The LORD's Service

A Ritual Analysis of the Order, Function, and Purpose of the Daily Divine Service in the Pentateuch

Robert D. Macina

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532661952
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Worship in the Old Testament has been frequently misunderstood. Its rites and ceremonies are often perceived as legalistic works that were required by an angry God to gain his favor or avert his wrath. But is that really what the Bible teaches? To be sure, the LORD did institute the divine service in the Old Testament with all of its laws, rites, and ceremonies. Yet did God do this in order to be appeased or pleased by the ancient Israelites? When the priests enacted the offerings and sacrifices at the sanctuary, was it merely to do good works that God required but without meaning or purpose for his people? Was worship in the Old Testament always what the people did for the LORD or did God do anything that was beneficial to the Israelites? This book answers these questions and, furthermore, dispels the recurring misinterpretation of worship in the Old Testament. The LORD established the divine service in the Pentateuch not to receive what he demanded from the people of ancient Israel, but, on the contrary, to cleanse them from their sinful impurities, sanctify them to share in his holiness, and dwell among them with his blessing.

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Prologue

After the exodus of the ancient Israelites from Egypt, they camped at Mount Sinai where the LORD1 called Moses to come to the top of the mountain, which was covered by a cloud filled with the LORD’s glory (Exod 24:12–17).2 On top of that mountain during a period of forty days and forty nights the LORD revealed to Moses his plans for constructing a tabernacle as his dwelling place on earth and prescribed the main rites that the Israelites would enact in it (Exod 24:18–31:18).3 This legislation includes ritual activities that must be carried out daily, every morning and every evening at the tabernacle. Smoking up burnt offerings and burning incense form the basic acts that the LORD commanded to be performed every day at his earthly dwelling place (Exod 29:38–42; 30:7–8). Additional enactments were prescribed for the daily service after the tabernacle had been erected and the LORD established his residence there (Exod 40:34–38; Lev 1:1). The rites and ritual activities of that daily divine service are the focus of this book.

The daily service of ancient Israel with all of its correlated ritual acts has been almost entirely ignored by modern scholarship. Analyses of its various components are often given in great detail, but these tend to be piecemeal. No contemporary study has attempted to reconstruct the entire daily service, examine the function of all of its rites, and determine its divine purpose on the basis of the Pentateuch. This neglect is astounding, especially if one considers the centrality of the ritual system of ancient Israel as it is consistently portrayed throughout the biblical writings. Perhaps scholarship in this area has been lacking due to the difficulties of doing so. Nowhere does the Pentateuch spell out the entire order of the daily service, much less explain the function of its parts and its theological purpose. Rather, it presents the daily service in pieces rather than as a whole. Attempts at reassembling the daily divine service is like trying to find hidden pieces of a puzzle before determining where they must be placed. This is no easy task! There is, however, enough evidence in the Pentateuch and other sources to reconstruct the basic order of the daily divine service, examine its ritual function, and determine its divine purpose. I aim to stimulate a renewed interest in and shed new light upon a topic that has bewildered scholars.

Categories of Burnt Offerings

Without a general knowledge of the entire daily service, scholars frequently fail to recognize, on the one hand, the organic connection between the various kinds of offerings and, on the other hand, a distinction between the functions of the same kinds of offerings for different circumstances. The daily public burnt offerings must be distinguished from the occasional public burnt offerings and from individual burnt offerings. The public daily burnt offering was offered every day of the year in the morning and in the evening (Num 28:1–8). Public burnt offerings were also prescribed for other regular occasions (Num 28:9–39). They were presented in addition to the daily burnt offering every Sabbath, on the first day of every month, and at special times of the year, such as Passover, Pentecost, the Day of Acclamation, the Day of Atonement, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. Any Israelite could also present individual burnt offerings any time they desired as a personal devotion to God (Lev 1:1–17). In addition, other kinds of offerings, such as peace, sin, and guilt offerings, that were burned on the altar should not be incorrectly referred to as “burnt offerings.” Only small portions of these offerings were smoked up, however, while burnt offerings were entirely incinerated. I limit the term burnt offering [עֹלָה] only to those offerings that are burned completely.4 Even though all of the offerings of the entire ritual system were coordinately enacted, in this book I only examine the public daily burnt offering and the other ritual activities that were conducted every day.

The Foundation of Israel’s Perpetual Divine Service

The present study is based on data from the ritual sections in the Pentateuch. These areas in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers are examined to determine the practical order, the ritual function, and theological purpose of the daily divine service in ancient Israel.

The texts in the Pentateuch that deal with the daily service may be divided into three categories. First is the primary prescriptive source, which consists of Exod 25–30. Since this legislation was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, it may be viewed as the foundational regulation which establishes Israel’s performance of the rites and activities at the tabernacle. This section of the Pentateuch is the most important among the three main sources because, on the one hand, it is the first place where the Pentateuch prescribes Israel’s rites and, on the other hand, because the other sections presuppose it and build upon it. The next significant legislation for the daily divine service is the secondary prescriptive material found in Lev 6:1–16 [8–23]; 24:1–9; Num 6:22–27; 10:1–10; and 28:1–8. The LORD did not give these regulations to Moses on Mount Sinai but at the tabernacle after its construction. They may, therefore, be understood as supplementary prescriptions for the daily divine service. The final category of the Pentateuch that provides information about the daily service is the descriptive material in Exod 40:1–35 as well as Lev 8–9. Whereas the prescriptive sources record the institution of the ritual acts of ancient Israel, the descriptive sources tell how they enacted what had been previously legislated. The prescriptive and descriptive texts in the Pentateuch provide the foundation for this study.

The Pentateuch employs three different technical terms to indicate that certain parts of the divine service are intended to be performed perpetually as founded by the LORD through Moses. First, there is the legislation for future generations [לְדֹרֹתָם/לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם].5 Not only were Moses and his contemporaries to carry out the regulations for the ritual system in their own time, all of the descendants of Israel were obligated to keep performing the divine service throughout their generations. Every generation of the Israelites must conduct the main parts of the daily divine service (Exod 27:21; 29:42; 30:8, 21; Lev 6:11 [18]; 24:3; Num 10:8) as well as observe services at feast times throughout the year and follow the stipulations for the entire ritual system (Exod 12:14, 17, 42; 16:32–33; 30:10, 31; 31:13, 16; 40:15; Lev 3:17; 7:36; 10:9; 17:7; 21:17; 22:3; 23:14, 21, 31, 41, 43; Num 9:10; 15:14–15, 21, 23, 38; 18:23). The second technical term is Israel’s perpetual ritual statutes [חֻקַּת עוֹלָם].6 These, like the first term, apply to the ongoing enactment of the daily divine service (Exod 27:21; 28:43; Lev 24:3; Num 10:8) and to other occasions and conditions (Exod 12:14, 17; 29:9; Lev 3:17; 7:36; 10:9; 16:29, 31, 34; 17:7; 23:14, 21, 31, 41; Num 15:15; 18:23). They are the ritual ordinances that the LORD commanded to be kept ceaselessly from the time of their institution onward. The final term concerns the perpetual ritual provisions [לְחָק־עוֹלָם].7 One of the reasons the LORD established the divine service was to provide for his people (Exod 12:24), his priests (Exod 29:28; 30:21; Lev 6:11 [18]; 7:34; 10:15; 24:9; Num 18:8), and for their families (Num 18:11, 19). The perpetual ritual provisions were also part of the daily divine service (Exod 30:21; Lev 6:11, 15 [18, 22]). These three terms are used in the Pentateuch to ensure that the divine service and the entire ritual system must be observed in perpetuity throughout the generations of the Israelites.

An examination of the aforementioned technical terms reveals that there are four interconnected parts of the divine service that were instituted for the perpetual [עוֹלָם] observance of the Israelites. The first involves the daily service and its ritual acts that were required to be performed regularly [תָּמִיד].8 The lamps inside the tent of meeting must be tended and lit (Exod 27:21; Lev 24:3), the burnt offering of an unblemished yearling male lamb must be smoked up at the outer altar (Exod 29:42; Num 15:14, 15), fragrant incense mus...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Scripture Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Prologue
• Chapter 2: The Practical Order of the Daily Divine Service
• Chapter 3: The Ritual Function of the Daily Divine Service
• Chapter 4: The Theological Purpose of the Daily Divine Service
• Bibliography