“The angel of Adonai said to Manoach, ‘Even if I do stay, I won’t eat your food; and if you prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to Adonai.’ For Manoach did not know that he was the angel of Adonai.”-Judges 13:16
So Manoach prepared some food for the Angel of the Lord standing in front of him.
However, the Angel of the Lord responded by telling Manoach that he won’t eat the food and that if it’s offered up as a “burnt offering”, it should only be offered up to Adonai.
Okay, so this is a perfect opportunity to review some things regarding the various sacrifices we were first exposed to in the Book of Leviticus.
And when I say “review”, I mean just that.
It’s always good to go over things from different angles several times until certain concepts are firmly embedded in our craniums.
So the original Hebrew for “burnt offering” is OLAH.
However, this word really has no direct equivalent in the English language.
Although most English Bibles will translate OLAH into the phrase “burnt offering”, the truth is EVERY KIND of sacrifice offered up to God on the Altar was a “burnt offering”.
Why?
Because it was placed on the Altar and burned up.
Duh.
But here’s the thing.
While all sacrifices to God were burned up, not every sacrifice was an OLAH.
That’s because the OLAH was just one of the many different kinds of “burnt offerings” offered to God.
In fact, as I’ve mentioned many times before, it’s probably much better to translate OLAH as a “close” or “near” offering because the purpose of this sacrifice was to appease the Lord so that we could come near to approach Him.
Way back when we were studying the Book of Leviticus, we learned that the OLAH was always offered together with the MINCHAH which is usually translated as “the grain offering”.
The OLAH was to be a clean animal and the MINCHAH was to be a crop of some kind.
These 2 were always offered up together as a pair.
Again, their purpose was to appease a Holy God so one could approach Him without the fear of being destroyed.
Now notice something fascinating here with Manoach.
As the story unfolds, what do we see happening by divine coincidence?
There’s an awesome takeaway here, so play close attention.
It just so happens that the very sacrifices Manoach brought to this mysterious stranger was a clean animal (a goat) and some form of produce (a grain-based product…maybe bread or something).
In other words, by divine coincidence, we see that Manoach fulfilled the Torah in terms of what was required for the OLAH and MINCHAH sacrificial offerings.
Now some of you may be thinking…
Cool, that’s all fine and dandy, but how can what Manoach did be proper and legal when the Lord already decreed there was to be only ONE place where sacrificing was to take place?
And what about the fact that the process has to be officiated over by a priest not to mention it had to happen on the God-ordained Brazen Altar?
People weren’t supposed to be building their own private altars to sacrifice on.
That’s what the pagans did.
Yet here we have Manoach using a makeshift altar (basically a rock) and offering up the OLAH and the MINCHAH.
So how does that harmonize with what the Torah says on the subject?
Well, first of all, this whole incidence gives us a good picture of just how much Israel had fallen away from the Torah and its instructions.
The unfortunate reality is by this point in time the Priesthood was not functioning anymore.
I mean they were around but respect for their authority and any actual power they held was very limited.
It was a sad and tragic situation.
The people could have cared less about the priests and even less about the commands in God’s Word…
Which isn’t any different than the situation in the world today.
By the time we get to the end of the Book of Judges, we’ll see just how far Israel had fallen away from a Torah-ordained lifestyle…
Especially when compared to the golden era when Israel first entered the land led by Joshua.
Okay, let’s transition over to the takeaway and close for today.
So as sad and tragic as this picture is, we can see that even during Israel’s dark days, the Lord was at work to accomplish His objective to save all of Israel.
And we can see He did it by working through a few select individuals who in His divine providence caused to be obedient to His commands EVEN when they had little or no Scriptural knowledge.
We saw how this happened with Manoach who was probably operating out of zero Torah knowledge when he unwittingly complied with the requirements of the Torah during his interaction with the Angel of the Lord.
Folks, this is why we need a Savior…
One who becomes our PERFECT obedience when we can’t obey on our own…whether out of ignorance or because our sin nature is raging hog wild outta control.
That’s all I got for you today.
Be blessed!
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“He has no need,
like those high priests,
to offer sacrifices daily,
first for his own sins
and then for those of the people,
since he did this once for all
when he offered up himself.
For the law appoints men
in their weakness as high priests,
but the word of the oath,
which came later than the law,
appoints a Son who has
been made perfect forever.”
-Hebrews 7:27-28
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