Leviticus 16 · a question people ask
Why did Aaron offer for himself before the people?
The text says it plainly. The bull is "for himself", to "make atonement for himself and for his house" (16:6), and he kills it (16:11) before the goat "that is for the people" (16:15). No one else may be in the Tent until he "has made atonement for himself and for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel" (16:17). Leviticus had already made room for a priest's own sin: "if the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people" (4:3). Hebrews says the same of every high priest: "he himself is also surrounded with weakness", and so "he must offer sacrifices for sins for the people, as well as for himself" (Hebrews 5:2-3). And it says Jesus is different: he "doesn’t need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For he did this once for all, when he offered up himself" (Hebrews 7:27). Hebrews 7:27 speaks of sacrifices "daily" and doesn't name this day, but the order it describes, first for his own sins and then for the people's, is the order of 16:6 and 16:15.
The verses
““Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house.”
““Aaron shall present the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bull of the sin offering which is for himself.”
““Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with his blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat.”
“No one shall be in the Tent of Meeting when he enters to make atonement in the Holy Place, until he comes out, and has made atonement for himself and for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel.”