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THE GRAIN OFFERING!
In Judges 13 we're introduced to Manoah and his
unnamed wife - what's her name. In vv. 2 - 5 we read:
In those days, a man named Manoah from the tribe
of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and
they had no children. 3 The angel of the LORD appeared to Manoah's wife
and said, "Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon
become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 You must not drink wine or any
other alcoholic drink or eat any forbidden food.1 5 You will become
pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut.2 For
he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. He will rescue Israel from
the Philistines."3
When we meet them they are an elderly couple and
both have evidently spent a great deal of time asking God to give them a child. Of
course, if they had known what they were in for they may have been less persistent
in regards to this particular void in their life. But for our purposes
today we simply need to note that the angel of the Lord first and foremost spoke
to the woman. After all, Kid Samson was going to be a very unusual child
and she, more so than her husband, needed to be forewarned.
Her husband, not having been on hand when she
learned that she was soon to find herself pregnant, wanted to hear it from the
horse's mouth, sort of speak. So he took his cell phone punched in the
prayer hotline number and begged the Lord to let the man come once again - just
to clarify his instructions. So the "man", taking Manoah at his
word again appeared to the woman.
The woman then put him on hold while she ran and
fetched her husband. After all, he was the one who supposedly wanted to
have the instructions clarified. So picking up the story in v. 11 of Judges
13 we read:
Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, "Are
you the man who talked to my wife the other day?" "Yes," he replied, "I
am."
So Manoah asked him, "When your words come
true, what kind of rules should govern the boy's life and work?"
The angel of the LORD replied, "Be sure your
wife follows the instructions I gave her. 14 She must not eat grapes or
raisins, drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, or eat any forbidden food."
Then Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "Please
stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat."
"I will stay," the angel of the LORD
replied, "but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt
offering as a sacrifice to the LORD." (Manoah didn't realize it was the
angel of the LORD.)
Then Manoah asked the angel of the LORD, "What
is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you."
"Why do you ask my name?" the angel
of the LORD replied. "You wouldn't understand if I told you."
Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering
and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the LORD. And as Manoah and his wife
watched, the LORD did an amazing thing. 20 As the flames from the altar
shot up toward the sky, the angel of the LORD ascended in the fire. When Manoah
and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.
The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his
wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the LORD, 22 and he said
to his wife, "We will die, for we have seen God!"
But his wife said, "If the LORD were going
to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering.
He wouldn't have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these
miracles."
When her son was born, they named him Samson.
And the LORD blessed him as he grew up. 25 And in Mahaneh-dan, which is
located between the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol, the Spirit of the LORD began
to take hold of him.
In regards to this passage I want you to note
two things. First, an entire chapter is devoted to the announcement of
Samson's birth and the subsequent sacrifices while less than three dozen words
are devoted to Samson's coming of age. I mean if you're a grandparent raising
a kid who is a little different, or perhaps quite a bit different, you must have
loads of questions that you would like to have Manoah's wife answer. But
you're going to have to look for the answer's somewhere else because you won't
find them in the story of Kid Samson!
The second thing I want you to notice is that
two sacrifices were offered on the altar that day. The first was that of
a young goat, a burnt offering. The second was a grain offering. This
dual offering was common, and as can be seen from the story of Samson, it was
quite significant. In fact, it is so significant that I think it explains
why an entire chapter was spent on Samson's birth announcement and less than
40 words on his childhood and that period of time we call adolescents.
To see this we need to have a basic understanding
of the grain offering as given to us in Leviticus 2 where we read:
"When you bring a grain offering to the LORD,
the offering must consist of choice flour. You are to pour olive oil on it and
sprinkle it with incense. 2 Bring this offering to one of Aaron's sons,
and he will take a handful of the flour mixed with olive oil, together with all
the incense, and burn this token portion on the altar fire. It is an offering
made by fire, very pleasing to the LORD. 3 The rest of the flour will be
given to Aaron and his sons. It will be considered a most holy part of the offerings
given to the LORD by fire.
"When you present some kind of baked bread
as a grain offering, it must be made of choice flour mixed with olive oil but
without any yeast. It may be presented in the form of cakes mixed with olive
oil or wafers spread with olive oil. 5 If your grain offering is cooked
on a griddle, it must be made of choice flour and olive oil, and it must contain
no yeast. 6 Break it into pieces and pour oil on it; it is a kind of grain
offering. 7 If your offering is prepared in a pan, it also must be made
of choice flour and olive oil.
"No matter how a grain offering has been
prepared before being offered to the LORD, bring it to the priests who will
present it at the altar. 9 The priests will take a token portion of the
grain offering and burn it on the altar as an offering made by fire, and it
will be very pleasing to the LORD. 10 The rest of the grain offering
will be given to Aaron and his sons as their food. It will be considered a
most holy part of the offerings given to the LORD by fire.
"Do not use yeast in any of the grain offerings
you present to the LORD, because no yeast or honey may be burned as an offering
to the LORD by fire. 12 You may add yeast and honey to the offerings presented
at harvesttime, but these must never be burned on the altar as an offering pleasing
to the LORD. 13 Season all your grain offerings with salt, to remind you
of God's covenant. Never forget to add salt to your grain offerings.
"If you present a grain offering to the LORD from the first portion of your harvest, bring kernels of new grain that have been roasted on a fire. 15 Since it is a grain offering, put olive oil on it and sprinkle it with incense.
16
The priests will take a token portion of the roasted grain mixed with olive
oil, together with all the incense, and burn it as an offering given to the
LORD by fire.
As with the burnt offering, the instructions for
the grain offering are not addressed simply to a "man" but to a "person,
anyone." With the burnt offering it was made clear that no one was
barred from access or from worship on the basis of income. In regards
to the grain offering the word choice is such that it is clear that God desires
the dedication of all his people, both men and women.
The principal ingredients of the cereal offering
(in Hebrew, menha), or grain offering as it was commonly called, were flour and
oil.4 The type of flour used was the most purified flour as
opposed to the poorer stuff as the widow at Zarephath offered Elijah. The
fine flour of Leviticus 2 was the flour made from the inner kernel of the wheat. Ezekiel
in 16:13 indicates the value of this flour when he includes it in his list of
what makes someone beautiful. Along with gold, silver, costly fabric, and
embroidered cloth, fine flour was very much a part of the lifestyle of the rich
and famous.6
It could be baked by the one offering the sacrifice
in an oven, grilled, or fried. At harvest time a special kind of cereal
offering was encouraged, one of "crushed heads of new grain roasted in
the fire." Regardless, salt had to be added to every grain
offering; this point is underscored three times in three different ways.7
If it was fine flour or roasted grain the worshipper
mixed it with oil and added a little incense. If it was a cooked offering,
he or she baked the flour without yeast, broke up the wafers, and sprinkled them
with oil. This was presented to the priest who took a handful of the mixture
and all the incense and burned it as a memorial portion. The rest of
the offering was given to the priests to eat within the sanctuary.8
The Hebrew word for cereal offering is minhah. In
Leviticus this is a technical term for cereal offering as defined in this chapter.
But elsewhere its meaning is much broader. It may refer to animal sacrifices
as well as cereal offerings; for example, both Cain's and Abel's offerings
are called minhah, though Abel's consisted of animals and Cain's of cereals.
In nonreligious usage minhah often means "tribute," the
money paid by a vassal king to his overlord as a mark of his continuing goodwill
and faithfulness. It may simply mean "a present" though it frequently
suggests that the giver is afraid of the recipient and that he is seeking to
ingratiate himself by means of the gift. Thus Jacob sent a minhah to
his brother Esau and later to Joseph, prime minister of Egypt.9
In like manner, Israel was bound by a covenant
with a forgiving God, and therefore had the responsibility, and the joy, of expressing
her fidelity by bringing this offering to the tabernacle. It was
an act of dedication and consecration to God as Savior and covenant king. It
expressed not only thankfulness but a willingness to obey the law.10
Samson, as you may have already figured out, was
a Nazirite with a difference. His vow wasn't voluntarily made, nor was
it temporary. It was by divine command. For by grace God raised up
Samson to begin a liberation process even though Israel, under the yoke of the
Philistines, had yet to cry "uncle." Samson, by being set apart
from the moment of conception, and by being set apart by his parents as seen
by their burnt offering and their grain offering, would prevent complete defeat.
In contrast to most of the Israelites who had
been assimilated into the Philistine culture, Samson's dedication and power was
to be seen and lived out by being separated from his culture. Unfortunately,
Kid Samson never quite understood the concept of separation and dedication. He
knew the code, but he didn't understand the concept. For the point of
the vow was not so much separation from the world, but separation unto the
Lord.
You see, he was placed in the position of doing
the will of God, and he did it, but he was never fully dedicated to the God whose
will it was. Too bad! Too bad because separation and dedication
is meant to be a joy-filled experience.
That's what the grain offering is all about and
why it rightly follows the burnt offering. The grain offering is gladly
bringing to God all that we are and all that we have knowing full well that we
serve a great king. It's an expression of gratitude, something
that was always missing in Samson's life, and a dedication of ourselves to
the will of the God who loves us enough to ransom us from the dominion of darkness.
1 This was not because there was anything sinful about
wine, grapes, or raisins. But all those things were signs of luxurious
living and Samson was to live a simple life.
2 This was a signal to the public that he had taken a
Nazirite vow. To show that he had cut himself off from other things so
as to be wholly devoted to the Lord.
3 As a Nazirite, as opposed to a Nazarene who is someone
from Nazareth,he was also called to avoid dead bodies! This was
a sign of the preeminence of God in his life. Contact with death made
a man unfit for the tabernacle, so to stay in fellowship he avoided dead bodies.
( See: Numbers 6:1 - 6 )
4 The text doesn't explain the significance of the flour
or the oil, but biblical usage gives us some clues. Symbolically, oil
in the the Old Testament was used to represent things set aside or consecrated
to the Lord. (I Samuel 10:1 & 16:13) If fine flour represents the
person and possessions of the worshiper, then oil signifies that they were
now consecrated to the Lord. It should also be pointed out that oil
signifies joy (Isaiah 61:3) which explains why it wasn't used in the cereal
offering of jealousy. (Numbers 5:11 - 31)
5 Ezekiel 16:13 reads: "And so you
were made beautiful with gold and silver. Your clothes were made of fine linen
and were beautifully embroidered. You ate the finest foods-fine flour, honey,
and olive oil-and became more beautiful than ever. You looked like a queen,
and so you were!"
6 I don't think this means that the widow at Zarephath was
excluded from participating in this sacrifice. In fact, judging from
I Kings 17:13 she used the flour she had on hand to place a cereal offering,
in a sense, in Elijah's hand. This act of faith on her part was accepted
by God and in his grace he provided for her needs.
7 The emphasis on salt is probably due to its value as a
preservative. If this is the case, then the "salt of the covenant" symbolized
the preservation of the covenant (Numbers 18:19 & II Chronicles 13:5). When
covenants were made each party ate the salt and having "tasted the salt" they
became covenant allies. Yeast and honey were probably prohibited because
of they cause fermentation. This, as you can imagine, was unacceptable
because it suggested corruption. In the New Testament Jesus used leaven
to refer to the false teachings of the Pharisees and for Paul, leaven was symbolic
of sin.
8 The idea of a memorial portion given to God goes beyond
a simple reminder. The verb carries the nuance of beginning to act on
the basis of what is remembered. The "memorial portion" thus
reminded or prompted worshippers to live as if all that they had truly came
from the Lord.
9 In the story as found in Genesis 32, Esau is not actually
an overlord but Jacob's groveling makes him such - he repeatedly refers to
Esau as "my lord" and to himself as "your [Esau's] servant."
10 Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, 1979, pp. 69 - 71.
LEVITICUS - GOD'S GUIDEBOOK TO WORSHIP 1/29/06
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