Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 1-4.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

When reading this, part of me wants to say, “Why not just say for many of these offerings, ‘Do it just like the last one, except this time with a different type of animal…and this time make these small changes.’?”  However, having written training manuals for many jobs, I fully understand that too many people would not read the instructions for the other types of sacrifice, or not read them closely enough, and pretend that they understood what to do anyway.

Next I want to comment on the existence of both a ritual burnt offering and a sin offering.  At first glance one would say that the burnt offering is a voluntary offering that one made at any time, while the sin offering was required to be given when one realized that one had sinned.  There is some truth in that, and if I did not read this passage every year, I would settle for that.  However, I noticed that it says this about the burnt offering, “and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”  The definition of atonement is “Amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong; expiation.”  So, the burnt offering is offered as amends to God for our failure to keep His commands and to express devotion to God.  I think the purpose of the sin offering was to remind us of our specific failings.

Finally, I want to comment on the grain offerings.  In particular the inclusion of frankincense in those which were not already prepared in some way.  The first few times I read through this passage, the frankincense threw me off, because the largest portion of the grain offering went to the priests for food for them, but frankincense in the grain would most likely make it taste bad.  However, what I missed was that ALL of the frankincense was supposed to be part of the portion which was burned on the altar.  Therefore the purpose of the frankincense was to provide a good scent from the altar as the grain is burned.

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