through them all, where blood was an element,--in the sin-offering, in the trespass-offering, in the burnt-offering, in the peace-offering,--blood always represented life, never death. Death was essential to its securing; but, when secured, blood was life. Death, as the inevitable wages of sin, had already passed unto all men; and “death reigned from Adam to Moses”; but, with the full disclosure of the law, in Moses, which made sin apparent, there came, also, a disclosure of an atonement for sin, and of a cure for its consequences. Death was already here; now came the assurance of an attainable life. The sinner, in the very article of death, was shown that he might turn, in self-surrender and in loving trust, with a proffer of his own life, by substitute blood, to God; and that he might reach out hopefully after inter-union with God, by the sharing of the divine-nature in the unfailing covenant of divine-human blood-friendship. Thus “not as the trespass [with its mere justice of punishment; but] so also [and ‘much more,’ of grace alone,] is the free gift [of life to the justly dead].”[516] All the detailed requirements of the Mosaic ritual, and all the specific teachings of the Rabbis, as well, go to show the preeminence of the _blood_ in the sacrificial offerings; go to show, that it is the _life_ (which the blood is), and not the _death_ (which is merely necessary to the securing of the blood), of the victim, that is the means of atonement; that gives the hope of a sinner’s new inter-union with God. In a commentary on a Talmudic tract, on The Day of Atonement, Rabbi Obadiah of Barttenora, notes the fact,[517] that in the choice by lot, of the priests who were to have a part in the daily sacrifice, the priest _first_ selected “obtained the right [of priority], and sprinkled the blood upon the altar, after he had received it in the vessel for the purpose; for he who sprinkled the blood [is the one who had] received the blood. The _next_ priest to him killed the sacrifice, and this notwithstanding [the fact] that the slaying preceded the receiving of the blood; because _the office of sprinkling was higher than that of slaying_; for the slaying was lawful if done by a stranger; which was not the case with the sprinkling.” The death of the victim was a minor matter: it was the victim’s life,--its blood which was its life,--that had chief value and sacredness.