Leviticus Lessons: Offerings III

Good Morning Fam,

I pray that all of you are doing well as we prepare for the greatest eating day on earth tomorrow! *LOL*  I guess that is not the true meaning of Thanksgiving, but pretty much, it has become a day focused on eating (other than the fact that it is the day before the best day of the entire year for businesses, but that is another story).  Any who, we left off yesterday talking about the Burnt Offering and today we will move next into the Meat Offering.

The Meat Offering is described in the Chapter 2 of Leviticus and I think is one of those tricky ones.  It is also called the Grain or Cereal Offering in other translations.  If you read from the King James Version (KJV) and if you are not paying attention, you can read straight through it and miss the whole context.  When I first saw it, I thought to myself that meat must be chicken, lamb, etc, however, if one pays close attention, you'll find the key in the first verse:

"When someone brings a grain offering to the LORD, his offering is to be of fine flour. He is to pour oil on it, put incense on it" (Lev. 1)

It says the offering is to be of "fine flour", but wait a minute.  In the KJV, it said meat.  Is it meat or is it flour.  For that answer we have to go back to the Hebrew translation of meat-offering.  In Hebrew, meat-offering is translated as the word "minhah".  This meant "originally a gift of any kind"¹.  Thus this offering became one of a gift for God "as a result of the inner moving of a worshipper’s heart"². 

Another thing that one should notice is that all meat offerings were to be unleavened or made without yeast.

"(11) Every grain offering you bring to the LORD must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in an offering made to the LORD by fire. (12) You may bring them to the LORD as an offering of the firstfruits, but they are not to be offered on the altar as a pleasing aroma." (Lev. 2:11-12)

I have never really understood the meaning of unleavened bread, but I knew it was one that didn't rise.  You find it everywhere throughout the Bible, but no one ever really explained why not the use of yeast.  Well, unleavened bread was eaten at Passover which the "a Jewish and Samaritan holy day and festival commemorating the Hebrews' escape from enslavement in Egypt."³  It is also called the Festival of Unleavened Bread.  "The Bible tells us that unleavened bread was eaten with bitter herbs, as a reminder to the Israelites of the bitter
years they spent in bondage to the Egyptians."⁴  (Also, see Exodus 1:14; 12:8; 29:2, Deuteronomy 16:3, Numbers 9:11).

Putting this all together, we find that the meat offering served duel purposes.  It was first a gift to God and secondly, it was a reminder to the giver of how God brought them out of bondage.  Truly, the Lord has a way of bringing things back to our remembrance and we should never forget all that He has, is doing, and will do for all of us.

Be blessed gang and have a Happy Hump Day and Thanksgiving!

~Antoine


¹ "Meat-offering".  Bible Encyclopedia 
² The Sacrificial Offerings of Leviticus chapters 1-7.
³ "Passover".  Wikipedia.  November 22, 2009.
⁴ "KJV Bible Verse List : Purpose Of Unleavened Bread".  ENDTIME PROPHECY ORG.  July 25, 2006.