The first half of Leviticus “has hardly inspired lay readers.” So says Tamar Kamionkowski on the first page of her 2018 volume on Leviticus in Liturgical Press’s Wisdom Commentary Series. As a priest, I recognize that my inspiration from reading Leviticus 1–16 cannot dislodge Kamionkowski’s claim. But I think any reader of (the Spirit-breathed Book of) Leviticus can find it a source of inspiration if one knows what to do with it. This essay is a brief, orienting word on how to approach the book for inspiration, followed by my readings of two sets of ritual instructions at 1:1–9 and 7:12–18.
How Leviticus works
To begin, it may help to know what Leviticus is not: it’s not a professional instruction manual for priests. Leviticus wasn’t read by Israelite priests in premodern seminary. It was, however, read by children in premodern schools.
The purpose of Leviticus is to offer the people of God, the people he liberated from the House of Egypt, a new, liturgical metaphysics. This is how the Jews thought every generation should understand itself: “In every generation a person must see himself as if he has [just] come out of Egypt” (Mishnah Pesachim 10.5).
The Book of Leviticus offers an orientation to time (how to keep a Sabbath-shaped calendar of commemorations), to space (how to be a neighbor now that you own property), to ritual (how to keep holy things clean), and to vocation (how to be a royal priesthood).
Even the first seven chapters, dedicated to a detailed description of the five genera of offerings, are more of a theological meditation than a manual. Leviticus is more likely to make sense to us, and to inspire us, when we approach it through a relevant, theological question.
Here, then, are theological readings of two texts commonly dismissed as uninspiring: the institution of the whole burnt offering at 1:1–9 and the additional comments on peace (sh’lamim) offerings at 7:12–18. I will ask “What is worship?” and “What do priests do?”
Priests help people offer themselves to God.
Leviticus 1:1–9 describes what is often called the “whole burnt offering.” But to catch its deeper liturgical vision, it helps to keep three things in mind.
In Hebrew, the words bring (qarab) and offering (qorban) in verse 2 share a root: those three consonants we transliterate as q–r–b. The former means “to bring near” and the latter, its substantive form, means “that which is brought near.” A different translation of the book’s opening line might say, “When any man brings near a near-bringing to the Lord …” The book begins in the same spirit as St. James’s charge: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (4:8, ESV).
The word ‘olah at verse 3, often rendered “whole burnt offering” in English translations, derives from the Hebrew verb ‘alah, which means “to cause to ascend.” Although the common English translation focuses on the material and ritual aspect of the offering — something burning — the Hebrew word focuses on the direction and the meaning — ‘olah is simply “that which goes up.”
The second thing to keep in mind is the ritual, or liturgical, dynamic between the initiating worshiper (adam, v. 2) and the priest, who doesn’t appear until verse 5. Leviticus begins with any person’s intention to draw near, or to go up, to the Lord. That person brings his offering to the door, lays his hand on its head, and slaughters it himself (vv. 2–4). The priest then receives the slaughtered body, presents the blood, cuts it into pieces, builds a fire, arranges the offered parts of the body, and makes the offering (vv. 5–9).
The third thing to keep in mind is the figure this liturgical dynamic evokes. When the Lord “drove out the humans” from the garden, he placed at its borders cherubim holding “a sword flaming” (Gen. 3:24). To return to Eden, the garden atop the mountain of God, an adam would be met at the gate by an angel, by the angel’s sword, and by the angel’s fire. When the Book of Leviticus introduces the priest at 1:5, it introduces him as a cherubic figure, stationed at the door of the tent of meeting, guarding sacred space, and applying both his sword and his fire to the bodies that had been put to death.
What does this passage have to say about worship for the Christian?
As spiritual children of Israel, there are analogous steps to draw near and ascend to God. We bring ourselves near the door (v. 3). We put ourselves to death through the waters of baptism and by daily taking up our crosses (vv. 4–5). We subject our baptized bodies to the Lord’s ministers, who carry the sword that is the Word of God and the consuming fire that is the Holy Spirit, allowing them to help us offer ourselves to God (vv. 6–9).
This should be the first text we remember when we imagine what it means to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship” (Rom. 12:1). And in Christ we are acceptable.
In this light, what is the ministry of the Christian priest? The people initiate worship by bringing their offering; the priest simply initiates the ritual aspect of their worship. And in Christ, the offering of their lives is found acceptable. The people pursue nearness to God; the priest simply enacts it. The people bring their bodies and put themselves to death; the priest arranges their offering on the altar. When I read Leviticus 1:1–9, I think of presiding at the Eucharist, opening the word in preaching, hearing confessions, offering spiritual direction, anointing the sick. All of it. And as our offering is found in Christ, we draw near to God, who has drawn near to us first.
Helping people give thanks for God’s deliverance.
Leviticus 1–7 introduces the five categories of offerings (1:1–6:7) and then revisits each of them to offer explanatory notes (6:8–7:21) before offering some words of summary (7:22–38). While each of the five categories could be considered inspiring, the peace offering may be the most immediately relevant. Two things stand out in the texts on the peace offering. One, the meat of the peace offering may be eaten by any Israelite. Two, the peace offerings lay outside the expiatory system — they had nothing to do with addressing guilt or sin. For this reason, the rabbis developed a tradition, paraphrased here by Jacob Milgrom, about one particular species of offering called the thanksgiving offering: “In the world to come all sacrifices will be annulled, but thanksgiving will not be annulled.”
In its explanatory notes on the peace offering, the text adds some instructions (7:12–18). First, one is supposed to make two kinds of bread for people to eat (vv. 12–14). Second, one isn’t allowed to keep or eat the leftovers (v. 15). Third, there are two other kinds of peace offerings, the vow offering and the freewill offering, and those leftovers are okay for two days. Why this restrictive leftover law for thanksgiving offerings?
To understand the leftover law, it helps to trace the thanksgiving offering throughout the Old Testament (and, if you can recognize it there, into the New).
The thanksgiving offering was always offered in response to a concrete act of deliverance by the Lord. Over time, the basic structure of the thanksgiving offering was adorned with three other ritual elements: the worshiper would prostrate himself (Ps. 138:2); his friends and acquaintances would gather around him (Ps. 22:26); and, rising and taking a sacred goblet in his hands, he would tell his testimony and sing a song of thanksgiving in their presence (Ps. 116:13). Israel’s early liturgical manuals corroborate this reconstruction.
In Deuteronomy, Moses encouraged Israel to share the meat from offerings such as these with “your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your town, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you” (Deut. 16:11). Just as the gleanings of the fields are supposed to be left for the poor (Lev. 19:9–10), so were the leftovers of the thanksgiving meal.
The thanksgiving offering is the one the Lord says he prefers at Psalm 50:14, presumably because it’s a faithful and generous response to his grace and not simply a daily ritual.
It’s the one Jesus says he will offer when God delivers him from death, if we take Jesus to be the speaker of Psalm 22:22–31, which there is reason to believe we should.
The force of the thanksgiving offering tradition is why the father of the prodigal son said he “had to” slaughter the fatted calf, and the leftover laws suggest to us that he fed around 600 people that night (Luke 15:11–32).
The leftover law is the reason the king sent his servants out “into the main streets” to invite “everyone you find … both good and bad,” when his original guests were too busy to attend his son’s wedding (Matt. 22:1–14).
The thanksgiving offering, both its legal institution in Leviticus 7:12–18 and the laws and traditions that gave it shape over time, pressured Israelites into lives of giving personal testimony, gathering inclusive community, and offering edible charity. It’s also one of the traditions that made Israel a “royal priesthood” (Ex. 19:6). This was a sacrificial rite in which lay Israelites were meant to take not only an initiatory role, but also a leading one.
What do priests do? Israel’s priests would (or at least should) have encouraged these offerings, attended and offered them, and taught the people how to become a community shaped by this particular form of thanksgiving.
Perhaps the reason Leviticus “has hardly inspired lay readers” is that there are fewer lay readers of Leviticus than Kamionkowski thinks. As we each have been adopted into the family of God in the waters of baptism, wrapped in Christ himself, we “share in the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ.” Therefore, every baptized believer is called to help people draw near to God and to celebrate his concrete acts of deliverance in our lives and in the lives of others.
The Rev. Jack Franicevich serves at Church of the Good Samaritan, Paoli, PA. He is the author of Sunday: Keeping Christian Time (Athanasius Press, 2023)