Text for the Week: A Daily Sacrifice

Scripture: Exodus 29:38-46

³⁸ Now this is what you should offer on the altar: two one-year-old lambs regularly every day. ³⁹ Offer one lamb in the morning and offer the other lamb at twilight. ⁴⁰ With the first lamb, add one-tenth of a measure of the high-quality flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil from crushed olives and a quarter of a hin of wine for a drink offering. ⁴¹ With the second lamb offered at twilight, again include a grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning as a soothing smell, a gift offering for the Lord. ⁴² This should be the regular entirely burned offering in every generation at the meeting tent’s entrance in the Lord’s presence. There I will meet with you, and there I will speak to you. ⁴³ I will meet with the Israelites there, and it will be made holy by my glorious presence. ⁴⁴ I will make the meeting tent and the altar holy. Likewise, I will make Aaron and his sons holy to serve me as priests. ⁴⁵ I will be at home among the Israelites, and I will be their God. ⁴⁶ They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I could make a home among them. I am the Lord their God.

Theme-The needs of the kingdom requires solid leadership and continual attention

Questions

1. Were the Israelites expected to provide these sacrifices in the wilderness or were these meant to be established after they entered the Land?
2. What are the purposes of these sacrifices and is there a connection between them and God meeting with and speaking to Israel?
3. What does it mean that God will “be at home among the Israelites”?
4. Why does v 46 say, “They will know…” when the demonstrations of power and the Covenant have already happened shouldn’t the people already know God?

Helpful Information

Related passages: Numbers 28:1-10, Matthew 25:35-40, Galatians 6:6-10

There are two different types of gifts in Exodus 25-30, one time gifts for the establishing of the Tabernacle and perpetual gifts for the maintenance of the Tabernacle and both were necessary.

One hin is approx. equivalent to one gallon the oil and drink offerings would equal approx. one quart.

Related to these gifts are the weekly sacrifice of Bread for the altar Ex. 25:30. Each of the 12 loaves that were to be place in the Tabernacle each week contained twice the flour of the daily ration of manna, meaning each week the loaves put out would contain nearly enough flour to feed a person for a month.

The oil & wine would have been commodities the Israelites could not have produced in the wilderness, they would have been reliant on traders to secure supplies for the offerings.

Exodus 25-31:11 have seven sections six describing the creation of the tabernacle and the seventh is about sabbath

The holiness of the Tabernacle and the rituals surrounding it flow from the Divine will they are sacred because they reflect God’s character.

Reflection

Reading through Exodus 25-30 I get the sense that operating the Tabernacle was expensive. Each year the daily sacrifices would necessitate 730 lambs, 183 gallons of wine, 183 gallons of oil and an unknown amount of grain. As if that was not enough the Israelites were expected to provide a daily incense offering and oil to supply the lamps. Each week loaves were to be baked and set out on the table in the Tabernacle and the grain needed for this equated to an individual’s monthly ration of manna. While we can understand that producing the loaves for the table would be relatively easy, simply have a few people gather extra manna one day to donate to the Tabernacle’s needs, the rest of this list poses a greater difficulty. There are no vineyards for Israel to produce wine, there are no olive groves to produce oil, there are no grains to produce choice flour, and though the Israelites had flocks setting aside a herd of 1,000 lambs every year for sacrifice is a high price. Like with the burden of building the Tabernacle, obtaining these resources would have necessitated that Israel trade with the surrounding Bedouins, and because these resources were needed on a constant basis this trade would have been regular.

The Bible records the daily costs involved in operating the Tabernacle but never provides a means for paying for it. We are not told how Israel would acquire any of the resources needed to maintain the Tabernacle; the only detail we have is that each person twenty years old and up would give a half shekel as a price of redemption. But it is unclear if this collection was to be used to be used for the construction of the Tabernacle or for work of the priests.[1] The ambiguity in this passage means we do not know if the people of Israel were under an obligation to support the Tabernacle’s needs or if it was entirely supported through a free gift. Even later in Numbers (18:21-24) where we are told that the tithes are to support the Levites these gifts are not directly tied to the materials needed for the function of the worship. The tithe was, in modern terms, pay the employees it did not cover the costs of operation. Later in Jewish tradition the upkeep and operating costs of the Temple were codified and an offering similar to Exodus 30 was instituted to help pay for these things. But in this passage we seem to be presented with a system which requires people to give freely to support the daily sacrificial system.

Given that the sacrificial system was likely supported by the free gifts of the people there are two facets that needed to work in tandem for the system to function smoothly. First, the leadership, Moses and the priests, needed to have a developed plan for how to effectively use the resources entrusted to them. Second, the people had to know of the needs and be committed to regularly contributing to the needs of the Tabernacle. The people would provide the gifts that would be offered daily, whether these were a lamb from their flocks or silver from the sale of wool, the gifts of the people were the backbone of the Tabernacle’s ministry. But I am sure Israel’s leadership were also tasked with taking these gifts whether regular or sporadic and using and investing them in ways that benefited the congregation. And if both halves of this equation worked well together, the burden on the people would be lighted as the Tabernacle’s resources grew, and simultaneously the people’s concern for the maintenance of the Tabernacle would grow, producing a greater spirit of generosity. This comes through a shared realization that the Tabernacle (as the concrete realization of God’s presence with Israel) is the focal point of the community, it is the basis from which the community finds purpose and grows. Each person in Israel was called to see the mission and ministry of the priests and the Tabernacle as part of their daily life and the support of this structure as vital for the structure of Israel as a whole.

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[1] A shekel was a unit of weight not of money, meaning the half shekel was probably some amount of precious metal that was melted down and used for the construction of the Tabernacle (Ex. 39:32).