Leviticus 1:1

And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(1) And the Lord called . . . and spake.—Rather, And he called unto Moses, and the Lord spake, &c. (See Leviticus 8:15.) At the end of the previous book we are told that when the tent of meeting was completed, the Lord showed His approbation of it by covering the outside of the edifice with a heaven-sent cloud, and by filling the inside with His glory (Exodus 40:34-38). He therefore, who had filled the sanctuary with his glory now “called unto Moses,” thus indicating by “And he called,” which are one word in the original, the intimate connection between the two books. The ancient Jewish synagogue already pointed out the fact that this unusual phrase, “And he called unto Moses,” is used as an introductory formula on the three different occasions when the Lord made a special communication to this great law-giver. Thus when the Lord first communicated to Moses that He was about to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, “He called unto him” from the burning bush (Exodus 3:4). When the Lord was about to give to Moses the Ten Commandments for the people of Israel, “He called unto him” from the top of Sinai (Exodus 19:3; Exodus 19:20); and now when the Lord is about to give to His chosen people, through His servant Moses, the laws by which their Divine worship is to be regulated, “He called unto him” from the tent of meeting (Leviticus 1:1).

MacLaren's Expositions

Leviticus

THE BURNT OFFERING A PICTURE AND A PROPHECY

Leviticus 1:1 - Leviticus 1:9.

In considering the Jewish sacrificial system, it is important to distinguish the symbolical from the typical value of the sacrifices. The former could scarcely be quite unnoticed by the offerers; but the latter was only gradually made plain, was probably never very generally seen, and is a great deal clearer to us, in the light of Christ, the Antitype, than it could ever have been before His coming. As symbols, the sacrifices expressed great eternal truths as to spiritual worship and communion, its hindrances, requisites, manner, and blessings. They were God’s picture-book for these children in religious development. As types, they shadowed the work of Jesus Christ and its results.

The value of the sacrifices in either aspect is independent of modern questions as to their Mosaic origin; for at whatever period the Priest’s Code was promulgated, it equally bears witness to the ruling ideas of the offerings, and, in any case, it was long before Christ came, and therefore its prophecy of Him is as supernatural, whether Moses or Ezra were its author. I make this remark, not as implying that the new theory is not revolutionary, but simply as absolving a student of the religious significance of the sacrificial system from entering here on questions of date.

The ‘burnt offering’ stands first in Leviticus for several reasons. It was derived from patriarchal times; it was offered twice daily, besides frequently on other occasions; and in its significance it expressed the complete consecration which should be the habitual state of the true worshipper. Its name literally means ‘that which ascends,’ and refers, no doubt, to the ascent of the transformed substance of the sacrifice in fire and smoke, as to God. The central idea of this sacrifice, then, as gathered from its name and confirmed by its manner, is that of the yielding of the whole being in self-surrender, and borne up by the flame of intense consecration to God. Very beautiful is the variety of material which was permitted. The poor man’s pair of pigeons went up with as sweet an odour as the rich man’s young bull. God delights in the consecration to Him of ourselves and our powers, no matter whether they be great or small, if only the consecration be thorough, and the whole being be wrapped in the transforming blaze.

It is worth while to try to realise the strange and to our eyes repulsive spectacle of the burnt offering, which is veiled from us by its sacred associations. The worshipper leads up his animal by some rude halter, and possibly resisting, to the front of the Tabernacle, the courts of which he dared not tread, but which was to him the dwelling-place of God. There by the altar he stands, and, first pressing his hand with force on the victim’s head, he then, with one swift cut, kills it, and as the warm blood spouts from the mangled throat, the attendant priest catches it in a basin, and, standing at the two diagonally opposite corners of the altar in turn, dashes, with one dexterous twist, half of the contents against each, so as to wet two sides of the altar with one throw, and the other two with the other. The offerer then flays the reeking carcase, tossing the gory hide to the priest as his perquisite, and cuts up the sacrifice according to a fixed method. His part of the work is done, and he stands by with bloody hands while the priests arrange the pieces on the pile on the altar; and soon the odour of burning flesh and the thick smoke hanging over the altar tell that the rite is complete. What a scene it must have been when, as on some great occasions, hundreds of burnt offerings were offered in succession! The place and the attendants would look to us liker shambles and butchers than God’s house and worshippers.

Now, if we inquire into the significance of the offering, it turns on two points-expiation and burning. The former it has in common with other bloody sacrifices, though it presents features of its own, even in regard to expiation. But the latter is peculiar to it, and must therefore be taken to be its special teaching. The stages in the whole process are five: the presentation, laying on of hands, slaughter, sprinkling of blood, and burning of the whole carcase. The first three are alike in this and other sacrifices, the fourth is modified here, and the last is found here only. Each has its lesson. The offerer has himself to bring the animal to the door of the Tabernacle, that he may show his willing surrender of a valuable thing. As he stands there with his offering, his thoughts would pass into the inner shrine, where God dwelt; and he would, if he were a true worshipper, feel that while God, on His part, already dwelt in the midst of the people, he, on the other hand, can only enter into the enjoyment of His presence by sacrifice. The offering was to be ‘a male without blemish’; for bodily defect symbolising moral flaw could not be tolerated in the offerings to a holy God, who requires purity, and will not be put off with less than a man’s best, be it ox or pigeon. ‘The torn and the lame and the sick,’ which Malachi charged his generation with bringing, are neither worthy of God to receive nor of us to offer. When he pressed his hand on the head of the sacrifice, what was the worshipper meant to think? In all other instances where hands are laid on, some transference or communication of gifts or qualities is implied; and it is natural to suppose that the same meaning attaches to the act here, with such modifications as the case requires. We find that it was done in other bloody sacrifices, accompanied with confession. Nothing is said of confession here; but we cannot dismiss the idea that the offerer laid his sins on the victim by that striking act, especially as the very next clause says ‘it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.’ The atonement was made, as we shall see, by the application of the blood to the altar; but the possibility of the victim’s blood atoning for the offerer depended on his having laid his hands on its head. We may perhaps go farther than ‘transference of sins.’ Might we not widen the expression, and say ‘identification,’ or, to use a word which has become so worn by religious controversy that it slips through our fingers unnoticed, ‘substitution’? Did not the offerer say in effect, by that act, ‘This is I? This animal life shall die, as I ought to die. It shall go up as a sweet savour to Jehovah, as my being should.’

The animal invested with this representative character is next to be slain by the offerer, not by the priest, who only performed that part of the ritual in the case of national or public sacrifices. That was distinctly a vicarious death; and, as inflicted by the hand of the person represented by the animal, he thereby acknowledged that its death was the wages of his sin, and allowed the justice of his condemnation, while he presented this innocent life-innocent because not that of a moral being-as his substitute. So far the worshipper’s part goes. But now, when the act of expiation is to be symbolically represented, and, so far as outward sacrifice could, is to be accomplished, another actor appears. The priest comes forward as mediator between God and man, and applies the blood to the altar. The difference between the sprinkling of the blood, in the burnt offerings and in the other sacrifices, which had expiation for their principal object, in some of which it was smeared on the horns of the altar, and, in the most solemn of all, was carried into the holiest place, and sprinkled on the mercy-seat, suggests that the essential character of the burnt offering was not expiatory, though expiation was the foundation on which alone the essential character could be reared. The application of the blood was the formal act by which atonement was made. The word rendered ‘to make atonement’ means ‘to cover’; and the idea conveyed is that the blood, which is the life of the sacrifice, covers the sins of the offerer, so as to make them powerless to dam back the love or to precipitate the wrath of God.

With this act the expiatory portion of the ritual ends, and we may here pause to look back for a moment on it as a whole. We have pointed out the double bearings of the Mosaic ritual as symbolical and as typical or prophetic. In the former aspect, the emphatic teaching of this rite is that ‘the wages of sin is death,’ that ‘without shedding of blood there is no remission,’ that God has appointed sacrifice as the means of entering into fellowship with Him, and that substitution and vicarious penalty are facts in His government. We may like or dislike these thoughts; we may call them gross, barbarous, immoral, and the like, but, at all events, we ought not to deny that they are ingrained in the Mosaic sacrificial system, which becomes unmeaning elaboration of empty and often repulsive ceremonies, if they are not recognised as its very centre. Of course, the meaning of the sacrifices was hidden from many a worshipper. They became opaque instead of transparent, and hid the great truth which they were meant to reveal. All forms labour under that disadvantage; but that they were significant in design, and largely so to devout hearts in effect, admits of no reasonable doubt. That which they signified was chiefly the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of innocent life, which stood in the place of the guilty. Of course, too, their benefit was symbolical, and the blood of bulls and goats could never put away sin; but, under the shelter of the outward forms, a more spiritual insight gradually grew up, such as breathes in many a psalm, and such as, we cannot doubt, filled the heart of many a worshipper, as he stood by the bleeding sacrifice on which his own hands had laid the burden that had weighed so heavy on himself. How far the prophetic aspect of the sacrifices was discerned, is a more difficult question. But this at least we know-that the highest level of evangelical prophecy, in Isaiah’s wonderful fifty-third chapter, is reached from this vantage-ground. It is the flower of which these ordinances are the root. We need not enlarge upon the prophetic aspect of the sacrifice. The mere negative sinlessness of the victim points to the ‘Lamb without blemish and without spot,’ on whom, as Isaiah says, in language dyed through and through with sacrificial references, ‘the Lord hath made to meet the iniquity of us all,’ and who Himself makes ‘His soul an offering for sin.’ The modern tendency to bring down the sacrificial system to a late date surely sins against the sacred and all-explaining law of evolution, in the name of which it is attempted, inasmuch as it is an unheard-of thing for the earlier stages of a religion to be less clogged with ceremonial than the later. Psalmist and prophet first, and priest afterwards, is not the order of development.

The remaining part of the ritual was, as we have pointed out, peculiar to the burnt offering. In it alone the whole of the sacrifice was consumed on the altar, with the exceptions of the skin, which was given to the priest, and of the contents of the intestines. Hence it was sometimes called ‘a whole burnt offering.’ The meaning of this provision may be apprehended if we note that the word rendered ‘burn,’ in Leviticus 1:9, is not that which simply implies destruction by fire, but is a peculiar word, reserved for sacrificial burnings, and meaning ‘to cause to ascend in smoke or vapour.’ The gross flesh was, as it were, refined into vapour and odour, and went up to God as ‘a sweet savour.’ It expressed, therefore, the transformation of the sinful human nature of the worshipper, by the refining power of the fire of God, into something more ethereal and kindred with the heaven to which it rose. Or, to put the thought in plainer words, on the basis of expiation, the glad surrender of the whole being is possible and will ensue; and when a man yields himself in joyful self-surrender to the God who has forgiven his sins, then the fire of the divine Spirit is shed abroad in his heart, and kindles a flame which lays hold on all the gross, earthly elements of his being, and changes them into fire, kindred with itself, which aspires, in ruddy tongues of upward-leaping light, to the God to whom the heart has been surrendered, and to whom the whole being tends.

This is the purpose of expiation; this is the summit of all religion. One man has realised to the full, in his life, what the burnt offering taught as the goal for all worshippers. Jesus has lived in the constant exercise of perfect self-surrender, and in the constant unmeasured possession of ‘the Spirit of burning,’ with which He has come to baptize us all. If we look to Him as our expiation, we should also find in Him the power to yield ourselves ‘living sacrifices,’ and draw from Him the sacred and refining fire, which shall transform our grossness into His likeness, and make even us ‘acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ.’

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 1:1. And the Lord called unto Moses — The particle and shows that the beginning of this book is closely connected with the conclusion of the former; and therefore it is probable that this order was given to Moses immediately after the consecration of the tabernacle; that now, when all things were ready for divine service, he drew nigh to the oracle of God, to receive the following instructions about its ministrations and sacrifices.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1,2 The offering of sacrifices was an ordinance of true religion, from the fall of man unto the coming of Christ. But till the Israelites were in the wilderness, no very particular regulations seem to have been appointed. The general design of these laws is plain. The sacrifices typified Christ; they also shadowed out the believer's duty, character, privilege, and communion with God. There is scarcely any thing spoken of the Lord Jesus in Scripture which has not also a reference to his people. This book begins with the laws concerning sacrifices; the most ancient were the burnt-offerings, about which God here gives Moses directions. It is taken for granted that the people would be willing to bring offerings to the Lord. The very light of nature directs man, some way or other, to do honour to his Maker, as his Lord. Immediately after the fall, sacrifices were ordained.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Lord - In the Hebrew text of Leviticus, Jehovah יהוה yehovâh is the name by which God is usually called. Where אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym occurs, it is generally with a possessive pronoun, so as to designate Him as the God of the chosen people (Leviticus 2:13; Leviticus 11:45; Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 19:12, Leviticus 19:14, Leviticus 19:32, etc.).

The tabernacle of the congregation - Rather, the tent of meeting. See Exodus 22:21 note. When Jehovah (Yahweh) was about to give His people the Law of the Ten Commandments Exodus 19:3 He called to Moses from the top of Mount Sinai in thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud. When He was now about to give them the laws by which their formal acts of worship were to be regulated, He called to Moses out of the tabernacle which had just been constructed at the foot of the mountain. Exodus 25:22.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED LEVITICUS. Commentary by Robert Jamieson

CHAPTER 1

Le 1:1-17. Burnt Offerings of the Herd.

1. the Lord … spake … out of the tabernacle—The laws that are contained in the previous record were delivered either to the people publicly from Sinai, or to Moses privately, on the summit of that mountain; but on the completion of the tabernacle, the remainder of the law was announced to the Hebrew leader by an audible voice from the divine glory, which surmounted the mercy seat.God commands Moses concerning free-will burnt.offerings of bullock or sheep; male without blemish, Lev 1:1-3. The offerer to lay his hand on the head of the offering, that it might be accepted for him, Lev 1:4. The bullock to be slain, and its blood sprinkled on the altar, Lev 1:5. Its parts to be consumed by fire, Lev 1:7-9. Of sheep or goats, Lev 1:10-13. Of fowls, as turtledoves and young pigeons; their blood to be wrung out at the side of the altar, Lev 1:14-17

Moses stood without, Exo 40:35, waiting for God's call.

Out of the tabernacle of the congregation; from the mercyseat in the tabernacle.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the Lord called unto Moses,.... Or "met him", as the phrase is rendered in Numbers 23:4. The word translated "called", the last letter of it is written in a very small character, to show, as the Jews (b) say, that he met him accidentally, and unawares to Moses: other mysteries they observe in it, as that it respects the modesty of Moses, who lessened himself, and got out of the way, that he might not have the government laid upon him, and therefore the Lord called him; or to denote the wonderful condescension of the Lord, whose throne is in heaven, and yet vouchsafed to dwell in the tabernacle, out of which he called to Moses, and from Mount Sinai, and out of the cloud (c). The word "Lord" is not in this clause, but the following, from whence it is supplied by our translators, as it is in the Syriac version, and as the word "God" is in the Arabic version; the two Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it,"the Word of the Lord called to Moses,''by an articulate voice, though it may be it was a still small one; and which some think is the reason of the smallness of the letter before mentioned; and Aben Ezra says that Moses heard it, but all Israel did not hear:

and spoke unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation; from off the mercy seat, between the cherubim over the ark, where the glory of the Lord, or the divine Shechinah and Majesty took up its residence, and from whence the Lord promised to commune with Moses, Exodus 25:22,

saying; what follows concerning sacrifices; which shows, that these were not human inventions, but of divine institution, and by the appointment of God.

(b) Vid. Buxtorf. Tiberias, c. 15. p. 39. (c) R. Abraham Seba, Tzeror Hammor, fol. 92. 1. 2.

Geneva Study Bible

And the {a} LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,

The Argument - As God daily by most singular benefits declared himself mindful of his Church: he did not want them to have opportunity to trust either in themselves, or to depend on others, either for lack of physical things, or anything that belonged to his divine service and religion. Therefore he ordained various kinds of duties and sacrifices, to assure them of forgiveness for their offences (if they offered them in true faith and obedience.) Also he appointed the priests and levites, their apparel, offices, conversation and portion; he showed what feasts they should observe, and when. Moreover, he declares by these sacrifices and ceremonies that the reward of sin is death, and that without the blood of Christ the innocent Lamb, there can be no forgiveness of sins. Because they should not give priority to their own inventions (which God detested, as appears by the terrible example of Nadab and Abihu) he prescribed even to the least things, what they should do, what beasts they should offer and eat, what diseases were contagious and to be avoided, how they should purge all types of filthiness and pollution, whose company they should flee, what marriages were lawful, and what customs were profitable. After declaring these things, he promised favour and blessing to those who keep his laws, and threatened his curse to those who transgressed them.

(a) By this Moses declares that he taught nothing to the people but that which he received from God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1. And the Lord called] The tabernacle had been reared up, and the cloud had covered it (Exodus 40:17-34); Moses, who was not able to enter into the tent of meeting (Exodus 40:35), remains without, and receives the first ordinances issued from within the tent. The verse connects these ordinances about sacrifice (chs. 1–7) with Exodus 40:35, and the erection of the tabernacle.

out of the tent of meeting] The place from which God issues His commands is more exactly described (Exodus 25:22; Numbers 7:89) as ‘from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim.’ The tent (‘tabernacle’ A.V.) is called the ‘tent of meeting’ (Heb. ’Ohel Mô‘çd) because it is the appointed place of meeting where the Lord meets Moses (Exodus 25:22; Exodus 30:6; Exodus 30:36), and the children of Israel (Exodus 29:43). The account of the tent of meeting in Exodus 33:7-11 (E), though different in some points from that of P, describes it as the place where the Lord meets Moses (‘the pillar of cloud descended, and stood at the door (opening) of the Tent: and the Lord spake with Moses’). See Driver’s notes on Exodus 27:21, and on the passages here quoted, and Intr. to Pent. pp. 84 f. The translation of A.V. tabernacle of the congregation renders mô‘çd (‘appointed meeting place’) as if it were ‘çdâh (congregation), and suggests that the tabernacle was the place where the children of Israel assembled. But they were not allowed to come near it (Numbers 17:13); only priests and Levites were permitted to draw nigh.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 1. - And the LORD called unto Moses. The first word of the verse, in the original Vayikra, meaning "and called," has been taken as the designation of the book in the Hebrew Bible. The title Leviticon, or Leviticus, was first adopted by the LXX., to indicate that it had for its main subject the duties and functions appertaining to the chief house of the priestly tribe of Levi. The word "and" connects the third with the second book of the Pentateuch. God is spoken of in this and in the next book almost exclusively under the appellation of "the LORD" or "Jehovah," the word "Elohim" being, however, used sufficiently often to identify the two names. Cf. Leviticus 2:13, 19:12. And spake unto him. The manner in which God ordinarily communicated with a prophet was by "a vision" or "in a dream;" but this was not the case with Moses; "My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house; with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently" (Numbers 12:8). The Levitical code of laws, therefore, was delivered to Moses in his ordinary mental state, not in trance, or dream, or ecstasy. Out of the tabernacle of the congregation. The tabernacle had just been set up by Moses (Exodus 40:16). It derives its name of the congregation, or rather of meeting, from being the place where God met the representatives of his people (see Numbers 16:42). Hitherto God had spoken from the mount, now he speaks from the mercy-seat of the ark in the tabernacle. He had symbolically drawn near to his people, and the sacrificial system is now instituted as the means by which they should draw nigh to him. All the laws in the Book of Leviticus, and in the first ten chapters of the Book of Numbers, were given during the fifty days which intervened between the setting up of the tabernacle (Exodus 40:17) and the departure of the children of Israel from the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai (Numbers 10:11). Leviticus 1:1

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Burnt-Offering. - Leviticus 1:2. "If any one of you present an offering to Jehovah of cattle, ye shall present your offering from the herd and from the flock." קרבּן (Corban, from הקריב to cause to draw near, to bring near, or present, an offering) is applied not only to the sacrifices, which were burned either in whole or in part upon the altar (Leviticus 7:38; Numbers 18:9; Numbers 28:2, etc.), but to the first-fruits (Leviticus 2:12), and dedicatory offerings, which were presented to the Lord for His sanctuary and His service without being laid upon the altar (Numbers 7:3, Numbers 7:10., Numbers 31:50). The word is only used in Leviticus and Numbers, and two passages in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:28; Ezekiel 40:43), where it is taken from the books of Moses, and is invariably rendered δῶρον in the lxx (cf. Mark 7:11 "Corban, that is to say a gift"). הבּהמה מן (from the cattle) belongs to the first clause, though it is separated from it by the Athnach; and the apodosis begins with הבּקר מן (from the herd). The actual antithesis to "the cattle" is "the fowl" in Leviticus 1:14; though grammatically the latter is connected with Leviticus 1:10, rather than Leviticus 1:2. The fowls (pigeons) cannot be included in the behemah, for this is used to denote, not domesticated animals generally, but the larger domesticated quadrupeds, or tame cattle (cf. Genesis 1:25).