Leviticus, an overview

The offering of sacrifices was an ordinance of true religion, from the fall of man unto the coming of Christ. But until the Israelites were in the wilderness, no very particular regulations seem to have been appointed. The general design of these laws is plain. The sacrifices typified Christ; they also shadowed out the believer's duty, character, privilege, and communion with God. There is scarcely any thing spoken of the Lord Jesus in Scripture which has not also a reference to his people. This book begins with the laws concerning sacrifices; the most ancient were the burnt-offerings, about which God here gives Moses directions. It is taken for granted that the people would be willing to bring offerings to the Lord. The very light of nature directs man, some way or other, to do honour to his Maker, as his Lord. Immediately after the fall, sacrifices were ordained.

There are divers kinds of sacrifices prescribed here. And the reason why there were so many kinds of them was perhaps due to the young spiritual state of the newly liberated Israelites, who by the custom of Egyptian rule may have been addicted to outward rites and ceremonies, that they might have full employment of that kind in Gods's service, and thereby be kept from temptations to idolatry; and partly to represent as well the several perfections of Christ (typology), the true sacrifice, and the various benefits of his death, as the several duties which men owe to their Creator and Redeemer, all which could not be so well expressed by one sort of sacrifice.

The whole sacrificial system of the Hebrew law was intended for a people already brought into covenant with the living God, and every sacrifice was assumed to have a vital connection with the spirit of the worshipper. A Hebrew sacrifice, like a Christian sacrament, possessed the inward and spiritual grace, as well as the outward and visible sign and may have borne to each man a very different amount of meaning, according to the spiritual maturity of the believer.

One may have come in devout obedience to the voice of the Law, with little more than a vague sense that his offering in some way expressed his own spiritual wants, and that the fact that he was permitted to offer it, was a sacramental pledge of God’s good will and favor toward him. But to another, with clearer spiritual insight, the lessons conveyed in the symbols of the altar must have all converged with more or less distinctness toward the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Who was to come in the fullness of times that He might fullfil all righteousness, and realize in the eyes of men the true sin-offering, burnt-offering, and peace-offering. (Typology of Christ as seen in the Old Testament.) The general name for what was formally given up to the service of God was offering and oblation.

Whatever offerings were brought to be sacrificed on the altar, may be thus classed:

Offerings for the altar
Animal .................. Vegetable

1. Burnt offerings ........1. Meat and drink offerings for Altar in the Court
2. Peace offerings ........2. Incense and meat offerings for the Holy Place
3. Sin offerings

The external distinction between the three classes of animal sacrifices may be thus broadly stated: The burnt-offering was wholly burned upon the altar; the sin-offering was in part burned on the altar, and in part, either given to the priests or burned outside the camp; and the peace-offering was shared between the altar, the priests, and the sacrificer. This formal difference is immediately connected with the distinctive meaning of each kind of sacrifice.

Five animals are named in the Law as suitable for sacrifice, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the dove and the pigeon. It is worthy of notice that these were all offered by Abraham in the great sacrifice of the covenant. The covenant sacrifice of Abraham consisted of one of each of the five animals which the Law afterward recognized as fit for sacrifice. But the cutting in two of the four-footed victims appears to mark it as a peculiar rite belonging to a personal covenant, and to distinguish it from the classes of sacrifices ordained by the Law.

Every animal offered in sacrifice was to be perfect, without spot or blemish; and might vary in age between not less than a week and three years.

The man who offered a private sacrifice led with his own hands the victim into the court of the sanctuary, and formally presented it to the priest in front of the tabernacle. The sacrificer then laid, or rather pressed, his hand upon its head, and according to Jewish traditions, always uttered a prayer or confession of some sort while his hand rested on the head of the victim, except in the case of peace-offerings.

The regular place for slaughtering the animals for burnt-offerings, sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, was the north side of the altar. Tradition tells us that before the sacrificer laid his hand upon the head of the victim, it was bound by a cord to one of the rings fixed for the purpose on the north side of the altar, and that at the very instant when the words of the prayer, or confession, were ended, the fatal stroke was given. The peace-offerings and the paschal lambs, might, it would seem, be slain in any part of the court.

In sacrificing the burnt-offerings, the peace-offerings and the trespass-offerings, the priests “sprinkled” or rather cast the blood about, so that the blood should be diffused over the sides of the altar. In the sin-offerings, the priest had to take some of the blood with his finger and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt-offering, and to pour out what remained at the bottom of the altar, if the sin-offering was for one of the common people, or for a ruler: if the sin-offering was for the congregation or for the high priest, in addition to these two processes, the high priest himself had to bring a portion of the blood into the sanctuary, to sprinkle it with his finger seven times before the vail, and to put some of it upon the horns of the altar of Incense.

The great altar of the temple was furnished with two holes at its southwest corner through which the blood ran into a drain which conveyed it to the Cedron. There was probably some arrangement of this kind for taking the blood away from the altar in the wilderness.

When the blood was disposed of, the skin removed, and the animal cut into pieces, the sacrificer, or his assistant, washed the entrails and feet. In the case of a burnt-offering, all the pieces were then taken to the altar and salted.

The sacrificial laws of these chapters presuppose the presentation of burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and slain-offerings as a custom well known to the people. They were not introduced among the Israelites for the first time by Moses. Even animal sacrifices date from the earliest period of humanity. Not only did Noah offer burnt-offerings of all clean animals and birds (Gen_8:20), but Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock an offering to the Lord (Gen_4:4).

We thus see that if we take the narrative of Scripture for our guide, the most ancient sacrifices were burnt-offerings: and that the radical idea of sacrifice is to be sought in the burnt-offering rather than in the peace-offering, or in the sin-offering. Assuming that the animal brought to the altar represented the person of him who offered it, and noting that the flesh was spoken of not as destroyed by burning, but as sent up in the fire like incense toward heaven; the act of sacrifice intimated that the believer confessed the obligation of surrendering himself, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord of heaven and earth who had been revealed to him. The truth expressed then in the whole burnt-offering is the unqualified self-sacrifice of the person.

Consider 2Co 2:15 For we are to God a sweet savor of Christ, in those being saved, and in those being lost; Eph 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. In our surrender to the Lord, we become a sweet savor, our lives submitted to Him.

In the scriptural records there is no trace either of the sin-offering, or of any special treatment of the blood of victims, before the time of Moses. The first instance of the blood of a sacrifice being noticed in any way occurs in the account of the institution of the Passover; the next is in connection with the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings of the covenant of Sinai. We are left in no doubt as to the sacrificial meaning of the blood. As the material vehicle of the life of the victim, it was the symbol of the life of the offerer.

The laws of sacrifice in ch. 1-7 are divisible into two groups.

The first (ch. 1-5) contains the general instructions, which were applicable both to the community as a whole and also the individual Israelites. Ch. 1-3 contain an account of the animals and vegetables which could be used for the three kinds of offerings that were already common among them, viz., the burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and slain-offerings; and precise rules are laid down for the mode in which they were to be offered. In ch. 4 and 5 the occasions are described on which sin-offerings and trespass-offerings were to be presented; and directions are given as to the sacrifices to be offered, and the mode of presentation on each separate occasion.

The second group (ch. 6 and 7) contains special rules for the priests, with reference to their duties in connection with the different sacrifices, and the portions they were to receive; together with several supplementary laws, for example, with regard to the meat-offering of the priests, and the various kinds of slain or peace-offering.