Introduction to Leviticus

Leviticus 1-3

            Again this week, this post covers both Friday’s and Saturday’s readings. Today we begin reading Leviticus, and we should spend a little bit of time introducing this book, perhaps the book which seems most foreign and maybe even irrelevant in our modern sensibility. The title, Leviticus, comes to us from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament dating from about two centuries before Jesus, a translation which had a huge influence on the New Testament. Leviticus means something along the lines of “concerning the Levites,” because so much of the content of the book concerns the services and regulations of the tabernacle, which the priests and Levites were responsible for. The book divides into five sections: chapters 1-7 detailing sacrifices; chapters 8-10 about the priesthood; chapters 11-16 distinguishing ceremonially clean from unclean and culminating in the Day of Atonement; chapters 17-26, which scholars dub the “holiness code;” and, finally, chapter 27 about vows taken to the Lord. Victor Hamilton notes, “More than any other Old Testament book…Leviticus summons Israel to a holy life” (Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch, 246.) Said another way, Leviticus reminds Israel that she is holy to the Lord and details the many ways in which she lives distinctively among the nations.

            We start with the section on sacrifices, chapters 1-7. Israel has five basic offerings: a whole burnt offering, a grain offering, a fellowship offering (in some translations, a peace offering), a sin offering, and guilt offering. These offerings are further explained in later chapters. The three that occupy us today (whole burnt offering, grain offering, and fellowship offering) are different than the last two in that no specific occasion is given for them. In fact, my study Bible simply calls each of them a “voluntary act of worship.” They are given specifically as a gift to the Lord for His pleasure. Note how the phrase “an aroma pleasing to the Lord is repeated eight times in three chapters.

            The whole burnt offering is an animal sacrifice, and the entire animal is burned up, an act that might seem wasteful to us. Imagine bringing a nice, crisp $100 bill into church and, instead of placing it in the offering plate, you set it on fire. Seems irresponsible. The whole burnt offering can seem like that, but it is offered only to honor the Lord. While whole burnt offerings could be offered by individuals, they were most commonly corporate gifts, the occasions of which are described other places in the Bible.

            The grain offering and the fellowship offering are different in that a portion of both is reserved for human use. A portion of a grain offering was reserved for the priests, and the majority of the fellowship offering (again, an animal sacrifice) was eaten (see chapter 7). We may ask why the fat of the fellowship offering was the portion given to the Lord, and the answer is that the fatty portions were considered the best portions. (In our era, we’ve become really sensitive to the dangers of a high fat diet, but I remember my dad loving a well-marbled, that is, fatty, steak. He judged that the flavor was in the fat.)

            Next week, we’ll look at two sacrifices for specific occasions and read more regulations about all five sacrifices. For today, though, we just have a reminder that one of the purposes of our offerings is simply that they please the Lord, just as anyone of us would be pleased when a loved one brought us a spontaneous gift, motivated simply out of love and for the joy of the recipient.