This is the law of the burnt-offering, of the oblation, and of the sin-offering, and of the trespass-offering, and of the consecration-offering, and of the sacrifice of peace-offering,
Leviticus 7:37 closes the opening section of the book by listing the offerings one after another. Two questions sit inside that list: why each offering needed a "law" of its own, and why they come here in a different order from the one in which they first appeared.
One writer explains the word "law" here from its root:
This word "law" comes from the Hebrew word "torah," which means teaching. So the "law of the offerings" would show the teaching of the offerings.
The opening chapters describe what the worshipper brought. The section that verse 37 closes turns to the priests:
From verse 8 of chapter 6 to the end of Leviticus 7 we have the law of the various offerings. In each case the "law" gives further detail on how to present the offering to the Lord, and above all on how the priests were to deal with the parts that were not burned before Him.
The verse names the offerings one after another. They are not separate remedies; they point to one Person:
Christ, the offering of Christ, is the reality in which all these shadows meet. The varied colours of each and all blend into that one perfect light. God delighted in that light, because it displayed His nature in His Son, who became man in grace and truth for man. Man had neither grace nor truth, and now by faith he receives both. And all this comes in a sacrifice which not only bore the sins of the first man, but also passed to him the acceptance of the Second Man, as a fragrance of rest before God.
In chapters 1–3 the peace offering stands third. Here it comes last, and commentators treat the change as deliberate:
It is interesting to notice that, although the peace offering itself stands third in order, the law of that offering is given to us last of all. There is no offering in which the communion of the worshipper is opened up as fully as in the peace offering. In the burnt offering, it is Christ offering Himself to God. In the grain offering, we have Christ's perfect humanity. Then, moving on to the sin offering, we learn that sin, at its root, is fully met. In the guilt offering, there is a full answer to the actual sins in the life. But in none of those is the communion of the worshipper opened up. It comes at the close of all. This teaches us that, when it becomes a question of the soul feeding on Christ, it must be a full Christ, seen in every possible aspect of His life, His character, His Person, His work, His offices.
Another writer gives a second reason, drawn from who got to eat:
The order of the offerings is changed, and here it comes last. The reason, we suppose, is this: in the other cases only the priests shared in the offering, but here the ordinary person who brought the offering was allowed to have a share.
The list also names the ordination offering, which older translations call the consecration offering. One writer explains that word from the chapter where the priests were consecrated:
The word translated "consecrate" in this chapter means, as the margin shows, "to fill the hand." This gives us what consecration means in Scripture. The common idea is that it lies in our giving something up to God. So the soul is thrown back on itself to find strength to devote itself and all its energies to God's service… Scripture shows a better way. Consecration lies, as this chapter shows, in being filled with Christ. It is Christ possessing, absorbing, and controlling our souls.
It is tempting to read our own devotion into these offerings. One writer warns against that:
But it is a mistake, and a twisting of the word, to read our own devotedness into the burnt offering, or the grain offering, or the so-called peace offering, whatever impulse the truth in them may give to our souls. Instead, we are called in faith to see not only how completely we lack what Christ is, but how our fallen nature is the direct opposite of what we have learnt Christ to be in life and death… and as the result He brings us to enjoy communion with God, the Priest, and all the saints.
- Teaching, not rules — "Law" here translates torah, the Hebrew word for teaching. This section teaches; it does not just regulate.
- The priest's side — The opening chapters show what the worshipper brought. This section shows how the priests handled the parts not burned.
- One Christ, many colours — Every offering named here is a shade of one light: the offering of Christ, where all these shadows meet.
- Filled hands — "Consecration" means to fill the hand. It is not devotion we work up. It is Christ filling and controlling the soul.
- Communion last — The peace offering closes the list. Feeding on Christ comes after all the rest, and here alone the ordinary worshipper shares the meal.
which Jehovah commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to present their offerings to Jehovah, in the wilderness of Sinai.
The closing line of Leviticus 7 puts a date and a place on everything from chapter 1 onward. It all came from the LORD, at Sinai, to a people camped in the desert. So who set the terms for approaching God? And what were all these offerings pointing to?
The verse credits the whole system to one source. One writer traces the order of the five offerings and finds a mind behind it:
The book opens with the basis of all access to God — sacrifice and offering. His object is not the first man but the Second. So He begins with the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering. Only then does He move to the sin offering and the guilt offering, with the laws of each. That is the divine arrangement. In practice the order changes. With the priests the sin offering comes first; with a leper, the guilt offering. Who but God could arrange it like this?
Because the LORD commanded it, no one else could add to it or adjust it:
There was no room left for fancy, for imagination, for man's plausible conclusions, or for clever human convenience. God laid it all down with divine precision and the commanding authority of "thus says the LORD." The sacrifices, rites and ceremonies were full of detail, yet man's brain originated none of it. He was not even allowed to decide what kind of sacrifice to offer on a given occasion, or how to present it. God took care of everything... The word of the LORD settled all. Man had only to obey.
The verse names Sinai. Yet Leviticus opened with God speaking from the tabernacle — the tent where He lived among Israel. That shift matters:
"The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting." That was where God spoke from in this book. He had been speaking from Mount Sinai, and that position shaped the message. From the fiery mountain came a fiery law. But here He speaks out of the tent of meeting. This was an entirely different position.
The same holiness speaks in both places, but it meets the people in two ways:
God is holy, no matter where He speaks from. He was holy on Mount Sinai, and holy above the mercy seat. But at the mountain His holiness came with "a devouring fire." Above the mercy seat it came with patient grace.
The setting is deliberate — not a settled land, but a camp on the move:
Once the tabernacle stood, as Exodus directed, the LORD took His place on His earthly throne and spoke to Moses from it. He had brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt. He had brought them to Himself. Now they gathered around Him in the wilderness, with His tabernacle among them. Egypt lay behind them, Canaan lay ahead, and Sinai overshadowed them — the mountain that had just been wrapped in smoke, because the LORD came down on it in fire. Moses had the privilege... of receiving the laws about sacrifice. They came as one of the first messages after the tabernacle went up.
The verse lists the offerings one by one instead of merging them. The variety has a purpose:
All the offerings taken together give us a full view of Christ. They are like many mirrors, each reflecting the figure of that true and only perfect Sacrifice in a different way. No one type could fully present Him. We needed Him reflected in life and in death — as a Man and as a Victim, toward God and toward us.
Another writer gathers the whole list into one Person:
Christ, the offering of Christ, is the reality in which all these shadows meet. The varied colours of each and all blend into that perfect light in which God delighted as the display of His nature in His Son.
There is a wrong way to use this material — turning the offerings into a portrait of our own dedication:
The truth in these offerings may stir our souls. Even so, it is a mistake and a distortion of the word to read our own devotedness into the burnt, meal, or peace offering. Faith calls us instead to recognise our utter lack — and more, how deeply our fallen nature runs contrary to what we have learned Christ to be in life and in death.
- Commanded — Israel did not propose the way of approach. God laid down every detail, and man's part was to obey.
- Arranged — the order shows a divine mind: God begins with Christ, and only then deals with sin.
- Spoken — the words came at Sinai, but from the tent of meeting, not the burning mountain. The same holiness now comes with patient grace.
- Situated — God gave them to a camp in the desert, with Egypt behind, Canaan ahead, and His tent in the middle.
- Fulfilled — the offerings are mirrors angled at one Person. Christ is where every shadow meets, and the types describe Him, not us.