Hold the Yeast, Extra Salt

Leviticus 2

In case you're not an animal lover, or a lover of animal slaughtering- God also gives instruction for grain saccrifices.

First off, the offering is to be of flour with oil and incense added. The offerer takes it to the priest who burns it as a "memorial portion". The priest burns a handful of it and can keep the rest for Aaron and his sons.

If the grain offering is baked in an oven, it still must be of fine flour- but can take the form of "cakes made without yeast and mixed with oil, or wafers made without yeast and spread with oil." If it's made on a griddle, it's got to be flour mixed with oil without yeast. The offerer should crumble it and pur oil on it. If it's made in a pan it should still be fine flour mixed with oil.

In all of these instances, a portion is burned and Aaron and Sons get the rest.

The theme seems to be no yeast- in fact no yeast or honey is to be part of any burnt offering. They can be brought as an offering, but not burned. They are also instructed that the offerings are to be seasoned with salt. They are told: "Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings..."

If the offering is a grain offering of firstfruits, they are to"offer crushed heads of new grain roasted in the fire" with oil and incense added in. The priest will burn the memorial portion.

The best I can tell, there are two kinds of offerings being made here- since the last section distinguishes between regular grain offerings and offerings of firstfruits. I'm not sure if one is atonement for sin and the other is more like a tithe- or what. I tend to doubt it since no blood is involved and that seems to be a central element for sin atonement. If anyone has any insight, I'm all ears.

What I find interesting here is the specification God makes regarding the different sacrifices. It's almost like going to dinner with Sally- if I can't get Thousand Island on the side, than I'll have French dressing, but only if it's made here, if it's not I'll just have the soup of the day, but then only if...

My point is that it seems like God really knows what He likes, and the sacrifices aren't just something made up to give the Israelites some hoops to jump through. He wants these specific things done at least in part because, He likes the way they smell. He's not a fan of honey, He likes salt (although it seems as if this may be a metaphorical reminder of something I'm missisng). But He gets joy from the outcome.

If you want to please Me, give Me what I like. I think it could be easy to take a legalistic message away from this chapter. God has spelled it out pretty specifically for them. But maybe the key is that in this context, detail matters. I like my double cheeseburgers plain and dry- and I'm sure to order them that way, because if a pickle was anywhere near it, I'm not touching it. God cares about these aromas, He wants to enjoy them- so He spells it out. If He didn't care, He wouldn't offer such detail.

It's also interesting that even though He doesn't want any yeast, He's okay with it being offered as long as it isn't burned. He doesn't impose these preferences on His followers. If Aaron's family wants to eat yeast (at least from these offering)s, that's cool- just don't burn them with My stuff.

It's an obvious but important conclusion that our sacrifices aren't simply ways of passing a test. Not just hoops to jump through- but ways of accomplishing things that bring God joy. Ways of creating what's described in this chapter multiple times as "an aroma pleasing to the LORD."