I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 16-18.

When Aaron wanted to go before the Ark of the Covenant to enter into the presence of God, he needed to perform a series of sacrifices some for himself and some for the people of Israel.  As I read today’s passage, he could do this whenever there was a reason to do so, but he was required to do so at least once a year on the Day of Atonement.  The effort which Aaron needed to go through reminds us that entering into God’s presence is a serious matter.

The command to celebrate the Day of Atonement (celebrate is not really the right word here) each year is immediately followed by the command forbidding sacrifices any place but at the Tabernacle.  Later on in the Law of Moses God commands that the people only perform sacrifices at the place which He designates for such.  The purpose of this command was to create unity of worship among the Children of Israel and to call them away from idol worship.  Tied in with the prohibition on offering sacrifices away from the Tabernacle is a prohibition on consuming blood.  Which suggests that the Old Testament prohibition against consuming blood was partially because if its role in idol worship.

I want to add here that throughout much of the Old Testament the people of Israel worshiped many other gods.  This leads to the conclusion that the people of Israel were polytheists for much of their history, which is correct.  However,  many people reach the conclusion that this means that the religion which was established in the Book of Exodus (before the Book of Exodus the worship of God was not a religion. I don’t want to go into what that means at this point) was polytheistic.  This passage, among many others, makes clear that such was not the case.  While many of those who worshiped God were polytheists, the actual teaching was monotheistic.