Interwoven within Leviticus’ opening offerings is a redemptive storyline meant to be rehearsed. Each offering makes a particular contribution to the retelling of the Exodus deliverance. Like learning a dance, Israel’s opening rituals recount their steps from Egypt to Sinai in a fashion meant to perpetually imprint its experience on minds and hearts. As such, the first three offerings look back in order to look forward. As Communion and Baptism are mainstays of the Christian faith, so these offerings were meant to encircle God’s people, giving parameters in which to live, move, and have their being.

My hope in this article is to consider the depth and richness of Leviticus’ first three offerings, seeing in particular their cohesive, symbolic summary, or recapitulation, of Israel’s journey from Egypt to Sinai. In seeking to demonstrate this point, my argument will trace as follows: 1) Leviticus is seamlessly connected to what came before in Genesis and Exodus, despite its apparent literary divergence; 2) The first three offerings are meant to be seen as a cohesive whole, united in thought around the Exodus event; 3) Each offering captures a significant feature of the Exodus journey, codifying it in ritual form in order to rehearse its lessons into hearts.

First, while Leviticus’ literary divergence into ritualistic genre may seem disruptive to the Torah’s narrative flow begun in Genesis and Exodus, numerous elements demonstrate its retained interest in perpetuating the Torah’s storyline. It’s opening chapters give an overwhelming nod to what came before:

• Exodus culminates with the Tabernacle being set up and God’s glory having descended, yet Moses is presented as unable to enter. In turn, Leviticus opens with the Lord calling Moses from inside the Tent—demonstrating cohesion to Exodus’ storyline. What couldn’t happen in Exodus is about to happen in Leviticus.
• While Adam was prohibited from reentering Eden by sword and fire, Leviticus features both elements guarding the Tabernacle House—though now wielded by the priests versus cherubim. In this sense, these items have turned favorable toward the worshipper, being manipulated to grant entrance through sacrifice, advancing Genesis’ storyline.¹
• As Adam and Eve were clothed as beasts upon exiting Eden, so Leviticus recaptures this image, representing the worshipper symbolically in beastly garb as he approaches God’s House.
• Like Genesis presents a meal as the context in which schism erupted between God and Man, Leviticus features a meal where that schism is mended, restored and renewed.
• Leviticus’ sacrificial animals don’t suddenly appear in its rituals but are first featured in Abram’s covenantal ceremony in Genesis 15 (if not Cain and Abel), demonstrating cohesion between the books.

These congruences demonstrate Leviticus’ steadied commitment to perpetuate the Torah’s storyline begun in earlier books.

Second, the first three offerings are uniquely tied together, illustrating their unified importance in imprinting Exodus’ truth upon the collective imagination of Israel’s mind and hearts.² Their cohesion is an intentional effort to represent a multifaceted event, in a singular way:

• These three offerings are the first mentioned, being part of a single speech—opening with “The Lord called Moses,” a phrase not again repeated until 4:1;
• Each offering carries the commonality of presenting “a pleasing aroma to the Lord” (1:9, 13, 17; 2:9, 12; 3:5);
• The Ascension, Tribute, and Peace Offering (in form of Jacob’s vow) are not just the first offerings of Leviticus, but the first offerings referred to in the Torah, establishing their unique prominence among peers.³

The previous observations demonstrate the unified nature of these offerings, creating for Israel a fixed point upon which to set their gaze. Like what’s known as the “Cathedral Group” within Wyoming’s Teton Range, these three offerings uniquely tower above the rest, capturing the worshipper’s attention. In this way, the Exodus event was meant to be a mental “stone’s throw” away within Israel’s memory from generation to generation.

Third, these offerings symbolically illustrate different aspects of Israel’s journey from Egypt to Sinai. Drawing intimate attention to certain aspects of what took place, these offerings would map Exodus’ salvific experience in perpetuity upon Israel’s life and faith.

• The Ascension (Burnt) Offering features numerous elements commemorating the Egypt-to-Sinai journey in macro fashion, specifically illustrating Passover, the Red Sea crossing, and the Sinai experience.⁴ A male beast is specified in the Ascension like a male lamb is specified in the Passover (Exodus 12:5). Blood is applied to the Altar similarly to Israel applying blood to their doorframes. Each bloodied spectacle creates a throughway of transformation. As the beast of the Ascension approaches the Altar and exits as smoke, so Israel’s passageway through the bloodied doorway transforms them from captive to free, dead to alive, slave to son—transformation being afoot in each application. Further, Israel passing through the Red Sea is reminiscent of the beast’s internals being washed with water. Lastly, as Israel is brought to a fiery Sinai, the Ascension is placed atop a stony, fiery altar—each entering Yahweh’s flame. In summary, the Ascension symbolically illustrates, in macro-fashion, the Exodus experience from Passover to the Red Sea to Sinai.

• The Tribute (Grain) Offering prioritizes Israel’s wilderness journey from the Red Sea to Sinai—most particularly highlighting nearness to Yahweh’s transformative flame. First, the Tribute’s attention to grain solidifies an association between Israel and bread—first created in Israel gathering a bread-like substance, called manna (see Exodus 16:13–36).  In addition, Israel gathered this manna in close proximity to the pillar of cloud and fire, and  regularly cooked the manna in at least two of the ways directly offered in the Tribute. As such, the Tribute focuses great attention on the manner in which the grain is cooked (16:23). The Offering combines a bread-like substance in close proximity to a flame which suggests a portrayal of Israel’s experience of gathering manna in close proximity to the pillar of cloud and fire. Their movement toward His flame is illustrated in the different cooking methods offered—each option growing increasingly closer to the flame’s heat.⁵ The trajectory toward Yahweh’s flame in the Tribute, culminates with fresh grain roasted directly within the flame, mirroring Moses’ presence within Yahweh’s flame atop Sinai. This imagery climaxes, ultimately, with them being presented as cooked “loaves of bread” within the Holy Place (Leviticus 24:5–6). In this sense, the Tribute Offering succinctly commemorates the sanctifying wilderness experience—tracking Israel’s nearness to Yahweh’s flame, until they actually enter it via Moses upon Sinai. Yahweh’s flame is the fire Israel was ultimately meant to enter.⁶ The end result of the Exodus experience from journeying near the pillar of fire to being moved directly into Yahweh’s flame is symbolically imaged by the Tribute Offering, culminating in Israel’s presentation as twelve loaves within His tent—illuminated by the light of the Lampstand’s flames (see Numbers 8:1–2).

• The Peace Offering features voluntarily chosen fellowship between God and Man wherein a meal is shared, with the very best portions being offered exclusively to God. This third offering conspicuously resembles Exodus’ narrative where Israel offers their finest metals and materials to God in order to prepare a Tent where the two parties might enjoy fellowship. Additionally, the Peace Offering, like that which was offered from Egypt’s plunder, was voluntarily given (see Exodus 35:4–29). This commonality adds an additional tie which binds Exodus’ Tabernacle-building experience to the Levitical ritual: the best, voluntarily offered, serves to foster fellowship between God and Man. In this sense, the Peace Offering’s contribution to Israel’s mind and heart is this: in continually seeking Him first, via offering of their best, He would gladly dine with them.⁷

In summary, these Cathedral Offerings were to be continual reenactments of the Exodus experience, tracing a path forward for Israel—by retracing steps of the past. Like Communion, a perpetual replaying was meant to inform Israel of their identity and purpose.

Integral aspects of Israel’s identity are at play in these three offerings. The Ascension captures their identity as creatures drawn up out of Egypt into Yahweh’s high and fiery presence. The Grain offers a zoomed-in perspective on the actual entering of that purifying and transformative flame—from the nearness of the wilderness pillar to Sinai’s summit. The Peace recounts Israel’s voluntary best going to God to establish His precincts. Like the beast’s fat fostering fellowship, so Israel’s finest established His Tent. If Israel would retain their heavenly identity and presence within His purifying and transformative flame, esteeming Him highest and best, they would become the lens through which the World would enjoy His glory.

My hope has been to demonstrate the profound place these “Cathedral Offerings” were meant to occupy in the vista of Israel’s landscape—having sprung from the valley of their salvific experience. As such, rightly commemorating these recollections would redeem their futures, as He redeemed their past—offering hope to the World.

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Ben Lovelady (M.A., MTS) serves as a pastor in northwestern Illinois, where he and his wife live with their six children.

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NOTES

1. I’m grateful for this thought shared by Peter Leithart in personal dialogue.  ↩︎
2. Jeremiah 17:26 features them as such: “And people shall come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the Shephelah, from the hill country, and from the Negeb, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and bringing thank offerings to the house of the Lord” (ESV). ↩︎
3. Ascension/Burnt: Genesis 8:22; 22:2, 3, 6–8, 13. Tribute/Grain: Genesis 4:3. Peace/Thanks/Vow: Gen 28:20; 31:13). ↩︎
4. I’m grateful for these observations from Alastair Roberts in Leviticus: Biblical Reflections. ↩︎
5. Flour uncooked (no flame), to flour baked (radiated heat of flame), to flour on griddle (close to flame, but separated), to flour likely fried in pan (as though in flame), to flour roasted (in the flame). I’m grateful for this observation from Peter Leithart in a Theopolis Workshop on Leviticus. ↩︎
6. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 88. ↩︎
7. Additionally, this offering, as it was to be placed upon the Ascension Offering, also likely looks back to the Sinai experience where an Ascension Offering was sacrificed at the base of Sinai before the Elders ventured up to dine with God. I’m grateful for this observation of Mary Douglass, being referenced by Alastair Roberts in his Leviticus: Biblical Reflections (Theopolis App). ↩︎