2 And he shall bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord:
3 And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.
It may be strange to see this referred to as a “meat” offering, when no meat is involved in it. This confusing naming scheme is due to the differences in 17th century English, where “meat” was used to describe any solid food, as opposed to drink or soup. More modern translations tend to render this as a “grain” or “meal” offering.
This offering could be provided as a baked bread, or as its raw ingredients. Today’s verses describe the raw ingredient version, featuring flour, oil, and frankincense. All of these ingredients would have been accessible to the Israelites, even the poor ones. Of all of the ingredients, frankincense would have had the highest cost, but not unattainably so.
Flour would have been seen as a symbol for life, or the body, and oil as a symbol for the spirit. Frankincense, with its pleasant aroma, was typically seen as a symbol for prayer, such as when it was used on the incense altar. Thus, their combined offering would represent the whole person, body, mind, and spirit, connected to God, expressing gratitude for the blessings that had been given.
15 And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16 And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17 And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.
With how much smaller a bird is than a livestock animal, it is not surprising that the method of slaughtering and offering it would be quite different. While it does not say so in this chapter, the Talmud explains that livestock animals were killed with a slash across the throat. The bird, however, had its entire head wrung off. Both cases, then, featured a severance of mind and heart.
The now-headless bird would have the crop and feathers pulled away, then torn partway in half, though not all the way through, and was finally burned upon the altar. This seems to reflect the way that the ram or bullock were divided into their various parts. These offerings were not cast upon the flame as an enclosed body. They were opened sufficiently for the purifying fire to touch every part, to play upon every secret place within.
So, too, it is meant to be with us. It doesn’t do to just commit ourselves to the Lord, generally. We must open ourselves up and give Him our heart, and our mind, and our strength, and our time, and our sexuality, and our reactions, and our hopes, and all our other individual and secret parts. His purifying fire must play on all we are made up of.
Sacrifice
Eligible animals
Steps
Explanation
Burnt offering
Ram, Bullock, Pigeon, Turtledove
Giving our life to God’s purposes
Male, without blemish
Give our very best
Hands placed on head, slaughtered
Animal takes the place of us
Slaughtered on the North
Recommitment on the side of our journey
Blood sprinkled around altar
Our life is sprinkled over God’s work
Cut in pieces, and washed
Each part of us measured and made clean
Crop pulled off, torn nearly in half
Each inner part of us exposed to God’s purifying fire
2 On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.
The Israelites have now completed a great work, the creation of a beautiful tabernacle! It is incredible that they produced something like this having just come out of slavery and now living in the middle of the wilderness. Currently, the tabernacle is disassembled in its several parts, and now those parts need to come together in the desired form.
This again brings to mind the creation of the Earth at the beginning of Genesis. There, each day of creation was focused on its own element, each treated as an individual unit. But when we walk around the earth today, we see all these individual elements combined together in harmony. Land and water and animals and plants and stars and sun and people all overlapping in their systems and functions, all combined to the glory of God. So, too, the individually magnificent Ark of the Covenant, and brass altar, and golden menorah, and woven tapestries would all be assembled to one higher whole.
In the following verses, God will describe the correct order for all these separate parts to come together. This sequence would not only apply to this initial assembly, but every time that the Israelites traveled to a new destination and there reared the tabernacle. This repeated assembly is symbolic of how divine creation is not a singular event, but one that must be repeated and refreshed. We see this in God’s creation, where the elements of the earth are cyclically reassembled into the bodies of the new generation of people, animals, and plants. We see it in the hearts of the disciples that are continually refreshed, renewed, and recommitted as they toil through life’s distractions and sorrows.
4 And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office.
5 And they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen.
The overview of the clothes is given in today’s verses, and next we will hear about each piece in greater detail. All of the mentioned elements are as follows:
A mitre: a sort of hat or turban. Something that would be worn on the head.
A breastplate: a square patch of fabric which was adorned with precious stones. It sat on the chest, hanging from the shoulders by chains of gold.
An ephod: a sort of apron that the breastplate rested upon.
A robe: a poncho-like layer underneath the ephod.
A broidered coat: yet another layer underneath the robe.
A girdle: a sash tied around the waist to secure all the layers.
Thus, there are three layers upon the body: broidered coat, robe, and an ephod, all bound by the girdle, with a breastplate upon the chest, and a mitre on the head.
Yesterday we spoke of the clothes as having a weighty beauty, and one can see how all of these layers and different adornments would fit that bill. We have already seen great symbolism in the structure and instruments of the tabernacle, and surely the pattern continues with this complex and multi-faceted clothing. We will consider the meaning of each as we continue.
I have spent the past while examining the principle of truthfulness in broad strokes. I have explored why it is a moral ideal, and why it is beneficial to society as a whole. But people are brought into alignment with truth on an individual basis, and one of the first truths that we must resolve ourselves to is the truth of who we are. Given that, I am going to shift gears with the rest of this series to examine truth within the self.
And the fact is, probably very few readers had any disagreement with my thesis at the beginning of this series. You probably agreed that only a life founded on truth is truly free. This is the sort of statement that we hear and nod along to without a second thought. Something inside of us just intuitively knows that this is the case.
And yet…if we get truly honest, none of us live in accordance with this principle perfectly, and few of us even try. We say that embracing the hard truths is essential for a stable and thriving life, but then we shirk those hard truths at every turn. We preach principles that we do not abide by and renounce the very behaviors that we do. Lying, cheating, and stealing, though we aver it is wrong to lie, cheat, and steal. We try to hide these shameful behaviors from the world. We try to hide them from ourselves, looking for a distraction any time our conscience tries to show us what we are doing. And then, when a light does manage to shine upon our wrongs we make excuses, brushing them off as inconsequential or permitted due to our circumstance. In short, we are hypocrites all!
The Part That Resonates)
So why do we so readily agree with the statement that we should all live in truth?! Why do we have such an immediate agreement to something in principle, but then a reluctance to agree with it in our practice? I see this phenomenon as the clearest evidence that people are divided beings. Every individual has two parts hidden within, and though they belong to the same person, those parts don’t agree with one another at all.
I feel this dual nature is what Paul was speaking to when he famously wrote “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I” (Romans 7:15). There is a very real part of us that recognizes and responds to truth. That part is most manifest when we hear a nugget of pure wisdom and we intuitively know that it is right, not even requiring any sort of proof. That part of us just knows what is true and it wants to live in harmony with that truth.
But then there is another part that doesn’t fully believe in this concept. Part of us believes that even if truth is the fundamental foundation of the world as a whole, that it can still cheat that system. It thinks that it can fool the world into giving us what we want.
Of course, these two sides are at complete odds to one another. On the one hand we believe that adherence to the truth is the principle by which we obtain all that we desire, on the other hand we also think we can get what we want by trespassing that very same principle.
Getting Curious)
The part of you that thinks you can prosper by denying your conscience doesn’t like to be examined. When asked why we do the things that we know are wrong, why we advocate for behaviors but then don’t follow them, we tend to squirm beneath the light and try to wriggle away.
But if you are ever to overcome these baser instincts, you’ve got to start taking them head-on. An excellent first step would be to acknowledge that you do exactly the hypocritical sort of behavior that we’ve been examining, and then meditate as to why you do it. Without judgment, ask yourself “why do I think truth is fundamental to happiness, but still shirk from the truth in these certain areas of my life?” At some point we must all contemplate why we do the things that we do. At some point we have got to own up to our inconsistencies. For simply acknowledging our own untruthfulness is the first step towards becoming truthful.
Spiritual Wanderings 