Thoughts on Leviticus

The first seven chapters of Leviticus deal with the five basic offerings presented to God. They are: 1) the burnt offering (chaps. 1; 6:8-13 and 7:8); 2) the meal (or meat) offering (chaps. 2; 6:14-23; 7:9,10); 3) the peace offering (chaps. 3; 7:11-21); 4) the sin offering (chaps. 4; 6:24-30) and 5) the trespass offering (chaps. 5; 6:1-7; 7:1-7). There is also a sixth offering, the drink offering, covered later in 23:13,18 and 37.

The blood

In all cases where an animal was slain, the blood came in contact with the altar of burnt offering outside the door of the holy place. In the sin offering, four variations of blood disposal were used depending on the offerer. In the case of a sin offering for the priest, the blood was brought into the holy place and sprinkled before the veil. When this happened, the animal was not to be eaten, but, like the burnt offering, was to be completely consumed.

Peace offerings

There were three types of peace offerings: 1) a thanksgiving offering which was to be eaten the day it was sacrificed; 2) an offering associated with a vow and 3) a voluntary offering. The vow or voluntary offering had to be eaten over a two-day period with the residue being consumed on the altar the third day. If any was eaten on the third day, the benefits of the sacrifice were rescinded.

Imperfect animals could be used for voluntary offerings but not for obligatory ones: “a bullock or a lamb that hath any thing superfluous or lacking in its parts, that mayest thou offer for a freewill offering” (Lev. 22:23).

Sins and trespasses

Several words are used to describe a variety of sins: “sin,” “trespass,” “transgressions,” “iniquity,” and “guilt” are the English words that appear. An even greater variety of Hebrew words are used in the Hebrew manuscript. For example the English word “sin” is rendered from Hebrew words chata, which means to “fall short of the standard, to miss the way, to incur guilt or to forfeit” and shaqa, which means “to err.”

Lev. 5:17 speaks of “iniquity” which is translated from avown meaning “perversity or moral evil; to bend, twist or distort.” The verb form is awa, meaning to “deviate or twist the standard.” While chata, “sin,” means to fall short of the standard, avown, “iniquity,” means to twist the standard.

In Lev. 16:16 and 21 pesha is rendered “transgression” and refers to the sin of “revolting against the standard, rebellion, rejection of God’s authority.” This expresses a stronger sense of sin than chata.

“Trespass” is generally translated from asham, which means “guilty, desolate.” It speaks of the act and the result. Maal is another Hebrew word rendered “trespass,” and means “to act covertly, to cover up, act treacherously.”

An interesting sidelight on this word study is to note that a common word for sin, hattat, is frequently rendered “sin offering.”

Consecration of the priests

One of the shocking events recorded in the early part of Leviticus is the desecration that occurred on the very day Aaron and his sons were being consecrated for their high offices. Though Nadab and Abihu had previously known the privilege of joining Moses and Aaron on Mt. Sinai, Lev. 10 reveals the conduct that resulted in their violent death. They had become drunk on this momentous occasion and, as a result, usurped the divine prerogative and offered strange fire before the LORD. “And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.”

Aaron and his two remaining sons, Ithamar and Eleazar, were so shocked and saddened that they could not eat of the appropriate sacrifices. By eating the prescribed items, Aaron would “bear the sins of the congregation.” He felt inadequate to do so, declaring that what was needed was a priest who was “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.”

Perhaps we can draw two conclusions from the events of that day: 1) From that day forward, Aaron would be required to sprinkle the blood toward the veil and sprinkle it on the horns of the altar of incense. Thereby he would be pointing to the time when in the fullness of time, “God would send forth His son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4,5). The prayers of those who looked for Christ would be answered by virtue of their looking to the day when the veil was removed. 2) The events of that day led to the rituals followed on the day of Atonement.

On that day, a bullock was offered by Aaron as a sin offering for himself and his house. With a censer full of coals and incense, he entered the holiest of all and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat seven times. He put blood on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, sprinkled blood on it seven times and then poured out the balance of the blood at the base. He offered a goat for a sin offering for the people, sprinkling the blood of the goat in the same manner as the bullock. He then sent a second goat alive into the wilderness, confessing over it the transgressions and sins of the nation. Despite this elaborate and extended ritual, however, he re­turned to his normal routine until repeating the day of Atonement the next year.

“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered?…but [the Lord Jesus Christ] after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.. .For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:1-14). It is to such blessing that we stand related in Christ.