Leviticus: offerings, and God's appearence  

An immediate and central observation about Leviticus is that it would be an utterly useless document without the book that came before it, Exodus. That's funny because my first observation about Exodus was that it needed Genesis to make sense. These three (so far) books are definitely all one cohesive story.

Leviticus takes place at Sinai, where Moses first met God, and where the Israelites eventually camped out, making a commitment and covenant in their relationship with God, getting the list of God's laws, turning away quickly, being forgiven, and building the tabernacle so that God can dwell among them. And now God is telling Moses more instructions.

Synopsis

The LORD gives Moses all kinds of instructions about making offerings to God at the tabernacle. The priests, the leaders, the community as a whole, and individuals all get their own specific set of exact instructions for how to make offerings. Also, these various groups are given very specific instructions on different kinds of offerings: grain offerings, fellowship offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, etc.

(An "offering" seems to be a cultural gift/worship for God in which an animal or grain is burnt up on an alter as to God.)

A few things stand out to me among the MANY details as I read these various specific instructions:
1. In each situation the person doing the offering does their part while the priest also does his part.
2. When done right, the offering makes an aroma that is pleasing to the LORD.
3. It is important that the Israelites don't eat fat or blood, and don't cook break with yeast.
4. The sacrifices must be very high quality animals / crops.
5. The sacrifices constitute as repayment to God for various wrongdoings the Israelites commit, including accidental sins. It seems the wrongdoings would be defined as breaking the law that God gives which is listed in Exodus.
6. It's important to follow the instructions to a tee.

So after all these instructions are given, Moses does exactly as God says, following orders to the tee in order to initiate / consecrate Aaron and his sons into the priesthood. They are told to stay in the tent for seven days. On the eighth day, the whole Israelite community gathers 'round, and Aaron does the first offering of each of the types, doing them exactly right, in order that God may appear before them.

And then an amazing thing happens: God does appear! The glory of The LORD appears and a fire comes out from him and consumes the offering. The crowd goes wild, cheering and falling on their faces in amazement and worship! It's awesome!!

Then two of Aaron's sons don't follow the directions and add fire and incense when they shouldn't have. God's fire burns them up. Moses tells their families to mourn them, and clarifies some of the instructions.

Response

These descriptions of sacrifices definitely seem foreign and in my opinion is the first spot where the Bible could truly seem "boring." However these details matter as demonstrated by Moses' sons death at the end of the section. The points that I numbered above are some of the points that are repeated over and over again.

However foreign it seems, however, that is not an excuse to miss the larger points being made: As God's people, Israel must serve God exactly on his terms and constantly using the offerings to atone for their breaking of God's laws. When this is done, it is quite awesome as God shows up at the end of the section.

Of course the story with Aaron's sons dying is difficult for me to read, as it seems like they shouldn't have to die for something like that. As I have said many times in this blog, I'm going to continue to let those thoughts stir and soak up more of the message of the Torah before I confront that more directly.

But here is one point that is clear from this story: Above things like family or life and death, it is the highest priority to obey God.