Leviticus 2:1-16 ESV “When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it 2 and bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests. And he shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and oil, with all of its frankincense, and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD. 3 But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the LORD’s food offerings. 4 “When you bring a grain offering baked in the oven as an offering, it shall be unleavened loaves of fine flour mixed with oil or unleavened wafers smeared with oil. 5 And if your offering is a grain offering baked on a griddle, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mixed with oil. 6 You shall break it in pieces and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering. 7 And if your offering is a grain offering cooked in a pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil. 8 And you shall bring the grain offering that is made of these things to the LORD, and when it is presented to the priest, he shall bring it to the altar. 9 And the priest shall take from the grain offering its memorial portion and burn this on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD. 10 But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the LORD’s food offerings. 11 “No grain offering that you bring to the LORD shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the LORD. 12 As an offering of firstfruits you may bring them to the LORD, but they shall not be offered on the altar for a pleasing aroma. 13 You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. 14 “If you offer a grain offering of firstfruits to the LORD, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits fresh ears, roasted with fire, crushed new grain. 15 And you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it; it is a grain offering. 16 And the priest shall burn as its memorial portion some of the crushed grain and some of the oil with all of its frankincense; it is a food offering to the LORD.
Genesis 1:29 ERV God said, “I am giving you all the grain bearing plants and all the fruit trees. These trees make fruit with seeds in it. This grain and fruit will be your food.”
Grain offering
It was a voluntary offering, an act of worship and thanksgiving. No blood involved.
The Israelites were not living in Egypt, where grain was common, nor have they arrived in Canaan at this point, where they would grow grain. So grain would have been a valuable commodity. Perhaps it was grain that was brought from Egypt with them to use as seed once they got to the Promised Land? God didn’t ask them to sacrifice His provided Manna, but grain. Indeed, while they were wandering in the Wilderness, new grain would have had to be imported to them as it was grown somewhere else or it was the grain they had brought with them from Egypt to use as seed. Either way, it was valuable to them and indicated their reliance and dependence on God for their needs. Later, in their new land, they would have planted and harvested it and given of their first harvest, their First Fruits. Offering the First Fruits of their harvest is recognizing God’s faithfulness in his covenant with Israel – faithfulness that had been demonstrated by bringing them into the promised land and blessing them with agricultural produce. The oil and frankincense also would have been valuable commodities to the wanderers.
Minchah, is the Hebrew term for the grain offering.
“When ancient Israelites offered up their grain on the altar, they were thanking the Lord for His mercies and for supplying their needs. According to the instructions in Leviticus 2, either raw grain or grain that had been made into cakes could be given to God (vv. 1–10)… Offering such things symbolized the need to dedicate every aspect of their daily lives to the Creator, including the labor by which they coaxed the grain from the ground. Like the other offerings, the grain sacrificed to the Lord had to be pure. No leaven or honey could be added to the cereals that were offered (v. 11), probably because decomposition occurs in the leavening process and therefore makes the grain evidence of the decay of sin.” – Ligonier.org (grain offering)
Isaiah 66:20 ESV And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.
Grain offering
Uncooked:
Offerer must bring it in a “clean vessel”.
Shall be of fine flour.
Offerer pours oil on it and puts frankincense on it.
Offerer brings to the priests.
Priest takes a handful of fine flour and oil with all of it’s frankincense and burns this on the altar.
The rest of the offering is for the priests.
Baked in oven:
Offerer must bring it in a “clean vessel”.
Unleavened loaves of fine flour mixed with oil or smeared with oil.
No leavening. No honey. Seasoned with salt. Frankincense.
Offerer presents it to the priest.
Priest shall bring to the altar and take the memorial portion and burn it on the altar.
The rest of the grain offering is given to the priests.
Cooked on Griddle:
Offerer must bring it in a “clean vessel”.
Fine flour unleavened mixed with oil.
Break into pieces, oil poured over it.
No leavening. No honey. Seasoned with salt. Frankincense.
Offerer presents it to the priest.
Priest shall bring to the altar and take the memorial portion and burn it on the altar.
The rest of the grain offering is given to the priests.
Cooked in a pan:
Offerer must bring it in a “clean vessel”.
Fine flour with oil.
No leavening. No honey. Seasoned with salt. Frankincense.
Offerer presents it to the priest.
Priest shall bring to the altar and take the memorial portion and burn it on the altar.
The rest of the grain offering is given to the priests.
Firstfruits Offering of Grain:
Offerer brings roasted heads of grain, crushed, from the first harvest.
Offerer pours oil and frankincense on it.
Priest burns part of crushed grain, oil and frankincense as a memorial offering.
Grain offerings would often be presented after a burnt offering, which was an animal sacrifice God required for the atonement of sin. When the grain offering accompanied a sin offering, its significance was slightly different. It spoke then of the individual’s dedication of himself and all that he had to the Lord who had cleansed him and forgiven his sin.
Grain = hard work
Oil = joy
Frankincense = prayer
Salt = eternal Covenant
No leavening (yeast) or honey.
Fine Flour – The Hebrews sowed only wheat, barley, and spelt. “An ancient wheat (Triticum spelta synonym T. aestivum spelta) cultivated since approximately 5000 BC with long spikelets containing two light red flattened grains. The grain of spelt is also called farro. A primitive species (Triticum spelta) of wheat with grains that do not thresh free of the chaff: now seldom cultivated. It is a wheat species known from genetic evidence to have originated as a naturally occurring hybrid of a domesticated tetraploid wheat such as emmer wheat and the wild goat-grass Aegilops tauschii. This hybridisation must have taken place in the Near East, because this is where Aegilops tauschii grows, and it must have taken place before the appearance of common or bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, a hexaploid, free-threshing derivative of spelt) in the archaeological record about 8,000 years ago.” – Wikipedia
No specific amount of grain was required for an offering; people were free to give what they had. If given raw, the offering required the choice, inner kernel of sifted wheat – the semolina. Semolina was nearly twice as expensive as barley flour and of much higher quality than common wheat flour.
Leaven is associated with corruption and sin. “A little leaven leavens the whole loaf.” The fermentation process caused by leaven was seen as a source of decay, corruption or death.
Honey was probably fruit honey versus bee honey as fruit honey involved a fermentation process.
Salt – A “covenant of salt” is found only elsewhere in the Bible in Numbers 18:19 and 2 Chronicles 13:5. Salt spoke not only of purity, but even more importantly, of longevity and preservation. Salt has preserving power in the food it is added to.
Frankincense – a pleasing aroma and fragrance but also a cleansing agent.
“The various contexts in which the grain offering was given can be divided into two main categories: independent and supplemental. The primary ritual instructions for the independent grain offering are found in Leviticus 2, while Numbers 15, 28, and 29 specify the bulk of the supplemental grain offerings. Within each of these categories, three sub-categories help to clarify the context: spontaneous, conditional, and scheduled. The raw and cooked grain offerings described in Leviticus 2, except for the mandatory offering of first-fruits in verses 14-16, were given in an independent and spontaneous context. In this way, an Israelite man or woman would voluntarily give a portion of their wheat harvest from the land that God had given them. Grain offerings were also given on an independent and conditional basis. Two examples of this context are found in the graduated purification offering, which was required only when certain unintentional sins were brought to remembrance, and in the ritual testing of a suspected adulteress in Numbers 5. Finally, independent grain offerings were also scheduled according to the agricultural seasons. This is the case for the offering of new grain at the Feast of Weeks as well as for the offering of first-fruits. The first-fruits offering is described in Leviticus 2:14-16, Leviticus 23:9-14, and Deuteronomy 26:1-11. Another first-fruits type offering is described in Numbers 15:17-21 where an offering of the first loaf of bread made from the first batch of dough was required. Sakenfeld suggests that this modification to the first-fruits offering allowed those living in the city or outside the farms to participate.
“In addition to its independent context, the grain offering was also given as a supplement in a wide variety of contexts. In every case, the grain offering supplements an animal burnt offering. Two offerings illustrate the supplemental, spontaneous context. First, the well-being offering of Leviticus 3 and 7 was given voluntarily and required three types of unleavened bread – loaves, cakes, and wafers – along with leavened bread loaves. Second, a raw grain offering also supplemented the freewill offering defined in Numbers 15. The grain offerings were also presented in a large number of conditional contexts. These included the priestly ordination service, the ceremony marking the end of a Nazirite vow, the Levite cleansing ritual, the leper cleansing ritual, and the atonement sacrifice for the unintentional sin of a congregation. The supplemental grain offering was also specified in various scheduled contexts: the daily sacrifices of the high priest in Exodus 29 and Leviticus 6 and the daily, Sabbatical, and monthly sacrifices of the general public in Numbers 28. The various feasts and festival days set forth in Numbers 28 and 29, which are also found in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16, also included supplemental grain offerings.
“Three ceremonial features of the grain offering need to be addressed. First, the Leviticus 2 text, along with other references in Leviticus and Numbers, mentions the burning of a “token portion” of the grain offering, which has caused much disagreement among Biblical scholars. A second key ceremonial feature is the grain offering’s role as an essential economic and ritualistic provision for the priests and Levites. The final ceremonial feature to be discussed is the claim that the grain offering also functioned as a ritualistic provision for the poor.
“In Leviticus 2:2, 9, and 16, the priest receiving an independent grain offering is instructed to remove and burn its ’azkārāṯāh on the altar. This instruction was repeated in Leviticus 6:15. Practically, the ’azkārāṯāh represented a handful of the offering’s contents. If the grain offering was, all of its required frankincense was included in the ’azkārāṯāh. However, much debate has surrounded the meaning of this word. Milgrom translates it as the “token portion.” He associates ’azkārāṯāh with zēker, meaning “remembrance,” and claims, on his belief that the whole offering was burnt in times past, that this portion is a “token” representative of the whole – calling the worshipper to remember that all of the offering should actually be consumed. Ross suggests that, while the concept of a “token” portion may be a key element in its understanding, the definition of ’azkārāṯāh as a “memorial” should not be thrown out entirely. As a “memorial,” it reminded the worshippers to live according to the covenant – “as if all they had truly came from the Lord” – and it reminded God to honor His blessings for those who kept His covenant.
“In addition to the independent offerings in Leviticus 2, the ’azkārāṯāh is also burnt when an offering of semolina is used as the poor person’s purification offering in Leviticus 5 and when the barley flour offering is given during the suspected adulteress ritual of Numbers 5. A final reference to a related word, lə’azkārāh, is found in Leviticus 24:7 and refers only to the frankincense that is placed on top of the bread of the presence in the most holy, inner sanctum of the tabernacle. Whatever its exact meaning and purpose, Willis suggests that the text reveals the importance of this practice by characterizing it as an “offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord.”
“Interestingly, the Numbers 15 account of freewill offerings and the Numbers 28 account of scheduled offerings do not mention the burning of the supplemental grain offering’s token portion. In fact, these texts fail to provide any detail about the fate of the grain offering after it is presented to the priest. Milgrom assumes that the entire grain offering is burnt on the altar along with the animal offering it accompanies. However, Numbers 18:9 seems to indicate that all grain offerings belonged to the priests and were to be “reserved from the fire.” This debate introduces the second ceremonial feature of the grain offering that will now be addressed: what is the grain offering’s role as an economic and ritualistic provision for the priests and Levites?
“The Leviticus 2 account of the grain offering clearly states that only a token portion of the grain offering – both raw and cooked – should be burnt and that the rest “shall be for Aaron and his sons.” Milgrom is quick to observe that none of the other offering rituals in Leviticus 1-5 mention priestly distribution. He explains that extra clarity was needed for the grain offering since it was usually burnt entirely. More specifics are provided in Leviticus 7:9-10 where a differentiation is made between how raw and cooked offerings are divided: all cooked grain offerings belong to the priest who is officiating at the sacrifice, and the raw offerings were to be shared amongst all the priests and their male family members. Since the Leviticus 2 text assigns both raw and cooked offerings to “Aaron and his sons,” there seems to be a contradiction with these specific instructions. However, no contradiction exists because Leviticus 2 is addressed to the lay person who does not need to know these priestly details; they need to know only that the offering belongs to the priests. The distinction is made for a practical purpose: a raw grain offering could easily be stored in a central location where all the priests could share, but a cooked offering was better if eaten the same day. Milgrom sees this distinction of priestly provision arising from the historical development of numerous local sanctuaries, each of which being administered by a single priest, into the single, centralized Temple, which housed a large number of priests. This distinction is not made in the provisional rules specified by Numbers 18, which state that all grain offerings belong to Aaron and his sons. Since one of the main concerns of the Numbers 18 text is the general support and compensation of the priests and Levites, it does not need to concern itself with the specifics of distribution. The important issue is that the priests’ and Levites’ daily need for food is provided for by the offerings of the people since they are not given their own allotment of land.
“In addition to being dependent on the people for their material well-being, the priests and Levites were also dependent on the people for carrying out their own ritual duties. The ordination of priests and cleansing of Levites for service in the tabernacle required both a supplemental grain offering of semolina and loaves of bread. Further, the high priest’s daily offering also consisted of grain. Where did all of this grain come from? Numbers 7 records a list of offerings brought to the Tabernacle by the chiefs of Israel’s twelve tribes beginning on the day Moses completed the Tabernacle consecration. These large offerings included significant amounts of grain that served as a deposit for the priestly supply. These supplies would be continually replenished as the people brought their daily, Sabbatical, monthly, festal, and voluntary offerings. The priests and Levites were totally dependent on these offerings to fulfill both their daily needs and their ritualistic roles.
“The final ceremonial aspect of the grain offering to be discussed is the claim by some that it functioned as a ritualistic provision for the poor. Many ancient voices have supported the idea that the grain offering of Leviticus 2 served as the poor person’s surrogate for a burnt offering. In this way, the poor were given an opportunity to participate in a ritual system that relied heavily on the ownership of animals. Among the supporters of this idea, rabbinic tradition holds the grain offering as equal to all others according to the example of the graduated purification offering found in Leviticus 5, where the text is clear that a poor person could present an offering of semolina if an animal could not be afforded. Philo, a Jewish philosopher from the time of Christ, reasoned that since God does not rejoice in sacrifices but in ‘the will to love Him and in men that practice holiness,” the grain offering should be regarded the same as more expensive offerings. Finally, evidence from ancient Mesopotamian religious practice reveals the grain offering as the definitive offering of the poor.'” – Love2Justice.wordpress.org (The Grain Offering and the Holiness of Work)
A memorial part of the Grain Offering was burnt on the altar but the rest was given to the priests. Only the priests could eat of it . This indicates that the offering was acceptable to God and reassured the Offerer that his offering had been accepted by God. It also made provision of food for the priests.
Leviticus 6:19-23 ERV The LORD said to Moses, 20 “This is the offering that Aaron and his sons must bring to the LORD when Aaron is anointed to be the high priest. They must bring 8 cups of fine flour for a grain offering. This will be offered at the times of the daily offering—half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening. 21 The fine flour must be mixed with oil and baked on a pan. After it is cooked, you must bring it in, break it into pieces, and offer it as a sweet-smelling gift to LORD. 22 “In the future, when Aaron’s descendants take their place as the anointed priests, they will continue to make this grain offering to the Lord. This rule will continue forever. The grain offering must be completely burned for the LORD. 23 Every grain offering that a priest gives must be completely burned. It must not be eaten.”
Priests were sinful, and needed forgiveness. The priest himself needed reconciliation before he could devote himself to the Lord; before he could consecrate himself to the Lord; before he could dedicate himself to the Lord’s service, he needed reconciliation. He needed to lift up an offering to the Lord. But Jesus, as our High Priest, was sinless!
Hebrews 7:26-28 ERV So Jesus is the kind of high priest we need. He is holy. He has no sin in him. He is pure and not influenced by sinners. And he is raised above the heavens. 27 He is not like those other priests. They had to offer sacrifices every day, first for their own sins, and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus doesn’t need to do that. He offered only one sacrifice for all time. He offered himself. 28 The law chooses high priests who are men and have the same weaknesses that all people have. But after the law, God spoke the oath that made his Son high priest. And that Son, made perfect through suffering, will serve forever.
John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
We have the real Mediator, of whom the priests were only shadows, types.
John 12:23-24 ERV Jesus said to them, “The time has come for the Son of Man to receive his glory. 24 It is a fact that a grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die before it can grow and produce much more wheat. If it never dies, it will never be more than a single seed.”
The fine flour represents Christ’s humanity and yet sinlessness. The grain offering prefigured the perfect life of Christ lived in obedience to the Father. The fine flour in the offering may speak of His life of perfect, intimate fellowship with the Father. He never experienced sin. His life was a sweet fragrance mixed with the oil of the Holy Spirit, in a perfect life.
Christ is to those who are saved, a sweet fragrance of eternal life, however, to the lost He is the stench of death and eternal punishment. There is nothing so sweet, pure and wonderful as the sweet smell of Jesus in our lives.
How can we offer a “Grain Offering”? By offering our praise and worship with a heart of gratitude and a heart cleansed by the forgiveness of Jesus. If we are in relationship with Jesus and have His forgiveness, then we can take our sacrificial offering of praise and worship before the throne of God and it is acceptable to God as a pleasing aroma and fragrance. Our prayers are acceptable because of the work of Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we repent and ask forgiveness and are cleansed by His precious blood! Then our praise, worship and prayers are pleasing to Him. It begins with the love and work of God and we respond, then we offer up our offering of praise and He accepts. What a beautiful cycle of love!
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