Leviticus 1:9

The Hebrew name for the burnt offering, ʻôlâh, means “that which goes up”, and it is named for the smoke that rose from the altar as the animal burned. With the other offerings a share of the meat went back to the worshipper or to the priests, but the burnt offering went up entire, apart from its hide. That is why it stands for complete dedication to God, with everything given to him, and verse 4 adds that it made atonement for the one who brought it.

It is the first of the offerings set out in Leviticus 1–7. God gave these laws after he had brought Israel out of Egypt and made his covenant with them at Sinai (Exodus 19), once the tabernacle had been built to his design (Exodus 25–40). With the LORD now dwelling among his people, he speaks to Moses from the tent itself (Leviticus 1:1–2) and tells them how they are to come near.

Leviticus 1 gives the burnt offering three times over, according to what the worshipper could bring: from the herd in these verses, from the flock (Leviticus 1:10–13) and from the birds (Leviticus 1:14–17). The bullock was the costliest of the three, the offering of someone who could afford it. Israel also offered a burnt offering every morning and evening for the whole nation, the daily offering at which God promised to meet with his people and dwell among them (Exodus 29:38–46).

The nations round about offered animals to their gods too. Israel’s offerings belonged to the one true God, followed his own commands for every step, and answered a covenant he had already made when he redeemed them from slavery. They were his way of keeping fellowship with a people he had already saved.

Before the animal dies, the man who brought it puts his hand on its head, and he does this himself. The word for hand, yâd, is the open hand, and the verb rendered “put”, çâmak, means to prop, to lean upon or to take hold of. So he leans his hand on the animal’s head. By this he owns it as his offering and identifies himself with it, so that it stands in his place before God. The death that follows is the death his sin deserves, and the animal bears that burden for him. Scripture uses the laying on of hands for passing something from one person to another, as when Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph (Genesis 48:14) and when Moses gave his authority to Joshua (Numbers 27:23). Here it marks identification and substitution.

“And it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” The power of the offering lay in God’s acceptance of it, which he had promised in this very command. The verb kâphar, “to make atonement”, means to cover, to expiate or to reconcile. The man’s sin is covered and purged, the barrier between the holy God and the sinner is taken away, and he is reconciled to God and may draw near again. Atonement is God’s own initiative and his gracious provision. It also shows how seriously he takes sin, since the remedy costs a life. The same concern for atonement reaches its height on the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for the whole nation (Leviticus 16).

“He shall kill the bullock before the LORD.” The verb shâchaṭ means to slaughter, and here it is slaughter in sacrifice. The worshipper does it with his own hands, in God’s presence at the tabernacle, owning that the death is for his sin. A bullock is a young bull, a large and costly animal.

Then the priests, “Aaron’s sons”, take over. They bring the blood and “sprinkle” it round about on the altar. The verb zâraq means to scatter, sprinkle or toss, usually a substance thrown by hand, and here the blood goes against the altar on every side. Blood, dâm, is at the centre of the sacrifices because God says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:11). The blood is the animal’s life, given up in place of the worshipper’s. The letter to the Hebrews sums up the law’s teaching: “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). Paul speaks of Christ, “whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25).

The altar is the one “that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation”, the bronze altar of burnt offering in the outer court, which Moses set before the door of the tabernacle (Exodus 40:6). Because it stood at the entrance, every approach to the God who dwelt within began at the place of sacrifice.

The same man then skins the animal and cuts it up. To “flay”, pâshaṭ, means to strip or put off, here to strip away the hide. To “cut”, nâthach, means to dismember, divide or cut in pieces. This is ordinary butchery, done so that the priests can lay the parts in order on the wood. The hide stays off the altar, because the priest who offers a man’s burnt offering keeps the skin for himself (Leviticus 7:8). With the hide off, the whole carcass lay open, so that any hidden blemish could be seen, and piece by piece the whole animal was made ready for God.

Meanwhile the priests prepare the altar. “The sons of Aaron the priest” are his male descendants, and bên, “son”, marks the priesthood as an office handed down in Aaron’s family. God chose Aaron and his sons for it, clothed them for the work (Exodus 28) and consecrated them (Leviticus 8), and he gave them charge of the sanctuary and the altar (Numbers 18:1–7). They “put fire upon the altar”, and the word for fire is ʼêsh. Then they “lay the wood in order upon the fire.” “In order” translates ʻârak, to set in a row, arrange or prepare, so the wood is laid with care. Everything about the tabernacle followed the pattern God showed Moses (Exodus 25:8–9), down to the way the wood lay on the fire.

On that wood the priests lay “the parts, the head, and the fat.” The parts, nêthach, are the pieces cut in verse 6. The fat, peder, is the suet, the fat inside the animal, counted the richest part. Abel brought “of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof” (Genesis 4:4), and God later says that all the fat is the LORD’s and forbids Israel to eat it (Leviticus 3:16–17). Proverbs carries the same thought into the whole of life: “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase” (Proverbs 3:9). In the burnt offering the best goes to God along with everything else.

Two parts are washed before they go up: “his inwards and his legs.” The qereb is the inward part, the middle or centre, here the animal’s internal organs. The verb râchats means to wash or bathe, the whole or a part of a thing, usually with water. These parts are washed so that what goes on the altar is clean. Scripture asks the same cleanness of the one who comes to God: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3–4). David prays, “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6). So the washed inwards and legs make a fitting picture of what God desires in us, a clean heart and a clean walk.

Then “the priest shall burn all on the altar.” Everything is given, apart from the hide that went to the priest. The verse names the offering three ways. It is “a burnt sacrifice”, the ʻôlâh again, the offering that goes up. It is “an offering made by fire”, the fire God appointed to carry it up to him. And it is “of a sweet savour unto the LORD.”

Every step of these verses points ahead to Jesus Christ. John the Baptist said of him, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He is the true offering without blemish, sinless in his inward life and his outward conduct, for he “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), and “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14).

He came willingly, as the burnt offering was brought. “I came down from heaven,” he said, “to do... the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). In Gethsemane he prayed, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), and he “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

The worshipper’s hand on the head of his offering finds its answer in Christ bearing our sins. Isaiah says, “the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4–6). Peter says that he “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), and Paul writes, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). By faith we take hold of him as our substitute, and in him God “hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).

The blood on the altar points to his blood. “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12), and Hebrews sets his offering far above the blood of animals (Hebrews 9:11–14). His is “the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24). When he died, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom” (Matthew 27:51), and now we have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way”, so that we may “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19–22). That access belongs to the new covenant he brought in by his blood (Hebrews 8:6–13).

The priests who tended the fire point to our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14), through whom we come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:14–16). He “needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27), and he lives for ever to intercede for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:23–28). The burnt offering was made again every day, and Hebrews says plainly why: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:1–4). By contrast, “we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10), “for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10–14).

Most clearly of all, Paul uses the words of verse 9 for the cross: “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Ephesians 5:2). God delighted fully in his Son’s offering, and so, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

The burnt offering shows us who God is. He is holy, and he sets the terms on which sinners may come near to him. He is also gracious, because he gives the way himself: he appoints the place, the offering and the priest, and then accepts the offering and delights in it. Every animal that went up in smoke at the tabernacle door looked ahead to the one offering that fully pleased him.

Now that Christ has offered himself once for all, the animal sacrifices have done their work. What remains is the response Paul draws from the mercies of God, that we “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). Peter calls believers a holy priesthood, offering “spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). The burnt offering gives that life its shape: the best brought willingly, the whole of it given to God, and all of it accepted because of the sacrifice God himself provided. Our acceptance rests entirely on Christ’s finished work, and in him our worship and service rise to God as a sweet savour.