LEVITICUS
Lesson 3 - Chapter 1
We spent the first 2 weeks of our Leviticus study simply preparing the background and laying
the groundwork to make Leviticus more understandable, enjoyable, and hopefully, meaningful.
I would like to reiterate from an earlier lesson a few principles that we need to keep in mind in
our study:
1.God divides, elects, and separates. That is, Yehoveh draws very strict boundaries and
makes hard and fast distinctions among people, nations, and worship practices. He is
intolerant of evil and sin, and He reserves unto Himself the EXCLUSIVE right to
pronounce which is which. He excludes those who are not “His People”; at the time of
Leviticus, His people are ONLY the people of Israel
2.Leviticus offers us the priestly worldview. It is written through the eyes of God’s newly
ordered group of priests, who come exclusively from the tribe of Levi.
3.God classifies sin in two basic categories: intentional and unintentional. This is quite
different from the typical way we humans want to think of sin…..which is more along the
lines of big or little, trivial or terrible, inconsequential or Salvation threatening.
4.The sacrificial system we are about to study does NOT deal with intentional sins and
therefore does not provide a means of reconciliation with God for deliberate sin. It deals
ONLY with unintentional sins. Nothing we will read about in Leviticus will reconcile the
offender with God if that offender’s sin is considered “high handed” or “great”….which
is Bible-speak for “intentional”.
5.The sacrificial system is about MORE than atoning for sin. We’ll see that several of the
God-ordained sacrifices have little relationship to sin.
6.While Yeshua fulfilled the Sacrificial System, He also fulfilled much MORE than the
rather limited abilities of the Sacrificial System to atone for a certain category of sins.
7.The foundational principle behind the Sacrificial System is substitution. That is, the
deaths of animals were going to take the place of, substitute for, what rightly should
have been the deaths of the humans who were guilty of sinning against Yehoveh.
8.Leviticus is the middle book of the book series of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. We
need to read Leviticus as though it’s just a continuation of Exodus, which then
eventually rolls right on into Numbers.
READ LEV 1:1 – end
The first words of Leviticus, “Now He called (to Moses)”, are in Hebrew vayikra…… and
vayikra is the name the Hebrews give to this book that gentiles call by its Greek name,
Leviticus.
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Though these first few words, Now He called, sound kind of quaint to us, they carry a weighty
meaning that is important to grasp: Yehoveh is about to make some very formal, very
important, pronouncements. Just as when our President might occasionally make a speech
from his desk in the Oval Office, we understand that what is about to come carries much more
importance and significant than regular news conferences or interviews….when it happens from
the Oval Office, it is a special event. The protocol here at the opening of Leviticus is much like
it was back in Exodus when Yehoveh called to Moses from the summit of Mt. Sinai in order to
give Moses the Law; but this time Yehoveh calls to Moses to give him the all-important
Sacrificial System that would appease God’s wrath at men, when they offend God.
Allow me to repeat something I said to you at our last meeting: the Sacrificial System and The
Law are the 2 primary components that, together, make up God’s justice system….in Hebrew,
mishpat. And that while in everyday common conversation a Hebrew would usually call every
element of God’s justice system The Law, with the Sacrificial System just seen as part of the
Law, the way the Sacrificial System and The Law function make them somewhat separate. The
Law and the Sacrificial System EACH have different functions and very different purposes. The
Law leads to punishment while the Sacrificial System leads to atonement, forgiveness coupled
with reconciliation.
The term, The Law, has become very general; so much so that it is widely misused and
misunderstood, even among Jews. It is especially misused and wildly (and I think to a degree
willfully) misused within the Christian church. Let me explain: even though we don’t see
Yehoveh pronounce what can accurately be called The Law until about halfway through the
Book of Exodus, Jews will commonly use the term “The Law” as a synonym for the ENTIRE
Torah. That is, they’ll just call the ENTIRE first 5 books of the Bible, The Law, even though the
Law isn’t even given until Exodus. In addition we must remember that the Jewish people also
have other “Law”, taken from non-Biblical sources such as the Talmud, that they call Law. So
the Jews tend to call any and every religious instruction whether from Scripture or from rulings
of their religious leaders, and even general commentary from their greatest Rabbis, The Law.
The Law can be a very confusing term. The best analogy I can think of is that in the Church we
have a lot of people walking around with ONLY the New Testament in their hands; sometimes
a brand new Christian will only have a book of the 4 Gospels. If we asked them what they were
holding, they’ll usually answer, “The Bible”. Now that really isn’t accurate, is it, since what
they have is but a PORTION of the Bible; but we know what they mean. We’ll also commonly
hear a Pastor or Minister preach and say that he’s teaching the Bible. When more often than
not what he’s actually teaching is a doctrine….a denominationally based church tradition that is
said to represent a Biblical principle. In both of these cases we gentile Believers who speak
Christian-eze completely understand what they’re saying….even though technically it isn’t
accurate. This analogy is the same as it is with the Jews when they use the term, The Law…..it
could mean any number of things and we have to discern from the context what any particular
usage of that term is referring to at that moment.
Notice here in Leviticus how God makes a formal separation between The Law and the
Sacrificial System. Remember the importance of that little phrase, “Now He (meaning God)
Called”……it denotes a cardinal event is about to happen, something of great magnitude. We
received essentially the same preamble from God as He instructed Moses to come up to Mt.
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Sinai to receive the Law. Now, in a separate event, Yehoveh AGAIN pronounces this important
preamble…..Now He called……and this time God will give Moses the Sacrificial System. So, first,
back in Exodus, God gives Moses the definition of sin, which is contained in the Law, and the
consequences for sinning by breaking any of the ordinances of that Law code. Further, by the
giving of the Law the Lord has set out the moral choices for Israel; moral choices that the wills
of each Israelite will decide to obey or disobey. Now, in Leviticus, God is giving Moses the
other part of His justice system… the part that provides for ATONEMENT when someone sins,
and breaks the Law code. Of course, as we now know, this atonement is only available for a
certain class of sin……the unintentional sin. BTW: I’m going to remind you of this over and over
again, because it is primarily THIS attribute of the Sacrificial System providing atonement
ONLY for sins that were not deliberate that causes Paul to characterize Christ’s sacrifice as
superior and the Sacrificial System portion of the Law as inferior when the two are compared.
Verse 2 makes very clear one of the principles I enumerated for you just a few minutes ago:
Yehoveh is speaking to benei Yisra’el. He is speaking to Israel, who is His people…..no one
else, at this time, is His people. Now the OT is positively loaded with this Hebrew term, benei
Yisra’el, which literally means the young of Israel. However, it is usually rendered “the
children of Israel” in our Bibles. The MEANING however, is best expressed in modern Western
thinking as “the Israelite people”. This expression is not meant to mean ONLY the young, nor
is it meant to be children; nor is it meant to refer to ONLY those with Jacob’s blood in their
veins, those that were genealogical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…. for 1000’s
upon 1000’s of foreigners (ger) already had, and would continue to join Israel. Benei Israel is
a national term….. it refers to the group as a whole…..in this case, it’s a lot like saying “the
American people”.
With the stage set…..that is, we know who is speaking (Yehoveh), where this is taking place (at
the Wilderness Tabernacle), and that God is addressing Himself to Moses and the nation of
Israel… we are now given instruction on the first type of offering, or sacrifice. It is the burnt
offering. In vs.2 when we’re told “if anyone brings an offering for Yehoveh”…..the word used
for offering is korban. This is a good word to memorize because it is a common Hebrew word
that means any offering….any kind of offering. It’s like at Church where the term offering could
mean anything from money, to property, to personal time. And the offering could be for the
general fund or it could be for something specific. It could mean our regular tithe, or something
above the tithe, or just irregular giving if one doesn’t tithe or perhaps it’s just a token donation
while visiting a Synagogue or Church.
So, the korban is NOT the specific name for this particular class of sacrifice called a burnt
offering. Each class of offering, each type of korban we encounter will have a specific Hebrew
name. In the case of the burnt offering, it is ‘olah. ‘Olah is the original Hebrew word that we
almost universally translate as “burnt offering”. I’d like to get a little technical for just a
moment. The term “Burnt offering” is what scholars call a “functional definition” or a
“functional translation” of the Hebrew word ‘olah. We’re going to encounter a lot of these
functional translations in the Torah. What that means is that it is NOT a literal translation of the
Hebrew term because the literal translation wouldn’t mean anything to us. In fact sometimes
the literal translation is not even known or agreed upon by Bible scholars and translators.
Literally ‘olah is thought to mean either “ascend”, “go up”, or “bring-near”. So most
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literally ‘olah would translate as “a near-offering”, or “ an ascend offering”. That’s so peculiar
to our culture that the translators thought that it really serves no purpose to translate it that
way. So instead of giving a literal translation of the word ‘olah it was determined that it would
be better to give the reader the FUNCTION or purpose of the “near offering”; and that function
is as an offering to the Lord that is burned up with fire on the altar…..a burnt offering. So “burnt
offering” is how ‘olah is typically translated….and its not wrong….it just doesn’t include the
sense that by burning up the offering, it emits smoke, which brings it near to God by
ascending up to Him in Heaven. I’m not necessarily going to break down the names of every
sacrifice, to the tiniest detail, like I just did with the ‘olah…..the burnt offering. I simply wanted
you to understand what a functional translation is and that many times in the Bible we’ll get
functional, rather than literal, translations of words. And there’s nothing wrong about it.
However sometimes we can get a lot more understanding if we’ll ALSO examine the original
Hebrew word and go ahead and translate it literally because it exposes the Hebrew mindset
and the Middle Eastern culture of that era. It helps us to get a better idea of what those
people’s mental picture was when they were doing these things. And in the case of the ‘olah,
the “near-offering” that we commonly refer to as the burnt offering, by looking at the words
literally we see that it is the smoke, and where that smoke is going, that is the key element of
the effectiveness of that offering. I’ll show you why the smoke is so key in just a moment.
The type of burnt offering that we see here in Chapter one is what I would best term a
“personal” offering. That is this offering (and the next several offerings we’ll study) is made by
individuals, private persons, on behalf of that person. This is as opposed to later on in Leviticus
we’ll see special offerings, sacrifices, including burnt offerings that are made on behalf of the
NATION of Israel….national offerings. This sets up an important principle that is used
throughout the Bible in that God deals with Israel, and us, on BOTH an individual level and on
a corporate, or group, level. That corporate level could be the Church, that is, all Believers…….or
it could be as a nation…a literal nation as we think of it today. When we read end-times
prophecies we’ll read of God making a distinction among individuals; for instance He’ll put a
mark on the foreheads of certain people, chosen person by person, for the purpose of keeping
them safe AND for the purpose of identifying those who will be saved as opposed to the
unmarked who will be damned. But we also see God deal with entire nations; for instance
we’re told that nations that come against Israel will be destroyed.
So the burnt offering of Leviticus 1 is a personal, individual offering of sacrifice……and it is also,
technically, considered a food offering. Meat was a luxury item in the time of Moses and still
was in Yeshua’s day. So while the entire animal used for a burnt offering was killed and
thrown onto the Altar to be completely burned up, that was NOT the case with other types of
animal sacrifices. Rather there was a procedure in which only certain parts of the sacrificial
animal were put onto the Brazen Altar to be consumed by fire, the remainder was used for
food……depending on the situation it would be eaten be the priests, or by the person who
brought the sacrifice, or in some instances by both. In fact it was only the more well to do of
Hebrews who ate meat that was not used FIRST as a sacrifice because it was expensive. Let
me say that again: for the average Israelite, all the meat they ate was the leftover portion of a
sacrifice even though the Law gave them permission to eat meat that was not part of a
sacrifice.
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In the burnt offering the ENTIRE animal (except for the skin, which was given to the priests)
was consumed by the fire of the Altar. Imagine how a people who had very little meat felt each
time they took a sheep or goat to the Altar, and watched it go up in flames. This was an
expensive offering and it indeed represented a personal sacrifice for the typical Israelite family
to give up such a valuable animal. These families deprived themselves in order give to
Yehoveh what He instructed them to give. Now the burnt offering could use a whole range of
domesticated animals for sacrificing that ranged from Bulls, to sheep, on down to Pigeons. The
reason for this was a practical one: poorer people simply did not have the money or the means
to sacrifice a Ram or a Bull. Last week I pointed out that the size of the sacrificial animal, or
it’s inherent value……a Bull usually being the largest and most valuable and a turtledove being
the least…..had nothing to do with the measure of seriousness of a sin being atoned for, or in
pleasing God more or less. Notice as well that I said “domesticated” animals were specifically
called for as sacrificial animals…..animals that were typically grown for food purposes were the
kind to be used for sacrificing no the Altar. NO WILD ANIMALS were allowed for sacrificial
purposes……you couldn’t kill a deer or a mountain goat and use it for a sacrifice.
The ‘olah was the most common type of sacrificial offering, offered in the mornings and the
evenings every day……and offered more frequently during the day on special Holy days. As a
general rule the sacrificial animal had to be at least one-year old, a male, and unblemished.
That is, it couldn’t be sickly, lame, deformed, injured…… not even cosmetically abnormal,
perhaps with a twisted horn, or could it be of an unusual color. It had to be your BEST animal,
as near perfection as was reasonably possible.
Now, here’s how the ritual worked: first the worshipper brought the animal to the Tabernacle to
be inspected by the priests to be sure the animal conforms to the requirements of being
without defect and of the proper kind and age. Each worshipper would bring their animal
through the large gate at the east end of the outer courtyard that surrounded the Tent of
Meeting. They would stand in the northeast corner of the courtyard waiting their turn.
Next when a priest becomes available, as we’re told in vs. 4, the worshipper lays his hands on
the head of the animal. Now this “laying on of hands” is something we could probably spend
an entire lesson learning about. But, generally, the idea was this: By the worshipper laying his
hands onto the animal BEFORE it was killed it was an official acknowledgment that this
particular animal was being assigned as the sacrifice on behalf of the individual who was laying
his hands on the animal; and at that moment the life of the animal was being turned over to
God. The Hebrew word for this “laying on of hands” is semikhah and it is used most often in
the Bible to refer to a person in authority assigning someone, or something, a task. Or it’s
about the transference of authority. For instance when Moses handed the task of leading Israel
over to Joshua, he laid hands on him thus acknowledging the transfer of authority from Moses
to Joshua. The same idea applies here with the sacrifice……the owner of the animal, by laying
his hands on the animal, signifies that this animal has been designated for the purpose of
being a sacrifice specifically on behalf of it’s owner. But that’s not all that is signified.
There also seems to be some element of transferring the guilt of the animal’s owner onto the
animal in this laying on of hands, semikhah; and therefore by transferring the guilt to the
animal, the killing of the animal substitutes for the death of the worshipper. However that
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meaning ONLY applied to certain types of sacrifices……meal (grain) offerings and thank-
offerings, for instance, had nothing to do with sin so it would not have been appropriate. While
the laying on of hands in certain sacrifices indicates both a transference and a substitution…..
that is the guilt or sin of the worshipper is transferred to the animal, and then the animal
becomes the substitute for the worshipper…..it was primarily the fascinating ritual offering of the
Scapegoat where the transference-of-sin concept was best displayed. In the Scapegoat ritual it
was from all Israel to the Scapegoat that the sins of the entire nation were transferred (we’ll
eventually study that more closely).
We have record of other cultures of that day, and even earlier, performing similar acts for
similar reasons. For instance in the Hittite cultural a woman hoping to become pregnant would
touch the horn of a fertile cow in hopes of transferring the fertility of the cow to herself.
Though we’re not told so, it is very likely that some type of prayer was said or a psalm was
sung as hands were laid on the animal…probably both by the worshipper and the priest. There
are many Biblical Psalms and other songs from Hebrew tradition that mention burnt offerings,
and likely it was one or more of these that were used. Psalms 40, 51, and 66 were almost
certainly eventually used during this portion of the sacrificial procedure. I say eventually
because first, the Psalms weren’t even written for about 300 years after the Wilderness
Tabernacle was built; and second, because as I mentioned in my introduction to Leviticus, we
know that the sacrificial procedures changed and evolved over the centuries.
After the laying hands on the animal it was killed. It was the worshipper, NOT the priest, who
killed the animal and this was accomplished on the North side of the altar. Probably the animal,
depending on the kind, was tied to one of the 4 horns of the Altar; then its throat was slit.
Actually what the procedure did was to cut the main artery going through the animal’s neck
(that fed blood to the brain) thereby causing almost immediate unconsciousness and death.
The Bible uses a very specific word for the slaying of the sacrificial animal, shahat, and it’s
meaning includes the exact way that the animal was to be slain, so as to be as humane and
painless and quick as possible; and it was done in a manner that would allow some or all of its
blood to be captured in an authorized sacrificial vessel. The blood was then offered to God and
finally splashed on the sides of the Brazen Altar.
Next, the animal was skinned and then chopped up, sectioned, into pieces. Typically the
worshipper was also responsible to do this task, as well as to wash the interior organs with
water; but that diminished over time and the priests and Levites took over more and more of
that task. Then the attending priest would put the chunks of meat onto the Altar, one by one, to
be consumed by the fire. A slightly different procedure occurs if the burnt offering, the ‘olah, is
to be a bird, because its size and anatomy makes cutting it’s throat and sectioning it
impractical. Notice how the worshipper, the common man, performs most of the duties, and the
priest simply officiates, catches the blood in a ritual container, splashes it on the sides of the
Altar, and then puts the meat into the flames. When we can visualize this scene, we begin to
understand how passive and sterile the Church has become in our worship activities. Our
involvement in worship is usually reduced to showing up. Not so by God’s plan. The
Worshipper was an active participant in worship…..in this case, the sacrificing procedures.
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Now, what was the PURPOSE of the burnt offering? Well as I told you in our Introduction to
Leviticus not every one of the Sacrificial System’s ritual sacrifices was about sin. Interestingly
the very first sacrifice ordained in Leviticus, the ‘olah, was NOT for atonement of a sin that a
worshipper might have committed …..at least not in the way one might typically think of it.
Rather it has to do, as vs. 3 tells us, with asking God to accept you by allowing you, the
worshipper who brought the sacrifice, to come-near to God. Peace with God is the aim. The
‘olah was seen as a gift from the worshipper to God; a kind of a combination gift and ransom.
And, even though the ‘olah is technically classified as a food offering, it’s not that the Hebrews
thought the animal was somehow food for their God. Rather, as I mentioned earlier, it’s more
about the smoke that was emitted from the burning flesh that ascended upward to God in the
Heavens that was in their minds. That when God “smelled” the smoke, it was pleasing to
Him….it gave Him pleasure…. because it indicated a) that an individual was being obedient to
His commands and b) peace, Shalom, was taking place. In other words God desperately wants
men to be at peace with Him. So much so that He set up this system that cost Yehoveh
millions upon millions of His valuable living creatures, creatures that He dearly cared about; but
Mankind meant so much MORE to Him that He, for our sakes, didn’t spare even those
beautiful innocent creatures …..and it pleased Him to do it to attain His goal of peace with Man.
When Christ died we’re also told that “it pleased God” for His own son to be
sacrificed…….because it brought Man another step closer to universal and eternal peace with
Yehoveh.
So it is the aroma of the smoke from the ‘olah that pleases God. It would not be incorrect to
say that the smoke of the sacrifice soothed God and this allowed God to have a more
favorable attitude toward that man who was making the ‘olah. Yet, let’s remember, a man did
NOT bring a burnt offering when he committed a sin…..that was NOT the purpose of the burnt
offering. It was brought regularly for the primary reason of maintaining a good relationship with
God, by means of seeking to please Him by means of obedience to God’s ordained sacrificial
rituals. The ‘olah did NOT remove sin NOR did it in any way change the worshipper. That is,
the worshipper’s own sinful nature did not become transformed as the result of the burnt
offering….only God’s attitude toward this sinner was altered. However there is enough
evidence in Leviticus and from the various OT prophets and even from the writers of the
Psalms that some sort of atoning-like process was taking place with the ritual of the burnt
offering. The best way I can describe to you is that the burnt offering has to do with a man’s
overall sinful condition, not some particular act of sin that somebody has committed. And I
think that “atoning” is probably not the best word for our Western culture, because atoning
carries with it the idea that something you did was brought before God but with this ritual
sacrifice it was now “wiped clean” and forgiven. And it seems very clear that the burnt offering
is not for wiping clean something you did; rather it’s a gift of ransom because of WHO you are:
a creature who’s very nature is sinful. And this gift is necessary in order to allow you, an
imperfect creature, to approach the most holy and perfect God. An ‘olah is a voluntary offering
for the individual. It is done as a matter of the heart. It is acknowledging one’s corrupt
condition and signifies complete surrender to Yehoveh’s justice system and His will. So as
difficult as semantics can be when dealing with the OT, I think the better way to understand the
‘olah is that it paves the way for reconciliation between corrupt man and perfect God. It also
wouldn’t be wrong to say that the burnt offering offered a protection from God’s wrath.
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As one of the better examples in the Bible of the spiritual significance of the burnt offering,
which occurs even before the Sacrificial System is given to Moses, is the near-sacrifice of
Isaac by his father, Abraham. The elements are that Isaac was to be killed and burned up on
an altar. And, we can see from the story that this also was not about some sin or another that
either Isaac or Abraham had committed. So what was it about? As a burnt offering, an ‘olah, it
was about total surrender and obedience to God on the part of the worshipper…..Abraham. It
also demonstrated the principle of substitution when Isaac was replaced by a Ram that had
been caught by his horns in some nearby thorn bushes. And the sacrifice displayed the idea of
ransom…… that Isaac was to be a price paid, voluntarily, in order that mankind could be at
peace with God.
Of course this was not carried out because Yehoveh stopped the process just short of Isaac’s
death. So why do all this…..what was the point to put Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac through this
horrible ordeal, only to pull up short? It was BOTH a shadow of the future Levitical Sacrificial
system (the Isaac incident took place more than 500 years before the Exodus), and of Jesus
who was even MORE future. In the end, God the Father took Abraham’s role, and Yeshua of
Nazareth took Isaac’s role. Only, this time, Yehoveh didn’t stop the process, because this was
the real deal…..the sacrifice of Jesus was what God had been preparing for since before He
created Adam.
We will see as we move along that the burnt offering was often done in combination with other
types of sacrifices….particularly if those other types of sacrifices were performed in order to
atone for the commission of a sin. But in chapter 1 the foundational principles behind all
sacrifices are being established. And chief among these principles is that a priest from the tribe
of Levi MUST officiate over the sacrifice otherwise it is not only invalid, it is liable to bring
defilement upon the holy sanctuary. This is a large departure from the way things were for
Israel up to that time; because until these sacrificial laws were given to Moses each Hebrew
family performed their own rites and rituals with the senior firstborn of the family acting as a
sort of family priest. This centuries-old tradition was now outlawed and turned over to the newly
established Priesthood of Israel. By the way: Israel did not easily accept this new reality and
the firstborns in particular did not appreciate the loss of status that these Laws of Moses took
from them.
The other thing that we find is that only the Priests are authorized to handle the blood of the
sacrificial creature; further some amount of the blood from EVERY sacrifice had to be captured
and splashed onto the holy altar. If an animal’s blood was NOT splashed onto the Altar the
sacrifice may as well have never taken place. Blood is the whole point to a sacrifice. We’ve
lightly covered the reason for the requirement that the blood MUST be splashed onto the
Brazen Altar in lessons from Exodus, and we will cover it again; but for now suffice it to say
that it was ONLY by means of the blood of the animal contacting the Altar that the holiness of
the Altar infected the sacrificial blood with holiness. A preeminent Biblical principle of holiness
is that once God declares an object or person to be holy, that state of holiness can be
transmitted from object to object, object to person, person to person, and person to object
merely by means of contact. In the same way a defiled object or person who touches an
otherwise holy object or person infects them with impurity. This is the reason that whatever is
holy MUST be kept separate from anything that is common or defiled.
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In order that the blood of the sacrificial animal be efficacious it MUST, somehow, attain a state
of holiness or it cannot be presented to God. Neither the sacrificial animal nor its blood is
inherently holy; some magic thing doesn’t happen when an animal is singled out as a sacrifice
and it’s blood spilled. But that blood BECOMES holy he instant it comes into contact with the
Brazen Altar, and the incredibly holy state of that altar of God transmits its own holiness to the
blood that has been splashed upon it. NOW the blood is suitable for its purpose.
Next week we’ll take up Leviticus chapter 2 and discuss the next most common sacrifice
called in Hebrew the Minchah.
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