Arcana Coelestia # 10024
10024. 'And you shall slaughter the young bull before Jehovah' means preparation for the purification of goodness and truth from God in the external or natural man. This is clear from the meaning of 'slaughtering', when the living creatures that were offered as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice are the subject, as preparation for the things that were represented by burnt offerings and sacrifices, those things being purification from evils and falsities, the implantation of goodness and truth, and the joining together of them, see above in 10022 (and since these things come from God the words 'before Jehovah' are used); and from the meaning of 'the young bull' as purification of the external or natural man, dealt with above in 9990. This explains why in the Word, when 'slaughtering' is mentioned in connection with burnt offerings and sacrifices, everything that an actual burnt offering or sacrifice represented is meant, because it then encompasses all those things.
Leviticus 17:3-4
3
Whatever man there is of the house of Israel, who kills a bull, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or who kills it outside the camp,
4
and hasn't brought it to the door of the Tent of Meeting, to offer it as an offering to Yahweh before the tabernacle of Yahweh: blood shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people.
