Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 3:16-17

16 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the Lord’s.

17 It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

This chapter ends with an interesting aside, where the Lord gives a commandment to the Israelites. Parts of these animals were never to be consumed by the Israelites. The Israelites were forbidden from consuming the blood of the animal, and from eating the fat. And it doesn’t seem to be because these parts were unclean or evil, but because they instead belonged to the Lord.

From other verses it is made clear that the blood was seen as containing the life itself of the animal. It was the sacred, animating factor that turned the creature from a heap of flesh and bones to a moving, acting thing. The fat, being the richest part of the animal, represented passion, energy, and drive. Thus, the animating factor in our lives, and our passion, energy, and drive, are to be seen as belonging to the Lord, not ourselves. We should not give our passion and life to our own desires, but reserve them for the higher purposes of God.

I don’t think that is just about reserving the best of ourselves for God. That could certainly be a part of it, but I believe it is also because the forces of life and passion are too strong for us to handle on our own. They are simply too potent, too powerful. We become drunk on our own passion and we flail about, trying to find some well that is deep enough to hold them. And so, we end up indulging in addiction, gambling, unsafe sex, vanity, greed, endless partying, and false causes. They are attractive to us because they are bottomless pits that we can pour our life and passion into forever, never mind the fact that they are unworthy vessels.

Thousands of years ago God showed His people a different endless well that we could pour their lives and passion into: Him. Just as the Israelites were warned not to try and stomach the fat and blood of the animal, but to surrender it to God instead, we are meant to direct our greatest energy and vitality to His cause, and it will be for our own good.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Peace OfferingCattle, Lamb, GoatGratitude for reconciliation
Animal is slainGiving up old life for one of unity with another
Fat burned on altarGiving up old plans, passions, and drives

Full table.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 3:12-16

12 And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord.

13 And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.

14 And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

15 And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

16 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the Lord’s.

We heard the process of offering cattle, and sheep, and now a goat. And the instructions for doing so have been essentially identical all the way through.

This sort of repetition and redundancy in the Bible is well-known and has even been the target of mockery. Why doesn’t the record just give the instructions once, and then say that it applies to all three animal types?

Perhaps it is because the sacrifices were individual, so the descriptions for them were also. There are many things that we do in life that are repetitive, yet we describe them in detail because they are also individual. When a child is born, we don’t just say, “yeah, the birth went like all the other birth stories you’ve ever heard.” No, we still share about the contractions, and the water breaking, and the drive to the hospital, and the delivery, because these moments, though common to many people, still occur to us on an individual level. And this child’s birth is not the same thing as that child’s birth. So, too, every animal that was slain at the altar was an individual process. Every time that a person has made an offering of their heart to the Lord, it is not the same thing as another person’s offering of the heart. Each of us walk a path that sounds like many others, but it is also a path that no one else has ever walked before.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Peace OfferingCattle, Lamb, GoatGratitude for reconciliation
Animal is slainGiving up old life for one of unity with another
Fat burned on altarGiving up old plans, passions, and drives

Full table.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 3:6-11

6 And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.

7 If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the Lord.

8 And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.

9 And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

10 And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

11 And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord.

Yesterday we heard of cattle being acceptable for the peace offering, and now we read that sheep were also. Tomorrow we will hear about goats. The descriptions of how each should be offered were virtually identical to one another. One thing that is unique in today’s passages is that the sheep had to be a lamb. Neither cattle nor goats are described with that same young age requirement.

We do not have a clear explanation for this difference. Perhaps there actually was no difference, and a young animal was the expectation for all animal types. If that was the case, then either it was simply understood in that culture, or the original records were more explicit than the ones we have today.

Or, on the other hand, perhaps there really was only an age requirement for the sheep, which may have been done to help define a hierarchy of sacrifice. We saw in the last chapter that for some sacrifices fruit of the field could be an acceptable offering, but more often it was a living sacrifice. In the chapter before that, we saw how sometimes a bird could be the animal sacrificed, but more commonly it was a livestock animal. And of all the livestock, sheep were the quintessential sacrifice animal. And among sheep, obviously the lamb is the most pure and unblemished. Indeed, in some cases a lamb was the only sacrificial option, such as when the Israelites used its blood on their doorposts in Egypt to dispel the angel of death.

Thus, if there was an age requirement for sheep only, it might have been part of this hierarchy: belonging → animal → livestock → sheep → lamb. This hierarchy shows a clear progression, one that naturally draws the mind one step further, to the ultimate sacrifice, even the Lamb of God.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Peace OfferingCattle, LambGratitude for reconciliation
Animal is slainGiving up old life for one of unity with another
Fat burned on altarGiving up old plans, passions, and drives

Full table.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 3:2-5

2 And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.

3 And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

4 And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

5 And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

In the last post we discussed the difference in meaning between the Meat Offering and this Peace Offering. These different meanings are reflected in the different steps of the sacrifices, as we can see in today’s verses. For the Meat Offering, there was no death involved. The offeror merely gave some grain, or flour, or baked goods. The absence of a death would certainly help maintain the joyful levity that that offering represented. But with the Peace Offering a death was mandatory, which is much more fitting for the thoughtful and emotional themes of reconciliation to the Lord that the sacrifice represented.

The fact is that death is a necessary component for any reconciliation. It might be the death of the ego, where I finally put an end to my ideas and my behavior, letting them die, so that I can be reconciled to another. Or it might be the death of individuality, such as when a man marries a woman, and they lay to rest their solitary lives to begin a new one of unity. Certainly, it can also be the death of the Savior, who paid the ultimate price so that we can have ultimate oneness with God again.

And so, in this symbolic offering, a life is appropriately taken, and the fat of the animal, which represents its passions, its energy, and its drive, are laid on the altar and burned. The offeror gives up all these things to instead be subsumed into the Almighty.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Peace OfferingCattleGratitude for reconciliation
Animal is slainGiving up old life for one of unity with another
Fat burned on altarGiving up old plans, passions, and drives

Full table.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 3:1

1 And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord.

In the last chapter we learned about the Meat Offering, which was a voluntary offering of celebration, something that an Israelite would bring when feeling abundant in the blessings of the Lord. Today we start hearing about the Peace Offering, which was also a voluntary and celebratory offering, but this one meant to commemorate a different category of gratitude and blessing.

The Old Testament record does not spell out what the nature of the Peace Offering’s celebration was, but scholars and tradition believe that it had to do with reconciliation and unity. As we will learn in Leviticus 7, one unique aspect of the Peace Offering was that the sacrificed animal would be consumed as a meal shared between God, the priests, and the Israelite making the offering. This is something that we haven’t come across in any of the other offerings. It is this aspect of the offering that sees God, priest, and offeror breaking bread together that has led to the interpretation that it was meant to commemorate a moment of unity, or oneness.

Perhaps the offeror would make this offering when he felt cleaned from his old sins, or healed from a disease, or was reunited with an estranged family member, or was delivered from a burden, or received a long-sought-for answer to prayer. Any moment that made him feel particularly reunited with the good in the universe. Thus, it was a celebration, but one with deeper emotional weight than the merrymaking of a Meat Offering.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Peace OfferingGratitude for reconciliation

Full table.