Day 30. Leviticus 1-3

Leviticus 1-3

Leviticus 1

¹And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,

Ah, Leviticus. One of my favorite books. This is another of the books of Moses. Leviticus contains a lot of laws, mostly that deal with the Levites. Remember, Moses set up his brother and his nephews with being the main chief priests for all time. But he didn't just stop there, no. He also created a position of honor for the rest of his tribe. This book deals mostly with them and rules for them. There will be a lot of abominations. I'll try to highlight them all.

Chapter one tells the priests how they are to prepare the animals that are offerings.

First is the bullock.

⁵And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

If people actually sacrificed as many animals as is mentioned, these people would be master butchers.

⁹But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

The front part is cooked, the back part is burned. Kosher and non-kosher. Exactly why the back isn't Kosher, I'm not sure. Some websites say it's because of the sciatic nerve and because of blood vessels.

The next sacrificial animal is sheep. Again, can't eat the legs.

The final offering animal is turtledoves or pigeons.

¹⁵And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:

Wringing is much more human than other methods of head removal of doves.

Leviticus 2

¹And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:

Meat, again, means food other than what we call meat.

²And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:

Basically, the priest gets to make a piece of flat bread.

There are several types of "meat" offerings: flour, baked in an oven, baked in a pan, and baked in a frying pan.

⁹And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

The first part goes to god.

¹⁰And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.

Someone's got to finish off the bread, should we give it to the homeless? No, let's give it to the priests.

¹²As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.

The priests get to have a well balanced diet. Animal flesh, flat breads, and now fruits.

¹³And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.

God likes salt. Additionally, how hard would it be for people in the desert to get salt? Not only do they have to give up their animals and flour and fruit, now they have to give up some of their main preservative. It's not like the priests needed to store any of their food, they were continually offering sacrifices. It was the average people who were giving up their things.

Leviticus 3

¹And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.

No one is entirely sure the reason behind the sacrifice of peace offering. It's probably given because the person has been blessed, and wants to give back.

¹⁷It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

That verse is a good... um... leviticacism. There's all these rules about what priests have to do to prepare offerings, and then BAM, a rule that affects the common Joe. I was reading about priests, and now I learn that we shouldn't eat fat or blood.

Points to ponder:

1. Priests probably couldn't be vegetarians. Part of their job was consuming all this flesh.

2. How many people could have been fed by the rear part of the cows that were ritually sacrificed over the years?

3. There is no law against selling the un-kosher parts of the animal to people who aren't Hebrew.