(3) Thus shall Aaron come.--Better, With this shall, &c, that is, with the following sacrifices, ritual, vestments, &c, shall he approach the most holy place, after having offered previously the daily morning sacrifice, and performed the ordinary daily service. During the performance of the morning service the high priest, at the time of Christ, wore the golden vestments. These he changed for the white garments before he commenced the special ritual prescribed for this day.

With a young bullock for a sin offering.--Which had to be of the second year (see Exodus 29:1), and which the high priest had to buy with his own money. It was to be his own property because the victim was to expiate his own sins, since he, like the meanest sinner, required Divine mercy and forgiveness, though, owing to his high office, he had to bring a more costly sacrifice.

Verse 3 - Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place. "Thus" would be translated more literally by With this. He must come supplied with the specified offerings, dressed in the appointed manner and using the ceremonial here designated. The efficacy of the acts of the high priest on this day and throughout his ministrations depended not upon his individual but on his official character, and on his obedience to the various commandments positively enjoined. Personal worthiness would not qualify him for his service, nor personal unworthiness hinder the effect of his liturgical acts (cf. Art. 26, 'Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacrament'). Aaron's special offerings for himself on this great day are to be a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.

16:1-14 Without entering into particulars of the sacrifices on the great day of atonement, we may notice that it was to be a statute for ever, till that dispensation be at an end. As long as we are continually sinning, we continually need the atonement. The law of afflicting our souls for sin, is a statue which will continue in force till we arrive where all tears, even those of repentance, will be wiped from our eyes. The apostle observes it as a proof that the sacrifices could not take away sin, and cleanse the conscience from it, that in them there was a remembrance made of sin every year, upon the day of atonement, Heb 10:1,3. The repeating the sacrifices, showed there was in them but a feeble effort toward making atonement; this could be done only by offering up the body of Christ once for all; and that sacrifice needed not to be repeated.Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place,.... The most holy place; and this was after he had offered the daily sacrifice of the morning, and had performed the rest of the service then done, as Gersom observes; such as burning the incense and trimming the lamps, for no offering preceded the daily sacrifice:

with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering; which were both for himself and his family; and such were the weakness, imperfection, and insufficiency of the Levitical priesthood, and priests, that they were obliged first to offer for their own sins, and then for the sins of the people: the meaning is not, as Aben Ezra says, that he should bring the bullock into the holy place, only that he should first give of his own a bullock for a sin offering, to atone for himself, and for the priests; nor could it be the body of the bullock he brought, only the blood of it into the most holy place, where he entered not without blood, first with the blood of the bullock, and then with the blood of the goat; for the body of the bullock for a sin offering was burnt without the camp, and the body of the ram for the burnt offering was burnt upon the altar of burnt offering; see Hebrews 9:7.