Leviticus 9:5 starts out with Moses getting the congregation to draw near to the tabernacle of meeting. This chapter is where things start getting pretty interesting. In verse 6, Moses states that after carrying out God's command of making the sin offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, He will appear before the congregation.
Verse 7 pretty much confirms that Aaron had sinned as Moses was smart enough to find out somehow, and how Moses made his older brother carry out a sin offering to atone for himself and then for the people. This is where I think doctrine could get a little tricky in that maybe some wise guy out there might think he has the power to atone for his own sins and others like Aaron did.
Aaron didn't really have the power to forgive sins or wipe them out because it was basically carrying out God's command to obtain forgiveness of one's sins. The Bible says currently in the New Testament so it applies to today, that to obtain forgiveness of sins, one has to confess his or her sins, repent of that nature when it comes to his or her knowledge, and believe upon Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins on the cross. I think because of Christ being the initiator and finisher of having our sins blotted out from getting forgiveness, it doesn't really fit in how some believers are called upon today to be priests like Aaron was. To go far as to say, it's something spiritual well, it seems to be sketchy. It looks like Jesus is the only needed, ultimate, and perfect priest we can go to for atonement as described in the book of Hebrews.
Verse 8 says that Aaron used a calf for a sin offering which is an interesting choice, considering how the previous chapters started out with saying to use a lamb or a goat. I'm not sure if the calf had to be male or not. However, when the common people did a sin offering, the animal had to be female! Maybe the females actually carried a little more value for livestock in family and God wanted the best. However, in a chauvinistic culture like back then, I'm sure it would be easy to write this off and be like yeah, always go for the males!
It looks like if any animal of a herd was lacking in stock, then God was open to allowing another kind to be used for a sin offering. This goes to show that God isn't very picky and so stringent like some religious people could become. He just gave out a command to be observed, which does seem to be a lot of work! For back then, I wouldn't really want to even unintentionally sin after reading these verses, but I know I wouldn't be able to help it. I am thankful for us living in the New Testament and how Christ fits in the picture for all of us believers. I am grateful but don't want to fall out and become spiritually lazy.
Verses 9-11 describe the usual procedure of the priest using the blood of the sin offering and burning all of the fat. Verse 10 is interesting in that says that the kidneys were also burnt. I thought it was just the fat everywhere, but for some reason, maybe the kidneys were too fatty. From a medical standpoint, the kidneys filter the blood to produce urine. God did command the people of Israel to abstain from eating blood of any living creature, so maybe that's why the kidneys were omitted. Verse 11 talks about how because the blood of the calf was used to make atonement in a sin offering, everything was burned up outside the camp.
For verses 12-15, it gets to the burnt offering. It looks like even though the blood was sprinkled all around the altar, it wasn't used for atonement but from what I remember with the previous chapters, it could be for consecration or maybe, it was just continuing a ceremonial practice. Therefore, Aaron and his sons will get a chance to chow down on the burnt offering afterwards.
Verse 15 talks about how Aaron took a goat for a sin offering. It doesn't say if the goat was a female or not, but most likely, it could be from what the earlier chapters are inferring. From my last post, I was able to find out from Leviticus 4 that when the common people did a sin offering, it had to be female. From Verse 15 as well, it looks like that one goat was good enough for the whole congregation to atone for sins. That seems pretty nice in a way because God didn't require everybody to individually sacrifice their goat.
Verse 17 refers back the grain offering. The priest is supposed to burn a handful of grain that was mixed with frankincense and oil and then burn it. The rest becomes the priest's share. This was talked about in the previous chapters. Maybe the grain offering would probably be the most common and accessible to do later on, with the people getting some fertile land to live off of (the promised land). What's even more nice is that God stated that the grain offering was the most holy offering, and I think could be used for a sin offering. It said something about the person could do a grain offering to atone for unintentional sins, but it probably stretches far to coming to the knowledge of the sin.
Verse 18 talks about a bull and ram was used for a peace offering and that was enough to cover for the people! That's pretty awesome in that it looks like God didn't keep a tab on the maximum number of people that would be accounted for sacrificing a livestock. I just noticed for the peace offering, even though the people could have offered female livestock, God specifically wanted males for the peace offering. A bull and a ram are pretty much the male form of a cow and goat respectively.
Verse 20 talks about a weird procedure I haven't read about yet, but it says placing fat on the breast of a bull or the ram and then burning the fat on the altar. It then goes on to the wave offering in verse 21, which is confusing me. Aaron would take the breasts and right thigh and then wave it; I don't really know the significance too well but I think I said from earlier that maybe, it was the intent of publicly acknowledging an obedient heart with the Lord. Secondly, I said that it looked like this was done before burning it in the altar. Maybe the breasts and right thigh (possible symbol to Jacob's thigh getting touched up by God after their wrestling match) were the best part of the livestock and so this was like an offering to the Lord before the priests got to chow down on it.
Looks like I'm out of time to blog for today, so I will have to leave the grand finale for tomorrow, Sunday, or Monday. I might be off to take a short vacation and won't have that much access to a computer. I'll be taking my laptop along, so I don't know maybe I'll put something up on this blog tomorrow, if I'm not feeling lazy with it being the weekend and away from doing my normal routine.
Who knows, if I cut it out I might not be writing about the Bible for awhile again and go back to my regular posts that don't really gather that much attention anyway. It's funny in that from not going in depth with Leviticus in the past, I was really bored about reading this book. From me, just diving into it all of a sudden for a challenge, I feel a whole lot happier for some reason and content about fearing the Lord's goodness and wanting to obey God more willfully while having a less tortured heart.
