“The P’lishtim summoned the priests and soothsayers and asked them, ‘What are we to do with the ark of Adonai? Tell us how to send it back where it belongs.’ They said, ‘If you do send off the ark of the God of Israel, don’t send it back empty, but return it with some sort of guilt offering for him. Then you will be cured, and you will learn why he has not stopped oppressing you.'”-1 Samuel 6:2-3
So I finished off yesterday’s post by stating how the advice the priests and diviners gave the Philistine leadership concerning how to return the Ark to Israel uncannily resembled what’s prescribed in Torah.
The big point the religious leaders of Philistia drove home was they just couldn’t return God’s footstool without some kind of accompanying gift…
Something that expressed honor and repentance for having offended an angry God.
But what should that thing be?
The Hebrew word used here for that kind of gift is ASHAM.
Now if you were with me when we went through the book of Leviticus, that word should be familiar to you.
Recall there were five basic Levitical sacrifices as follows:
OLAH (Burnt Offering)
MINCHAH (Grain Offering)
HATA-AT (Purification Offering)
ASHAM (Guilt Offering)
ZEVAH (Gratitude Offering)
Since there isn’t any direct English transliteration for ASHAM, our English Bibles will come up with all manner of creative variety in trying to render the word in proper English.
You’ll get phrases like “reparation offering”, “trespass offering” or even “sin offering”.
These are all dynamic translation attempts to express the basic idea that a party has been offended…
And so a penalty must be paid.
In this case, the offended party just so happened to be the Creator of the Universe.
So by making amends to this powerful deity, the Philistines were hoping the Lord would lift the plague of tumors He had inflicted upon them.
Now there’s an interesting takeaway here.
Notice the Philistines were a bunch of uncircumcised gentiles who had no personal relationship whatsoever with the God of Israel…
Yet they realized a universal truth that I believe lies resident in the soul of every human being.
A holy God has been offended…
Therefore, He must be appeased in some way…
Fortunately for us, we know what sacrifice the Lord requires in order to bridge the gap between us and Him.
“Believe in the Lord Yeshua,
and you will be saved—
you and your household.”
-Acts 16:31
However, the Philistines didn’t have that New Testament revelation…
Therefore, they had other ideas about how to appease this powerful God who was inflicting them with tumors.
We’ll get into the details of that the next time we meet.
I had read once that there was a difference between a guilt offering and a sin offering, in that the sin offeriing wasfor sinning against God, and the guilt offering was for sinning aginst the temple.
So, nu? What about a sin against someone else? Well, I think David said it best in Psalm 51, when asking for forgiveness for the multiple sins he committed against Bat-Sheba, Uriah, and even Joab (accomplice to murder), he said that he sinned against God, and God, alone.
Every sin is, first and foremost, against God.
So, the asham offering from the Philistines could fall under a guilt offering, since the sin was againnst the Ark of the Covenant, a part of the temple.
A sin offering would better be described as a “Purification Offering”…
Because that’s what it does…
It purifies one of sin.
A Guilt Offering is more of a reparation payment for the offense committed.
Good point in saying “Every sin is, first and foremost, against God.”
Be blessed. Shalom.