Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 14 Feb 2016
2:8 And you shall take the grain-offering which he shall make from these things to Yahweh, and he shall offer it to the priest, and he shall bring it to the altar.
9 Then the priest shall lift out from the grain-offering a memorial portion, and he shall burn it up on the altar – a fire-offering of a soothing aroma to Yahweh.
10 And the remainder from the grain-offering belongs to Aaron and to his sons – a most holy thing from the fire-offerings of Yahweh.
11 No grain-offering which you shall offer to Yahweh shall ever be made leavened, for you shall not burn up any leaven or any honey from his portion of a fire offering to Yahweh. 12 You may offer them as an offering of first-fruits to Yahweh, but they shall not ascend on the altar as a soothing aroma.
13 Furthermore you shall salt every grain offering with salt, and never let the salt of the covenant of your God be lacking; you shall offer salt upon all your offerings.
14 Now if you offer a grain-offering of first-fruits to Yahweh, you shall offer fresh heads of grain roasted in the fire – crushed grain fresh from the field – as a grain offering of your first-fruits.
15 And you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense upon it. This is a grain-offering.
16 Then the priest shall burn up its memorial portion from its crushed grains and from its oil with all its frankincense as a fire-offering to Yahweh.
· Last Lord’s Day we looked at the beginning of Leviticus chapter 2, which introduced the “food” or “grain” offerings.
· Today I want to review that a little bit, then move on to the latter part of Leviticus 2, which:
o adds instructions about what not to offer as a food offering
o and what to always offer with a food offering, and then
o finish the chapter with the special subcategory of food offerings called the “firstfruits”[1].
· Here’s a quote from a modern commentator I like, which reminds us of the context and the meaning of this general category of offering described in Leviticus 2: “God having granted forgiveness of sins through the burnt offering [that’s chapter 1, making the worshipper “acceptable”], the worshipper [“remembered” God and] responded by giving to God some of the produce of his hands in cereal offering. It was an act of dedication and consecration to God as Savior and covenant King[2]. It expressed not only thankfulness but obedience and a willingness to keep the law.” ~Wenham[3]
· The grain offerings given to the Lord mostly went to the priests in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, we are told that the same principle applies to provide a living for preachers of the gospel: 1 Cor. 9:13-14 “Don’t you know that the temple workers eat from the things of the temple, and those who attend to the altar share together in the altar sacrifice? Thus also the Lord commanded to the gospel preachers: to make a living from the gospel.” This is one way God provides for the officers of His church.
· In verse eight, there are three commands to “take (הֵבֵאתָ) the grain offering... to Yahweh... and bring it near (וְהִקְרִיבָהּ) to the priest, and he [the priest] shall bring it into contact with (וְהִגִּישָׁהּ) the altar.” Why the repetition of taking, offering, and bringing?
o Perhaps because we humans have always been naturally selfish and in need of strong encouragement to bring our offerings to God. We still need that kind of encouragement today.
o Children from their youngest age need to be taught to “give of your best to the Master,” as the hymn says. We need to teach our children the concepts of tithing, generosity, and charity to the poor – establishing that motion of our possessions in the direction of God.
o With an average giving pattern of only 2% of income in the United States, adults need to be reminded to give, too! This is part of teaching the whole counsel of God.
o This extends beyond money to also include service – giving of your time and your energy to the Lord and His people.
· Now, most of this offering was food for the priest, but verse 9 tells us that the priest had to give an offering to God as well. He was to take a memorial portion out of the grain offering and burn it on the altar for the Lord.
o The parallel word for this same action described in 2:2 is “grab a handful.”
o Whatever we dedicate to the Lord must be removed from our possessions and irrevocably given to God, just as the memorial portion was totally burned up on the altar to God.
· So that’s the overview on the grain offering. Now, Verses 11-16 wrap up the grain offering instructions with restrictions on what could not be offered on the altar, what should always be offered with a sacrifice, and how to offer a first-fruit offering. Let’s look at each of those three points in turn:
· Leaven was forbidden in the burnt offerings. This included yeast and honey in particular, and thus any leavening agent, such as sour-dough, which made bread rise by organic means or which fermented, emitting the gasses which filled a bread dough to make it rise.
1. חָמֵץ “a thing which is leavened”
o Leavened bread was offered at the Feast of Weeks as firstfruits and eaten by the priests (Lev. 23:17-20), but it was not to be burned on the altar.
o The reason for this is not fully explained here. There may have been some practical reasons lost to us today why God didn’t want them burning yeast or honey on the altar, but there is certainly some symbolic meaning in this too.
o In the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles used “leaven” to represent sins which were particularly infectious.
§ Jesus said, “beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod” (Mark 8:15),
§ and Paul instructed that we “purge the old leaven of malice…” (1 Cor. 5:6-8).
§ However, leaven was not all bad; it was also used to represent the growing influence of the kingdom of God which Jesus ushered in.
§ Symbolically, leaven was used to represent something with a pervasive influence, and, in this case, we may surmise that it is speaking of a pervasive sinful influence.
o When a person brought a burnt offering to Yahweh, he was not to bring leaven with it, and this may have been a reminder that he was not to come with a heart carrying the “leaven” of infectious sins like anger or malice or gossip (Col. 3:8).
o When you come before the Lord to worship Him in your personal devotions or family devotions or church worship, it would be well to take a moment to de-junk. Is there any “leaven” in my life that I need to confess as sin and repent of? Any bad attitudes toward God or toward anybody? This could poison your devotion to God, and it’s one reason why, early on in our worship service, we take time to confess our sins and find forgiveness from God. But you don’t have to wait until then. Take time frequently to clean out the closets of your heart.
2. “honey” is the other thing that could never be offered.
o The root meaning of the Hebrew word דְּבַשׁ seems to indicate the color “brown.”
o Jewish commentators say this was fruit juice, whereas non-Jewish translations say it is bee-honey. I can’t weigh in as an authority on that dispute.
o Although it can’t be burned on the altar, v.12 says that it could still be offered to the Lord and given to the priests, and we even have a description in 2 Chronicles 31:5 of people giving honey as firstfruits offerings: “As soon as [King Hezekiah’s] command was circulated, the children of Israel brought in abundance the firstfruits of grain and wine, oil and honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything.”
o But why did God say in Leviticus 2 that honey couldn’t be burned on the altar?
o God didn’t say why. Some commentators, nevertheless, have tried to offer reasons:
§ such as honey symbolizing human good works that aren’t good enough for God (Newberry),
§ or that honey has live bacteria in it, whereas only that which is dead can be burned on the altar (Wenham),
§ or that honey can ferment and therefore is a symbol of sin and corruption like yeast (Keil & Delitzsch)
o But we don’t necessarily need for God to give us a reason when He gives a command.
§ Parents, do you like it when you give instructions to your children, and, instead of saying, “Yes Sir/Yes Ma’am,” they just stand there and say, “Why?” (“Johnny, get out of the road!” “But why?” CRASH.)
§ Some things you don’t need to know the reason why; you just do them because you trust and obey your authority.
o God is our ultimate authority, and God has given us rules to obey.
§ Some of them seem kinda arbitrary, like not burning honey on the altar,
§ but others make a lot of sense, like the command in Deuteronomy 22:8 to put a railing around your roof if you’re going to entertain guests up there. That one God explains; it’s “so that you won’t bring liability on your household for bloodshed if anyone falls off.”
§ Others God didn’t explain, and I still wonder about, like not shaving the sides of your head in Lev. 19:27, or using kisses to greet people in the New Testament.
o Here’s the question: What is your attitude toward God’s authority?
§ Is it, “Yes Sir, I trust and obey You,”
§ or is it more like, “Why?”
§ It’s not my job to police what you do with your honey jars or your beard or your roof, but I do want to challenge you about whether you really mean it when you call Jesus, “Lord.”
o How often do we ignore God’s rules governing our lives and try to offer something different up to Him instead? I can’t help but think that a lot of Christian worship services today are like burning fruit and honey on the altar to God. They may think they are offering a special thing to God, but they are actually violating the principles He has laid down in His word, and so instead it is offensive to Him. Some specific examples come to mind, although they are by no means an exhaustive list:
§ Lots of people talking in “tongues” all at once during a worship service may think they are worshipping God, but, by violating the principles of orderly worship laid out in 1 Corinthians 14:27, which says, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret,” they are really offending God instead of worshipping God because they are not following His instructions regarding how to practice tongues-speaking.
§ Or how about this: Christian men discussing a sports game may think they are honoring God by having fellowship with other men at church, but if the reason they are talking about sports is because it is actually an idol in their lives, then you are actually worshipping an idol in church, and that doesn’t please God; it offends Him! I don’t mean to pick on sports fans – sports are not necessarily idolatrous, and there are many other things which can be idolatrous. But if we’re talking about a topic with our friends because we care about it more than Jesus, then it’s time to clean house. “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex. 20:3)
§ Christian women may think they are honoring God by wearing fashionable clothes to church, but if they are actually doing it to draw attention toward themselves, they are drawing people’s attention away from God, and that offends God. That’s not to say that you have to come to church in burlap bags (The scriptures tell us that God values beauty and excellence in dress.), but God has given us instructions about modesty that we must not ignore (cf. 1 Cor. 12:23, 1 Tim. 2:9).
o We need to obey the commands God has given us. But what if we leave ourselves willingly ignorant of His commands?
§ When I was a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, I often got the opportunity to examine candidates for preaching ministry. I always made it a point to ask if they had read the whole Bible. On one occasion the young man said, “Well, I’ve read almost all of it. I skipped some of the repetitive passages in the Old Testament that aren’t important.” Whoah! Is that the attitude we should have towards God’s instruction-book? That kind of lackadaisical attitude toward God’s word and His authority is downright dangerous.
§ We’re going to read in a few chapters about two of Aaron’s sons being struck dead because they had overlooked some instructions God had given them about leading worship,
§ and lest you think that’s just an Old Testament thing, remember that the New Testament has a similar story in Acts 5, where Ananias and Saphira were struck dead for telling a half-lie while they were in the act of putting money into the church treasure box!
o There is a healthy balance between, on the one hand, the fear of the Lord which respects His authority with great care and, on the other hand, the confidence of knowing and that He will graciously cover your shortcomings and offenses because you are in Christ and you are His beloved child. The Bible teaches us to hold both of those attitudes of respect and familiarity toward God together at the same time.
o May God make us aware of the ways in which we are ignorant of His word or disobedient to His instructions, so that we stop burning honey and yeast on His altar, as it were, and instead offer what is a soothing aroma to Him!
· After the prohibition of what NOT to offer, God lays down a command of what to ALWAYS offer with a sacrifice, and that is מלח (or in English: salt). It starts out saying to salt the grain offering, but goes on to say that every offering should be salted.
· The command is stated, then repeated in negative form and then again in positive form to underscore the command! “You shall salt … you shall not cause salt to be missing, you shall offer salt”
· We are back to singular “you’s” here that make the action very personal; every single person who offers a sacrifice was to put salt on the offering.
· And it is called “salt of the covenant of your God.” The big question is, “What does this signify?” The straight answer is that the meaning is not explicitly stated in the Scripture.
o The only mention of salt previous to this was as an ingredient in the concoction of incense in Exodus 30.
o There are only two other places in the Bible that talk about a “covenant of salt,” and they are Numbers 18:19 and 2 Chronicles 13:5. They do not contain explanations either. The one thing that is common to the Numbers and the Chronicles passages, however, is the concept of perpetuity –
§ Salt is a preservative; it can’t be destroyed by fire; and it is relatively inert.
§ It signified that something lasts, and indeed, as we are reminded over and over again in Psalm 136, “God’s covenant love endures forever!”
§ Among ancient Greeks and Arabs, there was a tradition of sealing a treaty or contract permanently by the two parties eating salted bread together (HAW).
o So this salt of the covenant probably represents[4] the unchanging relationship God has with His people.
· I also find it interesting that salt, a mineral, completes the representation of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms upon the altar, as all things were created by God and are offered back to Him. A Jewish legend says that “at the Creation, God made a covenant with the waters that were divided, that they would be offered in the form of salt on the altar” (Son.)
· How can we apply this personally to ourselves?
o Should we bring salt-shakers to church?
o This is clearly a principle to apply symbolically. How can we symbolize in everyday life the everlasting, covenantal love that God has for us, His children?
§ Just as this symbolic salt was part of every sacrifice in the temple worship of the Jews, so the remembrance of God’s covenant of love with us – epitomized in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – must be a pervasive part of Christian worship today. The cross should never be forgotten or left out of our worship.
§ It may have been that the inscription of the phrase “In God we trust” on every U.S. dollar bill was an attempt to help Christians remember their relationship with God with every purchase that they made. That has become practically meaningless, but I don’t know, maybe you could write a Bible verse on your credit card as a daily reminder that everything you do is in the context of God’s love for you.
§ It is entirely appropriate to develop symbols that remind us of the reality of the covenant relationship we have with our God. Be creative!
· So we don’t want to offer leaven or honey – we need to purge sinful, bad attitudes from our hearts and get to know God’s word and cultivate a willing obedience to His commands, and we do want to offer salt – the constant remembering of Jesus who died on the cross to save us and brought us into an everlasting covenant of love with God. Now, for the final category of...
· The Hebrew words for “first-fruits” are
o רֵאשִׁית, in v.12, from a root word meaning “head” or “first,” and
o בִּכּוּרִים, in v.14, from a root word meaning “first to bloom” or “first-born”
· A first-fruits offering was a gift to the priests of the first (and best) produce of the garden, field, orchard, and vineyard. So, a leavened loaf of bread (or a honey-sweetened pastry) made from the first bit of grain harvested from the field were things that could be offered as a first-fruits.
· This is laid out clearly in Deuteronomy 26:1-11 NKJV And it shall be, when you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you..., that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground..., and put it in a basket... And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days, and say to him, 8 “...the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand... He has brought us to this place and has given us... ‘a land flowing with milk and honey;’ and now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land which you, O LORD, have given me.” Then you shall set it before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God. So you shall rejoice in every good thing which the LORD your God has given to you and your house, you and the Levite and the stranger who is among you.[5]
· If we consider this passage together with others which speak of first-fruit and first-born offerings, it becomes clear that all first-born sons (as well as first-born cattle and animals) were to be given over to work in the temple or else bought back from God so that they could be kept at home. This indicated that not only was all the land and crops the Lord’s, but also all the people were His possession too. In fact, in the New Testament, the word “firstfruits” only refers to people! (See Appendix)
· Likewise, the first fruits were to be given as an offering to God. This was symbolic of the fact that everything belongs to God, and every good thing that comes to us is a gift from God. Giving back to Him the first-fruit is an acknowledgement that God is the giver of all that will be grown in the field and orchard. It is also an act of thankfulness to God when the garden begins to bear fruit!
· The last couple of verses in Leviticus two describe a first-fruits offering of grain which is not ground as finely as the offering in verses 1-3. However, in no case was raw wheat offered to God on the altar; the worshipper had to put some of his (and his household’s) effort into processing the grain – roasting, milling, or cooking it.
· Although there are a variety of English translations describing the offering of the first-fruits of grain in v.14, there are several key elements in common:
· How can we apply this principle today?
o It could still be applied literally if you are a wheat farmer. I was once the recipient of several sacks of wheat, fresh off a farmer’s field, and that was a great gift!
o Not everyone is a wheat farmer, but many people have gardens; I have seen people give the first vegetables produced in their garden to a church elder or pastor or ministry.
o The principle can also be applied in non-agricultural contexts:
§ You can give the first ten percent of your personal or business income to a church or a missionary.
§ Or if you’re in sales, you could give the profit from the first sale in every sales cycle to the Lord.
§ With a little thinking and creativity, anybody can come up with a meaningful way to express gratitude to God for His provision and commitment to Him as your Lord.
§ When I was a boy, a wealthy businessman who was in the Sunday School class that my Dad taught, bought a new Corvette. I remember that because he let me drive it around the block once – that was sweet! But he became convicted of the selfishness of his investment in such an expensive sports car. So he exchanged his Corvette for two modest cars, one of which he kept, and the other he gave to my Dad!
· Giving of your “first-fruits” is a powerful reminder that what you have is not merely the result of your own labor but is a gift from God.
· And, the principle of giving the first of your income while it’s still fresh is also important.
o There have been times when my wife and I have forgotten to carve out the first percentage of our salary cheque as a gift to God, and whenever that has happened, it seems that there is no money left over at the end of the month to pay tithes with, but whenever we give our tithes first-off, we find that there is always enough left over to cover our needs.
o We should give first and then expect that the God who gave the “first fruits” will see to it that we receive plenty more “latter fruit” to provide for all of our needs.
o Proverbs 3:9-10 says, “Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine."[6]
· Remember though that this is not a way to earn favor with God – He doesn’t need our food and money, it is rather a way for us to worship God. It is a way to constantly live before God with an attitude of thanksgiving for His provision for us! Remember what Jesus said in Mark 12:33, “To love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (NKJV)
· Let us keep in mind this principle that all we have comes from God. Let this motivate us to worship our sovereign God with thankful hearts and be generous in giving. [7]
· Let’s remember the salt of the covenant – the eternal covenant relationship with God which Christ won for us through His death and resurrection.
· And as we continue to worship God, let us be diligent to get rid of the leaven of bad attitudes and cultivate an understanding of God’s commands and obey Him respectfully.
· In so doing you can “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God , which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1-2)
· “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. And do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” (Heb. 13:15-16)
[1] Another subcategory of the minchah was the Jealousy sacrifice mentioned in Num. 5:15, which omits the oil & frankincense. Wenham suggests that since Prov. 27:9 says that oil and incense make the heart glad, and since dealing with suspected adultery was not a joyful occasion, that is why the oil and incense were omitted.
[2] Minchah tributes were offered to kings or tribal chiefs in Gen. 32:19ff (Jacob to Esau), Gen. 43:11-26 (Jacob to PM of Egypt), Judges 3:15-18 (Ehud to Eglon King of Moab), 2 Sam. 8:6 (Syrians to King David), 1 Kings 4:21 & 10:25 (all the Mesopotamian nations to King Solomon), but in this case, they are being offered to God (Cf. the case of 2 Kings 8:7-9, where Ben-Hadad, King of Syria, gives a minchah to God through the prophet Elisha.).
[3] For an alternate interpretation which I think is a little more of a stretch: Thomas Newberry wrote of the grain offering, that the flour, oil, and frankincense represented Christ, and the different forms of cooking the offering represented different ways that Christ suffered and concludes, “The believer, in his priestly character, when drawing night before Jehovah in worship, presents before Him by faith the memorial of what Jesus experienced on the cross, as thus typified.”
[4] Many other ideas have been suggested, such as the fact that salt was a trade item, so it represented value given to God (HAW). Also, Judges 9:45 & 2 Kings 2:20-22 indicate salt dedicating sacrifices to God (Wenham)
[5] The institution of the firstfruit offerings at Pentecost is in Leviticus 23:9-18.
[6] Cf. Joel 1:9 The grain offering and the drink offering Have been cut off from the house of the LORD; The priests mourn, who minister to the LORD... 13 Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; Wail, you who minister before the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth, You who minister to my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God. 14 Who knows if He will turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him— A grain offering and a drink offering For the LORD your God? 2:12-14 Now, therefore, says the LORD, Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him— A grain offering and a drink offering For the LORD your God?
[7] I think the main meaning to the Israelites when they offered their grain offerings was that of worshipping God out of the substance of their food. This grain offering was a way to acknowledge that God is sovereign over the means of production and over our food supply, and it was also an expression of thankfulness to Him for the provision of food. It’s hard to know how far to go in looking for additional correlations between these Old Testament ceremonies and the worship of the church today. Let me share with you one application from the classical Keil and Delitzsch commentary which I think goes beyond what the Bible actually says, but still seems plausible. They wrote that the sacrifice was symbolic of the spiritual food prepared and enjoyed by the congregation of the Lord. The oil represents the Spirit of God as the principle of all spiritual vitality, and the bread, flour, and grain from the field are symbols for the word of God. The two elements of the Spirit and the Word represented by the grain and the oil must be kept free from the “leaven” of hypocrisy and from the “honey” of carnal enjoyment because these things are destructive of spiritual life, while salt (the purifying strengthening power of the covenant to avoid moral corruption) and the incense of prayer were to be added that spiritual life might become well-pleasing to the Lord. So the allegory is that the life of a Christian is maintained spiritually by the Spirit of God and His promises and humanly by meditation upon the Bible and prayer.