Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore

We looked at the burnt offering in the first chapter. I am finding just the first chapter extremely useful in my personal relationship with God. Our soul’s deepest desire to be loved and accepted by God can only be found when we come to God through the burnt offering. Every morning, whatever situation and confusion I am in, it is as if I get up and give my burnt offering in my mind, thinking of Christ’s work for me. I come to God only through Christ’s work for me, identified with his life and death. Oh, what love and joy we experience from God. You know what, there is a spontaneous expression of gratitude and love to God that wells up in my heart for the gracious way he has made for sinners like us to come to him and experience his presence.

Now, there is a great need to express that thanksgiving. How do I express my overwhelming gratitude? I believe that is what today’s second chapter of Leviticus teaches us through the grain offering. Again, this meets another basic need of our souls. I have always believed one primary reason we are not as happy as we should be is because we are not grateful. Our blind, selfish, proud heart tends to think we are more deserving and takes things for granted, never allowing us to be grateful. Romans 1 accuses people who, though they knew God, did not thank or glorify him and so fell into all kinds of sinful miseries. This is the cause for all our sadness. Our greatest joy is to learn how to gratefully respond to all God gives us. May God help us learn that from this old lesson of the grain offering. You will realize as we end that you are not happy in life because you are not offering the grain offering.

There are three headings: Elements of the grain offering, the method of offering the grain offering, and the purpose of the grain offering.

Elements of the Grain Offering

There are four kinds of grain offerings.

Verses 1-3 introduce the grain offering and focus on the offering of the grain in an uncooked form—flour. It must be fine flour, maybe wheat or barley. The person would pour oil on it, which is mostly olive oil, and put frankincense on it. Olive oil was mixed with the dough or smeared on it, and a spice was added to enhance the aroma when it was burned on the altar.

Verses 4-10 provide the regulations pertaining to the grain offering in several cooked forms. In verse 4, there is the grain offering of bread baked in an oven. In verse 5, there is another type of grain offering that is bread prepared on a griddle, in a flat or grill frying way. In verse 7, there is bread cooked in a pan.

So, there are four grain offerings: flour, oven-baked, grill/griddle cooked, and fry pan cooked. These are the four basic kinds of grain offerings. Though there are different ways of cooking, all are made from barley or wheat flour.

I think this may all seem very strange. Last week, I was in our village and even did some agricultural work, and I saw some of their rituals. They may be able to very clearly relate to all this from an agricultural lifestyle. You have to remember that in those days, Israelites were primarily agricultural people, with no office, business, or city work. Agriculture was their livelihood.

This offering is different from the burnt offering. The burnt offering was a very bloody offering. Here, there is no blood, no laying on of hands on the part of the worshipper on the sacrifice, and no atonement for sins is being symbolized. But you will notice the grain offering was always given after the burnt offering, just as it comes here in the chapter following the burnt offering. So, we’re looking at the basic elements of the grain offering and we’ve seen first of all its kinds.

In the element of the grain offering, we see that it is closely identified with the worshiper. There has to be close engagement on the part of the worshiper. In the grain offering, the worshiper may not go to his flocks to bring a sacrifice, but he goes to his field. It cannot just be any plants of spontaneous growth. It has to be grain from either barley or wheat; it has to be the result of the labor of their hands. Oh, there is so much labor. I was just trying to do some work with two cows. In a few minutes, I got into the clay and tried to walk the two cows. I could not even walk properly, sliding, with the hot sun, and back pain. Imagine the preparation of the land, loosening and digging the soil by plowing and leveling, and adding manure. Sowing: planting seeds, adding nutrients: adding manure and fertilizers, irrigation: regular care with water for months, protecting from cows, birds, worms. Oh, when the harvest comes, it is like pearls. I have seen them kissing the crop. The work is not over. They have to cut, gather the mature crop, make it into grain, and store it. This isn’t something that grew wild. This is something that grew by the sweat of the brow. This is the product of my labor.

Notice you cannot just bring wheat and offer it. The grain to be offered had to be “fine.” Verse 1: “fine quality,” finely ground flour, which is to be offered. We do not understand how difficult it was in the days of no electricity or motor machines. You cannot just go to a shop and buy fine flour. To obtain fine flour entailed a great deal of extra effort on the part of the person who ground it. The flour would have had to have been ground on a primitive grinding millstone, a process which, at best, usually produces only a coarse flour. Then, for hours, they ground it to make it fine. Usually, ordinary people would not have it so fine. Such “fine” flour was that which was fit for a king (cf. 1 Ki. 4:22) because it was so much labor; it was expensive.

Then it had to be cooked. So, you see in all this, he doesn’t bring to God something detached from himself. You see it involved close engagement; it is the labor of his hands. He spends months to grow this, and then a lot of effort to fine-grind it and cook it. For an agricultural people, this grain offering represents their being. It is a part of me; this is the work of my hands; it is my soul. The original says, “When any soul offers a grain offering,” I am bringing before the Lord my very soul and person to the presence of God with that grain symbolically.

Verse 11: Ingredients: no leaven or honey. “No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the Lord made by fire.”

Verse 13: Required (salt). Fully salt added. “And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.”

Verse 14-16: Early grain offerings. Then it says you should do it compulsorily during your harvest time. “If you offer a grain offering of first fruits to the Lord, you shall offer for the grain offering of your first fruits green heads of grain roasted in fire, crushed new grain.”

So those are the elements of the grain offering.

Method of Offering the Grain Offering

Put yourself in the place of a Jew going to the tabernacle to offer a grain offering. You have prepared the harvest for months. Take that grain and, in your own tent, make it into fine flour. And then you would pour costly olive oil into it and add frankincense. You can decide whether to give flour, oven bake, grill, or fry. Now you wouldn’t put leaven in, nor would you put any honey on it, but you would heavily salt it. Verse 13 emphasizes salt three times. Then you have to add frankincense. It was an expensive and highly valued perfume and so made the offering a more precious gift. It also enhanced the pleasing smell of the offering burning on the altar.

You would take that portion now, how much would be brought before the Tabernacle? It’s not specified here, but in Numbers 15 and Deuteronomy 26, we find it says you can bring 1/10 or 3/10 or 2/10 of an ephah/ether before the Lord. It is not clear to us. Some estimates say to bring maybe 10 kg of this grain offering.

You see yourself now in your mind’s eye. You’ve got your sandals on. You’re heading towards the Tabernacle with your basket of grain that represents you and your labor. Then you come to the Tabernacle through the front door, into the outer court, and there at the Tabernacle. You present that basket of grain to the priests, Aaron’s sons. “He shall bring it to Aaron’s sons, the priests, one of whom dipped his hand into the basket. He shall take from it his handful of fine flour and oil with all the frankincense.” Only a handful of that mixture. “And the priest shall burn it as a memorial on the altar.” The little handful of the big basket is a memorial portion that is consumed entirely in the smoke. The smoke, which goes skyward, and with the frankincense it brings, it says in verse 2, “a sweet aroma to the Lord.” It is an offering by fire, a soothing aroma to the Lord, that is spoken of the burnt offering, the grain offering, and also the peace offering. So the little handful gets offered up, but what about the rest of the basketful? What about the major portion? Verse 3: “The rest of the grain offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’. It is most holy of the offerings to the Lord made by fire.” It is the priests’ property. Notice what it says, “A thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire.” So that is the basic element of the grain offering.

So that is the method of giving a grain offering. The same way for all cooked grain offerings. Yes, this was just an outward ritual God made the Israelites do thousands of times, but God, through this ritual, was reinforcing a truth and the faith in the minds and hearts of God’s people.

Times and Purpose of the Grain Offering for the Jew

Generally, every time a burnt offering was given, it was always followed by a grain offering. Every morning and evening, there would be a burnt offering, and right next to that, a grain offering. See even in this book, just after the burnt offering in chapter 1, the very next chapter is the grain offering. They are specifically inseparable companions. You should never miss a grain offering after a burnt offering, and you should not give a grain offering before a burnt offering.

There is great significance in seeing the connection and order between the burnt and the grain offering. First a burnt offering, and then a grain offering. As a Jew comes with the guilt of sin, offering a burnt offering provides atonement for his sin. He experiences God’s reconciled presence and forgiveness. His heart overflows with gratitude for this gracious way to come to God, and as an expression of his gratitude for the unspeakable gift that he, being a vile, wicked, defiled sinner, having been reconciled to the living God by the blood of this substitute, this goat or bull, he offers a grain offering as an expression of his gratitude. The grain offering was an overwhelming response of gratitude and worship for the atonement and way of reconciliation provided by God. All godly Jews understood this, and that is why you will notice whenever there was a burnt offering given, there would always be a grain offering as an expression of gratitude.

Secondly, the grain offering was always offered at harvest. This is intimated to us in the 14th verse, “If you offer a grain offering of first fruits to the Lord.” First fruits. In Deuteronomy 26, they actually had a festival of First Fruits, where they offered lots of big grain offerings. Turn and see something very interesting. We find in verse 5 the issue begins as the man has brought the basket. He set it at the foot of the altar and in verse 5, he is made to think back where he was and how much mercy God has shown to him now, lest he forget that and become ungrateful and fail to offer this grain offering. He’s told that he is to rehearse the history of God’s merciful dealings with the people of Israel, beginning with, “my father was a wandering, nomad, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, but there he became a great and mighty and a populous nation. But the Egyptians treated him harshly. So, we cried out to the Lord,” verse 8, “with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. God delivered us,” verse 10. In verse 9, “he brought us into a land of milk and honey, and it is from the pastures and the fields of this land of milk and honey that I have brought this grain offering to the Lord.” Notice the climax in verse 9: “and he has brought us to this place and he has given us this land, the land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which you, Lord, have given me, and you shall set it before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God.”

You see, at this harvest celebration, this first fruit ceremony, the worshiper is returning to God some of the agricultural produce to the Lord. It’s an act of Thanksgiving. It’s acknowledging God’s goodness. This offering kept them from becoming ungrateful and hardened in sin, like he warns in Deuteronomy 8:12: “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. … then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.” The grain offering was a wonderful way that made them realize where they were and what God had done for them, keeping them always grateful. So God continued to bless them.

So, for a Jew, the grain offering is an expression of God’s mercy in providence by providing him a harvest and in redemption, by providing him an atonement.

Let’s see some aspects of how rich this is. Just like the burnt offering, verse 1: “When anyone offers a grain offering to the Lord.” This was a personal, voluntary, spontaneous expression of gratitude. Nobody can force people to be grateful; then that is not gratitude. Yes, there are compulsory offerings morning, evening, Sabbath, at the beginning of a church, but personally, if a worshiper had any sense of gratitude to God, it was the worshipper himself or herself who decided to bring an offering. They were not compelled to; they came with their offering when they felt constrained to do so, when they wanted to do so.

There was plenty of freedom of expression of gratitude. They could prepare the bread in a variety of ways, pretty much any way they liked. Why do you suppose a worshiper did it in one way or another? No doubt because he liked his bread served that way, because he liked to cook it that way; they thought it tasted better. It shows the depth of his gratitude.

Verse 2 says it has to be a memorial. The offering itself was a form of remembrance of God’s goodness and grace.

Verse 2 says after the handful is burned, the remaining part, verse 3, “The rest of the grain offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’.” That it was most holy meant, in practice, that it became the exclusive property of the priests. Only they can eat it and could not be eaten by anyone else or anywhere else but the sanctuary. Holy offerings, not most holy, such as the fellowship offering, could be eaten by the priests, their families, and by the worshiper and his or her family.

Also, the grain offering provided for the needs of the priests. Remember, every tribe got land to farm and to till except one tribe who didn’t get any land. That was the Levites. Their job and vocation was not agricultural. It was spiritual. They were to be serving the Temple of God. How was that tribe provided for their needs, their salary, and support? It was through offerings like the grain offering, the goodwill offering of the tithes.

The grain offering has to be an expression of unhypocritical gratitude and devotion. It is symbolized in not adding any leaven. No honey could mean many Canaanites offered honey in worship to Molech, Ashtoreth, and Baal. They loved honey; it was a symbol and identity of their gods. In a way, God says, you have to be sincere and have no competing allegiances to any other gods, so you don’t add that honey. It is an expression of continual covenant faithfulness. That is why salt is added. “And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.” Salt in all cultures was always a sign of faithfulness. We say we should betray the house where we ate salt. Remember you have eaten the salt of God; never be a traitor to his covenant. God is loyal in the covenant, so we should be. Don’t be a hypocrite in gratitude or unfaithful in the covenant.

Great Goal of all this offering: These grain offerings promote and secure favor because, as it says in verse 12 of Leviticus Chapter 2, they bring a soothing aroma before the Lord. When we do that, oh, we receive God’s favor. The favor of the Lord. It is such a blessing. The favor of the Lord is better than life. His favor surrounds us. Read the concordance; when we have the favor of the Lord resting on us, we see his favor in all we do: in our family, at work. Such joy in life to live with a sense of God’s smile and presence on us, his favorable presence, the light of God’s countenance on us. Nothing is more joyful than this.

If this is all for the Old Testament Jew, oh, how rich it must be for us today. The literal details of the grain offering were temporary and are now obsolete. I will not ask you to bring wheat flour next week for Sunday service. But even though those literal details are now obsolete, the spiritual principles of the grain offering are perpetual. New Covenant religion is built upon the elementary principles of old covenant religion. Can I tell you there is a grain offering God expects from us in the New Testament? When we fail to offer that, we don’t experience the favor of God.

So what was the deep meaning of the minhah, the grain offering, to us? Well, how about this for a summary: “Those who have grasped the mercy of God in providence and redemption will offer voluntarily themselves and the best they have to the Lord.”

Like the Israelites, we can offer our grain offering in two ways for redemption and providential mercies.

Redemption: Like I said, the grain offering was always offered after the burnt offering. You become reconciled to God first, and then you offer a grain offering. The purpose of the grain offering is not atonement, but worship, acknowledgment of God’s divine provision of the needs of the Israelite for life itself.

The grain, as it indicated to the Israelites, with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, means all that I am and all that I accomplish by the labor of my hands, I offer to you. First you must be reconciled to God to offer a grain offering. In New Testament words, justification precedes sanctification. All who have grasped the burnt offering will offer a grain offering. We can say the evidence or sign of your reconciliation to God is the expression of the grain offering. In New Testament words, sanctification always follows after justification. In fact, the New Testament says sanctification is evidence of justification. What we see in Leviticus 1 of reconciliation through the burnt offering, Paul elaborates in the New Testament fulfillment in the first 11 chapters of Romans, talking about justification, explaining the way of God’s grace in the salvation of sinners. Then, as an inevitable consequence, as a reasonable, right response to that redemption, in Romans 12, he says, “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

You can’t give yourself as a sacrifice to God unless and until he has provided a sacrifice for you. The Christian life flows from the atonement that Christ made on the cross and is the only true and fit response to it that a person can make. Since Christ is your burnt offering and made atonement for you, Paul wrote in effect, now give your grain offering to him!

So the grain offering in the New Testament is grasping the great work of God through Christ for our atonement, and we offer ourselves to him. In the words of a hymn writer: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

We see God making it a regular worship, as a routine they always do as a routine in the New Testament as part of worship. Now at this fundamental method of ritual of New Testament daily and Sunday worship, Sunday by Sunday, our ritual or order of worship is designed to drive the same truth deep into our understanding. We come to God through the burnt offering first. We confess our sins and receive forgiveness through the blood, the death, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ every Sunday, and then we offer ourselves again and anew to him. The order of the gospel is essential to its meaning. You can’t work first and believe second. You believe and practice. Christians don’t serve the Lord in order to be saved, but because they have been saved. That is the basic order of our relationship with God. God made it an Old Testament ritual to be settled deep in our hearts.

But, as the grain offering reminds us, we must dedicate ourselves to the Lord; we must respond to his love and salvation with gratitude and service. It is the only proper response to the Lord’s making a covenant with us, providing forgiveness for our sins, and continuing to do so in spite of our constant failure to live worthy of the grace we have received. There must be the burnt offering and the grain offering, just as there must be faith and obedience.

The Israelites may remember his redemption from Egypt, but we should remember ours. Oh, we were under the whip of our taskmaster. Far worse than Pharaoh. His name is the devil. The Lord Jesus has delivered us from his scourge by himself taking the scourge on our behalf. Well, thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you. There ought to be great offering principles here of frankincense and oil and joy.

Providential Mercies

Just like the Israelites showed their gratitude by a grain offering of providential blessing during the harvest, do you know there is a principle in the New Testament? Do you know the grain offering we give to God in the church is a tithe from our harvest of salary? “Pastor, how can you say this?” I want to talk about money. You may think I should be ashamed to talk about this because false teachers only talk about this. But see, we don’t often talk about tithing. We don’t ask for money. An offering is very silently done. A quiet little box is over in the corner that most visitors never even notice. But when we come to something in the word of God, and God speaks about that, we should, so we don’t miss out on God’s favor. Why is it that we are never happy with our income? We may say we don’t earn that much. Can I tell you, contentment and happiness do not come with more salary, but with the favor of God on our income? We get that only when we express, like the Israelites, a grain offering of our harvest as tithes to the work of the temple.

We see Paul uses the same principle in 1 Corinthians 9. Paul is referring quite clearly to the grain offering. Verse 13: Here is Paul speaking about his right to receive remuneration for his gospel labors. Notice what he says. “Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the Temple? And those who attend regularly to the altar have their share of the altar, so also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.” Do you see here how an Old Covenant practice, the grain offering, is the justification for a New Covenant provision? He says in verse 14, “Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.” Where did the Lord command? In Luke 10:7, Jesus sent out the 70 to the lost sheep of Israel, and he said, “Don’t take with you any purse. No money because as you are out, the laborer is worthy of his wages.” You are to be able to live comfortably off the gospel. People will provide for you in your gospel labors, just like the old covenant priests in the Tabernacle.

I want to highlight this because someone told me, “Pastor, it will be very difficult for you to get another good full-time pastor because you have been doing all these years without taking any pay, and you plan to live like that till the end. You are proud about that, but the ministry and church may suffer and not grow because of that. Why? No one would want to come and take pay and do the ministry here in church. They will not only feel unnecessary guilt, but the church people will look at them with lower respect.” While Scripture clearly has commanded people should provide for the pastor, you may become like the Brethren who would oftentimes say there should be no paid ministry; all should work. There was a subtle and unspoken conviction that somehow it is unspiritual for a man to earn a living by church work. Even if you decide to pay, you will not pay a comfortable salary, so no one will come. You will be like many churches who wrongly think, “Let us keep pastors poor and godly.” That made me think a lot.

I am not saying I am going to take the money from now on, but we have to seriously think about this. Sometimes our wrong, unbiblical thinking can hinder the growth of the church, dangerous seeds we may be sowing that will hinder the growth. For the church to grow, we need more pastors. We need full-time pastors. Otherwise, we will continue to struggle and not progress. That is wrong. We may lose God’s favor because of this. The principle of the grain offering teaches us as God’s people that it is our duty and an expression of gratitude for his providential mercies that we need to support God’s ministers so they can do God’s work without any hindrance. Yes, there is a lot of abuse of money in Christianity, but we shouldn’t go to the other extreme. I’m cautioning against the opposite problem. If we get into an attitude, “Oh, we should not pay anyone full time,” we as a church may not be able to grow and do much for the gospel. That is wrong.

The principle of the grain offering teaches we ought to offer a grain offering during our harvest. It is not once every six months, but at the beginning of every month when we get our salary, we have to offer as cheerful givers. God loves a cheerful giver with oil and with the frankincense of joy. We will see in Philippians 4:18 how Paul sees the gift the Philippians sent to him: “Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”

Here’s another clear reference to the grain offering. They had sent much provision for the apostle Paul. And Paul says thank you. “You’ve given a grain offering to the Lord. It is a soothing aroma.” Leviticus 2. It is part of our spiritual worship and our new covenant sacrifice.

Attitude with Which We Should Offer Grain Offering for Redemption and Providential Mercies

We have to do it with thankful hearts. I thank you for all your redemption atonement mercies through Christ, and also providential mercies in the harvest you have given. It was Thanksgiving. Ascending heavenward. And this is underscored even by the ingredients of oil and frankincense. This is an indication of doing it cheerfully with thankful hearts.

Yes, there was voluntary, but the grain offering was always a regular part of their worship. At harvest time, every Sabbath, every morning and every meeting, at Passover time, a grain offering at the first of the month. It is a reminder to keep them with thankful hearts.

Remembering God’s mercies will enable us to do it with thankfulness. That was a peculiar disease of the people of God in ancient times: to forget. We find in Deuteronomy 8 he warns them: “Make sure you don’t forget when you come into the land and you inherit orchards that you didn’t plant, and homes that you didn’t build in walled cities that you didn’t construct, remember and do not forget that it is the Lord who has given these things to you and given you the ability to make wealth.” Make sure that you don’t get into an atheistic enterprising apart from the Lord. We can become like the nine lepers, who, in the full flush of health, having been cleansed and made whole by the Lord Jesus Christ, neglected to return with the grain offering principle of Thanksgiving to the Lord Jesus. How many times have we been doing that? How often do we sense health and sense blessings from God, and we run about doing many things, but we do not bring the grain offering to the living God? We must resolve to deliberately and premeditatedly as well as spontaneously schedule it into our lives.

When we get our salary, why doesn’t it fill us with joy? “Oh, only this much.” I will tell you, with 10 times more, we will feel the same. This attitude we consider in our mind, that this is the salary that God owes me? How many times have you thanked God for the salary? As a family devotion, have you thanked God for the salary as a family? Have we taught our children to thank God for the harvest? We sit in front of a table that is overflowing with bounty: mutton biriyani, so many chicken items, fish. Do we consider that this is the deserved ratio that God owes to us? Or is this not rather an undeserving feast, that as the Holy God looks down on us, his undeserving servants, who have defiled his table, as it were, and have treasonously rebelled against him even this day? But instead, look what the living God comes with, his arms filled with grocery bags, and he pulls it down upon our unworthy table. And he says, “Look what I have brought for you.” We offer from our heart gratitude of a grain offering.

Can I tell you, we are not happy in life because we are not regularly offering a grain offering. You see, sometimes our prayers are so monotone, with no feelings of choking thanksgiving and tears. Why? All pride, no gratitude. If we are, there’s a great offering Thanksgiving. “I am thrilled and exhilarated with what you have done. I bring the joy of oil and frankincense and not merely a bland, monotone sacrifice of prayer or the gift that God has given us.”

We have to do it to honor God’s authority over us. The actual Hebrew word for the grain is called Minha. The word means tribute. It is an acknowledgment of God’s sovereign authority over us, and we pay tribute. We respect and love his authority by offering a grain offering. In the Old Testament, when people hated the authority, they refused to pay tribute. Like we see in Judges, when people loved the king, they paid tribute, like in the days of David and Solomon. Jehovah is our king. By offering a grain offering for redemption, we say, “Lord, we love you. I will be faithful to you. I will submit to you and I have great affection for you as I bring this grain. All of the labors of my hand, I will enlist to serve your name. Oh, great King of mine.”

Do it with sincerity, as shown with no leaven. No hypocrisy, cheerfully, joyfully.

We have to do it with covenant loyalty, as shown in the salt. Grain offerings had to be heavily seasoned. Salt also indicates a perseverance. Salt was something that couldn’t be destroyed by fire. It couldn’t be destroyed by time, and therefore to add salt to the offering was a reminder that the worshiper was in an eternal, not temporary, covenant.

We see when worship was proper in Israel, with these two things, there was God’s blessings in the whole nation. The nation prospered, priests were provided, God blessed them, and the people.