Leviticus 1 and 2

Leviticus, to many of us we skip over this book. For many lawyers and people that are about rules this book is intriguing. For most of us we just simply want to know why should we be concerned about a book on the law because Jesus came to fulfill the law? The fact is that the Bible says that all scripture is important for us. That said as we go through Leviticus the greatest challenge we will have is to avoid getting bogged down in the weed of this book. To avoid being bogged down we will consider larger chunks as we go through this book.

Leviticus Chapter 1 and 2

In these chapters we are going to look at the burnt offering of cattle, sheep or goats, and birds along with uncooked grain offerings, cooked grain offerings, other ingredients, and offering of the first grain harvested.

The thing to realize is that each of these offerings were treated differently, the bold areas are the major difference between the animal offerings.

Burnt Offering of Cattle
1. Male with no defects
2. Offered at the entrance to the tent
3. Place hand on animals head and make peace with the LORD
4. Slaughter the bull in the LORD’s presence
5. Offer the blood by throwing it against all sides of the alter
6. Skin the bull and cut into pieces
7. Start a fire and lay wood on the fire.
8. Lay the pieces along with the head and the fat on the wood.
9. Wash the internal organs and legs and burn all of it on the alter.

Burnt Offering of Sheep or Goat
1. Male with no defects
2. Slaughter it on the north side of the alter
3. Throw the blood against all sides
4. Cut it into pieces
5. Lay head and fat on alter
6. Wash internal organs and legs then burn it all.

Burnt Offerings of Birds
1. Mourning Dove or Pigeon
2. Priest bring it to the alter
3. Break its neck
4. Drain the blood against the side of the alter
5. Remove the gizzards with its filth and throw them on the east side on the place for the ashes
6. Pull the birds wings to tear the bird open without pulling the wings off
7. Burn it on the alter

Grain Offerings: Of the grain offerings the requirements were generally the same, unleavened, olive oil and incense. The differences tended to be in the way that it was or was not prepared and how much if any was the priests allowed to take of the offering. In general there is no difference between the cooked and the uncooked grain offerings. It was to be a burnt offering to God

We see that there is a mandate from God that said neither honey or yeast were to be burnt before God. They were allowed to be brought as an offering of first fruits but never placed on the alter.

The other mandate of the other ingredients for the grain offerings is that salt was to be put on the grain offerings. It was to never be left out of the grain offerings. It was considered the salt of God’s promise.

Offering the first Grain Harvested: The grain was to be roasted over fire and have olive oil and incense added. The priest were than suppose to burn it as an offering to God.

The Application: Just like these offerings we are to be prepared as an offering to God. Not to be literally burnt but as a living sacrifice. We should be making sure that we are doing what we can not to be unworthy to God. Our salt is Jesus in us. Scripture says we are the salt of the earth. We make the earth acceptable to God.