Today we begin Leviticus Chapter Two.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here.
For the King James Version, click here.
“Anyone who brings a grain offering to Adonai is to make his offering of fine flour; he is to pour olive oil on it and put frankincense on it.”-Leviticus 2:1
One tragedy that has occurred in the church is that in their eagerness to dumb everything down for the lay person, they have ended up presenting a grossly distorted, inaccurate, and just downright false notion of the nature of sin.
I’m sure you’ve heard or been told one of the following before.
“A sin is a sin is sin”.
“God neither classifies nor grades sin”.
“ALL SINS,
whether big or small,
are the same in God’s eyes”.
Well, when we get done with our study of Leviticus, you’re going to realize just how nonsensical every one of those statements are.
You’ll also realize just how multi-layered and multifaceted the nature of sin and redemption really is.
All of the various kinds of sacrifices and their purposes are not as simple and neat as the gentile church has made them out to be.
It is absolutely ridiculous to think that stealing a candy bar is on the same level as committing armed bank robbery.
Folks, we’ve now entered that stage in our Bible studies where we leave the unwashed masses with their superficial and doctrinally-based understanding of the Scriptures (what they’re fed from the pulpit) behind.
At this point, I’d like to encourage you to hang in there and give these studies your best time and focused concentration.
It’ll be well worth the sacrifice once you grasp the deep spiritual significance of it all.
In terms of spiritual nourishment, I’m talking about the difference between eating junky doctrinal fast food for your growth instead of being nourished on healthy, wholesome, real food.
A bag of Doritos might taste better than a plate of healthy greens, but such a diet will destroy your body in the end.
And the same thing goes for spiritual food.
So let’s move on to the second type of offering we are introduced to in Leviticus Chapter Two.
It is called the MINCHAH in Hebrew.
Like the OLAH or BURNT OFFERING we’ve already studied in Leviticus chapter one, it’s also a kind of “burnt” offering in that it is thrown onto the Brazen Altar to be completely burned up.
However, this is NOT an animal sacrifice.
It is rather a plant life sacrifice, or to be specific a “grain” sacrifice.
Actually, to get even more super specific, it is the SEMOLINA, the best part of the head of grain that was offered up.
The SEMOLINA was ground up, turned into a ball of dough, and then tossed onto the altar to be burned up.
This MINCHAH grain offering was usually offered up together with the OLAH (the burnt offering).
When I say “usually”, I mean like 99% of the time, the OLAH and the MINCHAH were offered up together.
Now where confusion arises is how some Bibles translate this type of offering.
Many Bibles will call the MINCHAH a “meal offering”.
Not too long ago, calling the MINCHAH a “meal offering” would have been fine.
A while ago “meal” was a word that could have been referring to ground grain like “corn meal” for example.
But in our day and age, when we say “meal” we think of either breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
So in this sense, to call the MINCHAH a “meal offering” is way off.
Another common translation we’ll find is “fine flour offering”.
Technically, this is also inaccurate, because the flour is NOT sifted, and again it is not the best flour.
However, in terms of misleading translations, the King James Bible wins first prize no hands down!
The King James Version calls the MINCHAH a “meat offering”!!!
“And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:”-Leviticus 1:1
What?!?!?!
This ain’t no “meat offering” man!
The MINCHAH is specifically a “grain offering” and the surrounding contents of Scripture will prove this to be true.
For a period of time, this was a real head scratcher for me.
I used to think that maybe in 16th century English, when the KJV was created, “meat” was simply the old English word for “grain”.
Turns out no such thing.
Here’s what I really think happened.
Recall the story of Cain and Abel.
Remember that the Lord accepted Abel’s animal sacrifice but rejected Cain’s plant life or grain sacrifice.
I’m not saying this for sure but I betcha this is what threw the KJV translators off track.
They couldn’t reconcile what in their minds seemed to be a contradiction that God would reject a grain offering in Genesis but accept it for the priesthood in Leviticus.
So they just decided to call the MINCHAH a “meat offering”.
Well, this is completely wrong.
The MINCHAH is a grain offering.
If you read the King James Version of the Bible, you might as well take a pen and wherever you see the word “meat offering”, cross it out and write in“grain offering” instead.
Speaking of the story of Cain and Abel, the word MINCHAH has an interesting history.
During the time of Cain and Abel, the MINCHAH did NOT mean “grain offering” as it does here in Leviticus.
During this time, MINCHAH just meant “sacrifice” in general.
In other words, in Genesis, BOTH Abel’s meat offering and Cain’s grain offering were referred to as the MINCHAH.
The Lord accepted Abel’s MINCHAH but rejected Cain’s MINCHAH.
I wonder why the KJV translators overlooked this point.
What is the difference between the First Fruits and the Grain Offering?
Great Job!
By the way, much like the word Hyacinth in the Greek of Rev 9, KJV was the only version in the world to call it red in 1611 (Not even the Septuagint or the ancient books of Enoch called it red). Finally, in all of the other versions, even the NKJV, they changed it listed it as Hyacinth-Blue! Why? Because the old 1611 was clearly wrong (Even the old artistic renderings of this chapter 9 of Revelation, showed it as a dark grayish blue (Or in Judaism, both dark grayish or sky blue). Many thousands of other words also, appear to imply the wrong concept such as , “A penny for a loaf of bread”… When it is clearly, a whole days wage. People get too dogmatic about the scriptures, instead of listening to the Spirit of God. 47 men in all, most of whom as biblical scholars in England had the work divided up between them to translate the Greek. These were sinful humans, and not perfect, so neither would the book be. The KJV has soured the truth of the Hebrew, as I am Hebrew and can give you many examples. So where are there such lunatics damning others for have another version of the Bible? All are mere men’s translations, not that of יהוה