Companion: Deep Study
A condensed companion to the full study. For each section of the expanded outline: key insights, applications, and the application questions for discussion.
Section 1 — The Law of the Guilt Offering and the Priests’ Portion (Leviticus 7:1–10)
Key Insights
- The guilt offering (asham) is declared most holy, meaning it is eaten only by priests, only by males of Aaron’s house, and only in a holy place (Leviticus 7:6).
- Its blood is thrown against the sides of the altar rather than placed on the horns, following the pattern of the burnt offering rather than the ordinary sin offering.
- Verses 6–10 turn from ritual to provision: the officiating priest keeps the skin of the burnt offering and the cooked grain offerings, while uncooked grain offerings are shared equally among all Aaron’s sons.
- Calvin reads the arrangement as a spur to diligence — a reward appointed so that the priests would perform their parts more cheerfully, and a proof of God’s fatherly indulgence rather than a bargain.
- Christ is the asham: Isaiah 53:10 makes the Servant’s soul an offering for guilt, so the sacrifice that carries away named trespass is finally a Person.
Applications
- Name your sin specifically, since Israel’s guilt offering was always brought for a particular trespass with restitution attached.
- Fund the ministry you benefit from, because God funds what He commands (1 Corinthians 9:14).
- Do the unnoticed work, remembering that the priest went home with the skin no one thought about.
- A warning: the priest’s portion is a provision, not a permission — paying a minister does not discharge a congregation’s duty of worship.
Application Questions
- Is there a specific trespass against God or a neighbor that I have allowed to stay vague, and what would naming it and making it right actually require of me?
- What am I actually doing, in money and in effort, to sustain the ministry I benefit from every week?
Section 2 — Thanksgiving, Vow, and Freewill: The Peace Offering and Its Table (Leviticus 7:11–21)
Key Insights
- Three kinds of peace offering are distinguished by time: the thanksgiving (todah) must be eaten the same day, while vow (neder) and freewill (nedavah) offerings may be eaten on the next day too.
- Flesh eaten on the third day is piggul — tainted, literally a stench — and the offering is not credited to the one who brought it (Leviticus 7:18).
- Leavened bread appears here, the one place leaven is commanded in an offering, because these loaves went to the priest’s table rather than to the altar.
- The one-day rule forces generosity: a whole ox eaten before sundown requires guests, so Barnes rightly sees the poor invited to share in the thanksgiving.
- Christ is our peace offering, and the fenced table of verses 19–21 becomes the Supper where the cup is a participation in His blood (1 Corinthians 10:16).
Applications
- Give thanks the same day the mercy arrives, out loud and to other people, because gratitude has a shelf life.
- Spend a thanksgiving on a table — feed someone who cannot repay you.
- Pay what you vowed, and set an actual date for doing it.
- A warning: self-examination is not self-exclusion, since the table is fenced against presumption and not against the weak or the recently repentant.
Application Questions
- What mercy has God given me in the last month that I have never actually thanked Him for out loud?
- Is there a vow or a promise I made to God that I have quietly let lapse, and what would paying it look like this week?
Section 3 — The Fat and the Blood Are the LORD’s (Leviticus 7:22–27)
Key Insights
- The audience shifts from priests to the people: this is a law for Israelite kitchens, not only for the sanctuary (Leviticus 7:23).
- The forbidden fat (cheleb) is the specific suet claimed for the altar, and Calvin sees the prohibition as a way of cultivating piety in ordinary homes.
- The blood law reaches “in any of your dwelling places” and carries the sanction of being cut off, because God had reserved blood for atonement (Leviticus 17:11).
- The two prohibitions differ in permanence: the Pulpit Commentary judges the fat law to have been silently abrogated, while the ban on blood was perpetual under the old covenant.
- Christ ends the ordinance by fulfilling it: the blood Israel could not drink is now the cup of the new covenant handed to His people (Luke 22:20).
Applications
- Give God your best hours, best strength, and first income, since the fat law reaches the dinner table and not only the altar.
- Refuse to treat the cross as a technique you deploy; the blood is received, never managed.
- Name where you have grown casual — singing the atonement absently, communing while distracted, using grace to excuse an unrepented sin.
- A crucial warning: do not turn the blood law into a modern dietary rule, and do not dismiss the chapter as obsolete, because the ceremony has ended while the reverence has not.
Application Questions
- Where in my week does God get the leftovers instead of the fat — the best of my attention, money, or strength?
- Have I grown casual about the blood of Christ, and what would recovering reverence look like in my ordinary worship?
Section 4 — The Wave Breast and the Thigh of the Contribution (Leviticus 7:28–36)
Key Insights
- The worshiper must present God’s portion with his own hands, so that a sacrifice ending in a family meal is never treated as catering (Leviticus 7:30).
- The waved breast (tenufah) goes to the priestly body as a whole, while the contributed right thigh (terumah) goes to the priest who actually threw the blood and burned the fat.
- Keil describes the waving as a motion toward the altar and back — the gift presented to God, then handed back by Him to His servants.
- Verse 34 is spoken in the first person: “I have taken… and have given,” making the priests’ food a divine grant rather than a levy on Israel.
- Older interpreters saw Christ our High Priest in the very portions, the breast for wisdom and the shoulder for strength, echoing 1 Corinthians 1:24.
Applications
- Bring your own offering rather than outsourcing your devotion, because attention is part of the gift.
- Hand over the thing you are most anxious about in prayer, naming it as God’s, and then hold it differently.
- Thank by name the people who serve you in holy things.
- A warning: the wave offering is not a technique for getting things back, since God returned what He chose and burned the rest.
Application Questions
- What do I currently hand over to God by proxy that He asks me to bring with my own hands?
- Who has served me faithfully in holy things without being thanked, and what will I do about it this week?
Section 5 — The Colophon That Closes the Sacrificial Manual (Leviticus 7:37–38)
Key Insights
- Verses 37–38 are a colophon, a formal closing that names the six offerings and seals the manual begun at Leviticus 1:1.
- The ordination offering (milluim, “filling the hand”) is listed though instituted in Exodus, making the colophon a bridge into the ordination of chapter 8.
- Calvin draws a doctrine of worship from its completeness: nothing is missing, therefore nothing may be added by human invention.
- The Pulpit Commentary summarizes the whole system as teaching self-surrender, loyalty, atonement, satisfaction, dedication, peace.
- The manual’s very completeness exposes its insufficiency, so that it leaves the reader waiting for the one offering of the body of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:10).
Applications
- Measure your church’s worship by what God has commanded rather than by taste or effectiveness.
- Finish what you begin with God, following the pattern of a book that does not leave instructions half-given.
- Let Leviticus make you want Christ, since a study of ritual that produces no longing has been read backwards.
- A warning: the regulative principle fences the elements of worship, not every circumstance of time, place, and arrangement.
Application Questions
- Do I actually evaluate my church’s worship by what God has commanded, or by what I find moving?
- When I read the Old Testament ceremonial law, does it leave me curious or does it leave me longing for Christ?
The chapter that reserves the blood from Israel’s table ends by pointing to the Priest who is Himself the sacrifice, the host, and the feast, and who now hands His people the cup they once could only watch.
Leave a Reply