“You will bring there your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tenths [that you set aside for Adonai], the offerings that you give, the offerings you have vowed, your voluntary offerings, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep.”-Deuteronomy 12:6
The other day I read something interesting about the word “praise” as it pertains to our English Bibles.
Did you know that in the original Hebrew, there are more than a dozen different words and phrases used to describe the variety of ways one can honor the Lord?
Yet when Bible translators render all of these various acts and aspects of honoring God into English, they reduce everything to just one word: PRAISE.
The original Hebrew Scriptures actually prescribe different and very specific ways we are to praise our God depending on the circumstance.
Unfortunately, all of that rich nuance is lost in translation.
Why am I bringing this us up?
I’m bringing this up because right here in verse 6 in Deuteronomy 12, we encounter a similar phenomenon folks.
In this verse we are given a fairly extensive list of things that are usually all lumped together under the very generic words “sacrifices” or “offerings”.
My point is when Bible translators take certain Hebrew words that carry very detailed and specific meanings and lump them together all under one or two general terms, it leads to huge misunderstanding in terms of what exactly is being transported and presented to God at the central sanctuary.
Let’s take a look at this list in verse 6 as I attempt to explain in easy-to-understand English exactly what the Lord was requiring from His worshippers when they presented themselves and their “sacrifices” and “offerings” to Him at the central sanctuary.
And again, understand because there is no direct word-for-word translation of these terms in any other language, what I’m going to explain are going to be educated guesses at best in terms of the purpose and meaning of these sacrifices.
So here we go.
The first item on the list is in Hebrew called the OLAH.
Usually it is referred to as the “Burnt Offering”.
However, it can also be called the “near offering” or “ascending offering” in reference to the smoke emitting up to the heavens from the burning animal carcass.
This is the one type of sacrifice that is COMPLETELY BURNED UP TO A COMPLETE CRISP.
In other words, neither the worshippers nor the officiating priests were allowed to eat any of the “Burnt Offerings” for food.
The second item on the list is what most Bibles refer to as just “other sacrifices“.
Hmmm..that is not good.
Because the actual Hebrew term being used here is ZEVAH.
For those of you who studied with me when we went through Leviticus, you should recognize immediately that this is a type of sacrifice that falls under the SHELAMIM category.
The most common English rendering of ZEVAH is “Peace Offering“.
The difference between the ZEVAH and the OLAH was that both the worshipper and the attending priests were allowed to eat of this sacrifice (the ZEVAH).
The third item up on the list is one everybody should be familiar with…
…THE TITHE (literally the tenth).
Basically, the main function of the tithe was to support the Tabernacle which later became the Temple…
…and give assistance to the Levites who performed all the many things that needed to be taken care of to keep the Tabernacle functioning smoothly.
In the beginning, the tithes were given in the form of animals and agricultural produce.
Understand that when animals were given as tithes, they were NOT considered sacrifices as they were used as direct support for those Levites laboring at the Tabernacle.
However, over time, as the ancient Middle East became more advanced with a growing number of traders, craftsmen and shopkeepers, money was given instead of animals and produce.
Onward.
The fourth item we come to on the list is TERUMAH.
TERUMAH refers to “contributions“.
This is different than the tithes.
Remember, the tithe was only one form of giving.
So what was the TERUMAH all about?
This was a type of firstfruit offering and was presented by lifting it above your shoulders and waving it above your head back and forth.
It was also called the “Heave Offering“.
Next up was a type of freewill offering called NEDER in Hebrew.
There were two types of NEDER.
One type was used when a person made a vow to God asking Him to prevent something bad from happening and in return agreeing to give to God something back in return.
Don’t confuse the NEDER with the promised gift to God.
The NEDER was what accompanied the vow ritual when it was being carried out.
The second use of the NEDER was to use it as a gratitude or thanksgiving offering.
Nothing was vowed or promised.
The worshipper out of a spontaneous sense of deep appreciation wanted to just give something back to the Lord as a response to all of the blessings he had received.
Finally, the last thing on the list was what’s called BEKORAH in Hebrew.
BEKORAH literally means “firstlings” or “firstborn”.
In other words, this referred to the firstborn of your farm animals.
So yes, just like the TERUMAH, this was also a firstfruits offering.
The only difference is that with the TERUMAH, you gave produce whereas the BEKORAH only applied to animals.
So what can we take away from all of this information?
The takeaway is simple.
There were quite a broad range of offerings and sacrifices of differing purposes that were carried out under different circumstances AND…
…to take all of this variety and lump them altogether which is what the gentile believing world has done leads to not only gross misunderstanding but lack of knowledge in terms of what the Lord expects from us when giving offerings and sacrifices.
This pattern is similar to what we studied when we went over the atonement system in Leviticus.
Recall, we were exposed to a whole broad range of different sacrifices, each designed to atone for a specific type of infraction.
When one studies the atonement system in Leviticus it soon becomes clear that the common Christian teaching that all sins are basically the same before God is a ludicrous teaching.
Sin and atonement are actually very complex and have many different multifaceted layers attached to them.
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