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Leviticus 2 Bible study: A handful on the fire

The meal offering is a minchah, the word for Cain's and Abel's offerings (Genesis 4:3-5). Only a handful, its "memorial", was burned; the rest was "most holy" food for the priests (2:2-3). Yeast and honey could be brought as first fruits but never burned on the altar (2:11-12), and salt went with every offering (2:13).

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“Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.”
Leviticus 2:13 · World English Bible

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“Leviticus 2 keeps yeast and honey off the altar fire but lets them be brought as first fruits.”

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What's really going on

An offering with no animal in it

In the text

Leviticus 1 was about burnt offerings "of the livestock, from the herd and from the flock" (1:2), or "of birds" (1:14). Chapter 2 turns to a different gift: "When anyone offers an offering of a meal offering to the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it" (2:1). The Hebrew word for it is minchah, the same word Genesis uses when Cain "brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground" (Genesis 4:3). The burnt offering was "accepted for him to make atonement for him" (1:4). Leviticus 2 never uses the word "atonement". What it says, twice, is that the part burned is "an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to the LORD" (2:2, 2:9).

Where it leads to Jesus

Every sacrifice seasoned with salt

Interpretation

Leviticus 2:13leads toMark 9:49-50

"With all your offerings you shall offer salt" (2:13). Jesus said, "For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another" (Mark 9:49-50). Jesus doesn't name Leviticus, and Mark doesn't explain what being "salted with fire" means. His words about every sacrifice and salt stand close to this verse; reading them together is an interpretation.

Honest questions

Questions people ask about Leviticus 2

That was a taste

The rest of Leviticus 2 is waiting in Favor

  • A handful for the fire, the rest for the priests
  • Raw, baked, on a griddle, or from a pan
  • Two things never, one thing always
  • No oil and no frankincense
  • The meal offering in the Psalms
  • 7 questions as you read
  • 9 more Hebrew words
  • A short check at the end
  • Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it

מִנְחָהminchahsay min-KHAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "gift, tribute, offering", including "offering made to God, of any kind, whether grain or animals", and "grain-offering". Strong's: "a sacrificial offering (usually bloodless and voluntary)". Its first appearances in the Hebrew Bible are Cain's and Abel's offerings (Genesis 4:3-5), and it is also Jacob's "present for Esau" (Genesis 32:13). Exodus uses it only three times (29:41, 30:9, 40:29). This chapter uses it fifteen times, and the WEB says "meal offering" fifteen times. A psalm uses it in "Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire" (Psalm 40:6), the verse Hebrews quotes (Hebrews 10:5).

For your group

Leviticus 2 Bible study questions

  1. 1The meal offering could come as plain flour, or baked in an oven, on a griddle or in a pan (2:1-7). What ordinary part of your week could you offer to God?
  2. 2"You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking" (2:13). What helps you remember God's promises on ordinary days, and what makes you forget them?
  3. 3The first fruits of the harvest were brought to the LORD (2:14). What would it look like for you to give God the first of something this week, not what's left over?

Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Leviticus 2 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.

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Questions

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