We have been discussing cases where an animal was set aside to serve as a sacrifice and then that sacrifice can no longer be brought (e.g. a woman’s nezriut was nullified by her husband, or the owner of a sin-offering dies before it is brought). In such cases, can the sacrifice be switched for another purpose? We have seen that although in some cases it might be switched to a similar korban, in cases of hatat – of a sin-offering – it cannot be switched.
Our Gemara quotes a baraita that understands the word korbano – “his offering” – (see Vayikra 4:23) to limit a hatat so much that even if someone’s father dies, leaving an unsacrificed korban hatat, the son cannot make use of the animal for his own sin-offering. Although this may appear to be obvious, given the fact that no sin-offering can be switched from one to another, Rabbeinu Peretz suggests that we may have thought that there was an exception in the case of a son, who not only receives an inheritance from his father, but actually steps into his father’s place with regard to many halakhot. We may have thought, therefore, that by sacrificing the hatat we view the son’s korban as though it had been brought by his father.
In the course of this Gemara we learn that the word korbano actually appears three times in the section on sin-offerings (see Vayikra, chapter 4, pesukim 23, 28 and 32), and none of them are essential for the laws of the korban hatat itself. From this the Gemara derives three halakhot that emphasize the need for the sin-offering to be uniquely his and no one else’s. He cannot use a korban set aside by his father, he cannot use a korban even if it was set aside for a similar type of transgression and finally he cannot use money set aside by his father for purchase of a different hatat.