Our Gemara on Amud Aleph describes the motion of sprinkling the blood in the Holy of Holies during the Yom Kippur service: the sprinkling was “like a matzlif.” The Gemara explains that Rav Yehuda demonstrated with his hand—it means like one who whips, striking not repeatedly in one place but one lash beneath the other.

The word matzlif alludes to a process similar to lashes with a whip. According to Hon Ashir (Mishnah Yoma 5:3), this is not incidental: just as lashes are a penance, so too this action achieves atonement. Hon Ashir further notes—if I am conveying it correctly—that in the Holy of Holies there is one sprinkling, and then seven sprinklings. The seven represent the seven days of creation and the material labor of the week, and the single one represents the Sabbath, a day outside the regular laws of nature and cause and effect. The number eight symbolizes the realm beyond nature, as in the eighth day for Bris Milah or the eighth day of Chanukah (Sefas Emes, Bo 1; Bereishis, Chanukah 2).

Similarly, the 39 lashes correspond to the 39 melachos forbidden on Shabbos (Mishnah Shabbos 7:2), which represent material labor. The hidden 40th lash still appears in the verse (Devarim 25:3) and, according to Benei Yissaschar (Tishrei, Ma’amar 8:5), is fulfilled symbolically with a lash in the direction of the person without contact. In both cases, the act seeks penance for misdirected labor in the physical realm.

If so, why the eight or the 40th, which are beyond this world? And why, even more, would the Holy of Holies be subjected to this whipping? Perhaps the first question answers the second: there is corruption even in spiritual labor, and it too requires cleansing and renewal.