Two Great New Books From Dinah Dye and Joseph Good

I want to recommend two books that I have recently read, written by two friends of mine who are absolute experts on the Temple in Jerusalem from two entirely different angles.

Dr Dinah Dye’s book The Temple Revealed in Creation: A Portrait of the Family is a truly marvelous first look into how the entire Scripture is organized as a Temple text from front to back. Dinah takes the reader on a tour de force journey through not only the story of the Creation Covenant, but also into the realm of Jewish midrash through beautiful fictional stories guaranteed to elevate your appreciation of what Yeshua (Jesus) lovingly called, “My Father’s House.” Dinah deftly weaves Scripture, Second Temple literature, Legendary material, and hard archaeology into the first of a series of volumes designed to awaken a love of God’s Temple within the readers – tying it all together to teach God’s intention for the structure of the family – our primary, most basic human institution which is currently under violent and relentless attack. I had the privilege of reading this before it went to print and I can assure you that it will be a life-altering experience – even if your only goal is to start understanding the language of Revelation.

The second book that I want to bring to your attention is Joseph Good’s Measure the Pattern Volume I. Joseph is one of the world‘s foremost experts on the Temple in Jerusalem. He has spent decades relentlessly pouring through Scripture, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Palestinian Exploration Fund archival materials, modern archaeological records, Second Temple period sources, and Talmudic writings. Joseph has led many tour groups through Israel and has even been honored to have the ear of the Temple Institute to present his findings (that is no small accomplishment). This book is the result of many years of hard core research into the Azarah and the immediate surrounding buildings of the Temple Mount. This volume is a real eye opener that will help you enter into the central focal point in the lives of Yeshua (Jesus) and His disciples. This book, along with Joseph’s Jerusalem Temple Study course, have completely revolutionized the way I teach the Scriptures to my children, and someday, other children as well.

The Temple was the center of Jewish life and plays a big part in many of Messiah’s miracles and in His ministry in general. Many people are teaching things that are not backed up by archaeology or the writings of those who were alive when the Temple stood. It is imperative that we get this right.

If you aren’t familiar with my books, I am going to go ahead and plug myself as well. I am nearing completion of Context for Kids Volume 2: The Ten Commandments and the Covenants of Promise so if you haven’t taken your kids through Volume 1: Honor and Shame in the Bible, this is a great time to start. Each course is 10 weeks, or 50 lessons, long and takes the entire family into an area of study generally reserved for College students – but when College students learn it, it comes burdened down with professorial assurances that the Bible wasn’t written when it says it was written or by who it says it was written by. I want to arm kids with this information presented from the vantage point of the Bible being authentic to the time periods is claims to be written in (ie. Moses really did write the first five books of the Bible and not someone during the Babylonian exile) before someone else gets to them and undermines their faith. The first book covered honor/shame culture, which reads into every Biblical story but is a big unknown to western audiences. After completion of this ten week sociology course, your family will understand not only why Yeshua (Jesus) and the Pharisees were always arguing, why Saul tried to kill David, and why Joseph’s brothers tried to kill him, but also why Islamic terrorists take so much pride in the killing of the weakest members of society when we consider their actions so cowardly.

The Bridge: Crossing Over into the Fullness of Covenant Life is my bridge building book between those believers who do and do not believe that Torah Law is for today. Starting at mainstream Christianity, I establish Jesus as the absolutely faithful witness, the only begotten Son of God and make the case for the Father being absolutely loving and perfect. Then I move on to Jesus’ endorsement of Moses in the Gospels. After that we re-examine Paul without undermining his ministry or his teachings, but merely putting them into context. The Bridge presents the Kingdom of God as a family with a perfect Father and perfect house rules. When many of us came to Torah we did it with a lot of zeal and no wisdom and burned bridges that we didn’t have the right to burn, and frankly weren’t even in need of burning. Too many of us broke faith with our families and now regret it and see our error, but it is now too late because they won’t listen to us anymore. If you don’t know how to speak with your family about Yeshua and Torah, I ask that you allow me to try. I treat Christians with the absolute respect that they deserve, I don’t throw any salacious urban legends at them about their traditions, and I don’t teach anything that I can’t actually prove from Scripture and archaeology. Newly revamped, I removed some of the problems with the first edition and added 20,000 more words of material.

King, Kingdom, Citizen: His Reign and Our Identity is a book that started out as simply being about Paul as an Immigration attorney working between the incoming gentile converts and the Jews (based upon a teaching from Rico Cortes) and became a beginning primer for Ancient Near Eastern studies – written in such a way that any High School student can follow along easily (unlike my review for Dinah’s book, most of my stuff is readable – sometimes I just enjoy flowery language). I establish God as a literal King, the Kingdom of Heaven as a literal Kingdom, Messiah as the heir to the Kingdoms of the Earth, and ourselves as full citizens of that Kingdom. Most of the book pertains to the first century writings, with large sections devoted to the difficult areas of Acts, Romans and a verse by verse explanation of Galatians as an Immigration text proving the right of the Galatian converts to be citizens of the Kingdom without being rabbinically circumcised as adults.

Are Marriage Laws Pagan? Isaac and Rebekkah in Ancient Near Eastern Context

If I had a dime for every woman who believed the doctrine that they don’t need a marriage certificate to get married and that they can just hook up with a guy, who then went and actually did just that; who got used up and abandoned, even though she was in possession of a self-made Ketubah signed by “witnesses” who then didn’t hold the man who she was shacking up with accountable (and indeed, had no legal ability to do so) when he turned out to not really be very Torah observant–and who now has no legal recourse and can’t get out of this marriage that doesn’t exist legally and yet spiritually it does exist because they had sex together…

Yeah, it was a messy run-on sentence but this is a messy run-on situation. Here’s the story I hear:

(1) Marriage by the State is pagan; (2) all you need to do is go cohabit and have sex and as long as you both love God, you are legally married in His eyes and (3) you have all of the protection you need Biblically, oh and (4) God told me this by revelation.

It sounds romantic, spiritual, and appealing, right? It sounds like a way to reclaim our heritage as believers–but nothing could be further from the truth.

Whenever I hear a doctrine prefaced or prefixed by “God told me this by revelation” then I am like a hundred times more likely to assume that it’s just something straight out of their imagination (2021 editing note: just last week I had a woman declare to me that diabetes, both kinds, are caused by octopus demons because she saw it in a dream). If they had proof, they would provide it. Those who have no proof, too often credit God with revelation–and crediting God with vain imaginations, make no mistake, is a form of blasphemy. It’s asserting God’s authority to preach something in His Name, when God authorized nothing of the sort.

Ladies, in the past (really until just recently historically) marriage was a covenant made by two fathers or other male relatives. It was a contract between two families. It was a legal act, recognized by the civil authorities because everything about it was done in a legal and civil fashion. It wasn’t just going to a man’s house and shacking up and now you are safely married after making up a paper and saying what you want on it and having random people sign it. That was fornication in the ancient world–and still is. All throughout the Bible, we have situations presented that were not thoroughly explained to the people of the times as it represented their normal everyday context–frankly, why waste the ink telling people what they already know? Until just a short while ago historically, all the world operated according to totally different mindsets than we presume today–they were honor/shame focused, dyadic (community) centered and spiritual as opposed to scientific. Our ancestors walked away from all of that and became concerned with innocence and guilt, individualism, and science–our ancestors flipped the culture 180 degrees and then set about twisting interpretations of the Word of God in order to fit the new paradigm. We cannot ignore the original culture for which the Bible Laws were tailor-made. We can’t walk away from that culture and then just drag the Bible along with us as though God’s original intentions are even less sacred than the original intentions of the authors of the United States Constitution.

Very often, and especially in Paul’s letters, we see that appearances in an alien culture are vitally important–whether it is in the form of an admonishment for married women to obey Greco-Roman legal dress codes or in warnings as to how believers should conduct themselves publicly within the cultures in which they have been exiled. We are God’s ambassadors, and when we do things that look shameful within the larger society, we are shaming God. Living with a man without benefit of a legal marriage license in this culture and calling oneself a believer looks excessively worldly, shameful to God, and, frankly, it is not Biblical. This isn’t some noble protest against the Government, it is something that makes God look really casual about His ideas of what constitutes marriage.

People will tell you, on this particular issue, that they received a “revelation” from God but what they did was simply read the plain text out of the Bible without knowing anything about the underlying culture. They aren’t aware, for instance, that Abraham’s servant went with absolute legal authority and, as an ambassador in the name of Abraham to whom he had sworn an oath with hand on (well, you know), made a covenant in his master’s name with Rebekkah’s father and brother. Isaac and Rebekkah were legally married before she ever left Haran. The Brideprice was paid. The dowry was already given for her protection should Isaac divorce her for childlessness. The entire legal structure of the Ancient Near East would have recognized the contract. This was, for all intents and purposes, a state-sponsored marriage.

This is all a matter of established ancient law and you can see it in the text if you know that context. Rebekkah had a legal contract, a legal marriage–she had legal protections should Isaac toss her onto the street. Furthermore, if Isaac wronged her he would have her entire family to deal with because they would all be wronged and would seek satisfaction.

The ancient world was one big honor/shame network and Isaac and Rebekkah were practicing an “endogamous” marriage within the clan. Nothing could have possibly been more legal than that–not only did she had civil covenant legalities in place to protect her, but she was also protected by an honor/shame culture that doesn’t exist in the west. This was as safe as marriage got in ancient times and it was exactly why people did it–because in honor/shame cultures you were required to be absolutely honest with family (making Laban’s behavior all the more shocking when read from an honor/shame standpoint). Rebekkah’s father would never have sent his daughter with Abraham’s servant unless said servant was carrying assurances–it would not be unlikely that he was in possession of Abraham’s seal, cord and staff and in fact, I believe that he was.

Out here, even in “Torah Observant” communities–men who go this “Government-negating” route are not required to deal honorably with their wives because no one understands that kind of culture anymore. We don’t even know what honor is. There is also no Covenant court set up, no legitimate Bet Din to protect a woman from being abandoned. Women cannot bring a Covenant lawsuit against a husband who has wronged them nor can they go to a secular court because they didn’t do things civilly. We are living in exile, and exile means that we do not have the benefit of pretending like women have the legal protections they would have had in the ancient world.

So #1–Rebekkah was legally married by the laws of the land, through a sacred Ancient Near Eastern covenant system between two fathers and two families. This was not something done simply between man and woman. Brideprice and dowry were legally paid and recorded. #2–Rebekkah had societal protections because of the honor/shame cultural mores that do not exist within the United States and Europe, and certainly not within the ad-hoc religious communities that are not truly operating under ancient principles for faithfulness but are based instead on a strange amalgam of what we think was going on based upon what is written in the Bible to an audience who didn’t need to be told these things in the first place any more than we need to be told that tarantulas aren’t food. Just as modern-day “neo-pagan” communities operate according to how they think ancient pagans lived, modern-day “Torah-Observant” communities do exactly the same thing–overlooking the need to study out the culture before making assumptions about life in the ancient world. We are not honor/shame centered and we are not dyadic/community-based. We are innocence guilt/individualistic/scientific people–we are the OPPOSITE of the types of people the Law was designed to work well with. We are different in every way. Our ancestors left the culture of the Bible and now we are trying to keep our culture and twist the Torah around our modern assumptions like a pretzel.

I have received so many messages from women who believed this doctrine, and were left in a bind–“married” and yet also unmarried while their “Torah observant” husbands moved on to the next woman he met online. And no one can force their “not even common law” husband to do right by them. All he has to say is “she abandoned me” and it becomes a “he said/she said.” I’ve seen it so many times in the last year that you might be shocked. Women come to me and I can’t do anything to help them. No one can help them–not until they have been with their “husband” for the seven years which provides common law recognition by the State.

A legal marriage contract isn’t pagan. They have always existed. There is a big difference between civil laws and idolatry–laws are not inherently idolatrous or pagan. Making an idol, placing it in a shrine, trying to imbue it with the essence of a god, bathing it, feeding and clothing it, and bowing down to it so that you can appease it–that’s pagan and idolatrous. Laws are simply laws, and as such, they are generally the opposite of pagan, as they are simply secular. They are either good laws or bad laws. And the secular laws have existed for one reason above all other reasons–to protect women and children from men. Hey, look at the Torah laws, how many of them tell women who not to have sex with, and how many are telling men who they had better not have sex with? How many protect men from being raped and how many protect women from being raped? Is it the man who has protections from being falsely accused of adultery or women?

Men have had to be historically commanded not to follow their baser instincts and to not rape or seduce, to not have sex with family members, to not engage in homosexual relationships, to not touch a woman when she is having her period, to not dishonor a woman without proof. Women don’t naturally do those things (or at least they didn’t before women’s lib decided we should act more like men–somehow acting like men made us more sexually promiscuous and murderous. Go figure!).

In the Kingdom of Israel, the Covenant, the constitution of the Kingdom of God, protected women from men from beginning to end. Unfortunately, in exile and without Sanhedrin courts in place, we women are left without protection unless we take advantage of the laws of the land concerning marital legality.

Like polygamy and polygyny, this is one of those areas that people feel very strongly about and preach completely out of the societal context–and amazingly, to the detriment of women and children in both cases and to the benefit of men. Again, go figure.

¿QCI? (¿Qué comió Ishtar?) Tortas hechas para la Reina del Cielo: Jeremías 7 en Contexto Parte 2

Thanks so much to my English readers for being so understanding about receiving Spanish translations in the mail from time to time – this allows me to reach 10% of the readers in the world instead of only 5%. I pray someday to have a committed Spanish blog but that will be a long time away 🙂

Gracias a Lisa Velazquez por traducir este articulo. Puede escucharla a traves de Teshuva.tv los Domingos a las 6pm en el programa radial: Caminando en Obediencia.

Por lo tanto, esto no era lo que estaba estudiando. Yo estaba buscando el culto a Moloc desde el punto de vista del Culto Imperial y la prostitución de culto a la luz de la parashá de esta semana – y luego me topé con esto por accidente. Y era demasiado prometedor, no para cavar explorar y compartir.

“Oh Istar, diosa misericordiosa, he venido a visitarte. Te he preparado una ofrenda, la leche pura, una torta cocida en cenizas (kamanu tumri), me he puesto de pie para ser un recipiente para tus libaciones, escúchame y actúa favorablemente hacia mí. “- Un himno de Ishtar (ha habido muchos himnos diferentes conservados), citado en Ackerman.

¿Qué es kamanu tumri? Es un pan sin levadura fino hecho de harina y cocido en cenizas – literalmente una “torta de ceniza” (en comparación con el pan hecho en un horno formal, el pan tumru se hace a toda prisa). De hecho, todavía los árabes lo hacen en nuestros días. (1) ¿Qué es un pastel puro? Creo al llamársele una “torta pura” probablemente sería un reflejo del hecho de que no había tenido tiempo de leudarse.

No inmediatamente un un elemento de cambio hasta que nos fijamos en Jeremías 7:18:

¡Los hijos recogen la madera, los padres encienden el fuego, las mujeres amasan la masa para hacer tortas (kawwanim) a la reina del cielo; y, sólo para provocarme, ellos derraman ofrendas de bebida a otros dioses! (2)

Kawwanim es una palabra de anticipo derivada de la palabra acadia kamanu (3) y el único otro lugar en la Escritura en el que la vemos es Jeremías 44:19:

[Entonces las esposas añadieron,] “¿Somos nosotras las que ofrecemos incienso a la reina del cielo? ¿Derramamos libación a ella? ¿Acaso le hicimos tortas marcadas con su imagen para ella y derramamos libación a ella sin nuestros esposos?” (4)

En el contexto Jeremías 44 se refiere al retorno de los judíos a la adoración de la Reina del Cielo, ya que se consideraron que habían sido maldecidos por haberla abandonado. Volviendo a la primera cita del Himno de Ishtar, la única razón por la cual el himnito ofrecía leche, pasteles y vino era con el fin de ser oído y bendecido.

Note la frase única en Jeremías 44:19 – marcadas con su imagen – l’ha’asibah. El único otro lugar en el que vemos en las Escrituras es cuando Job está hablando de ser formado por las propias manos de Dios en Job 10:8. Así que vemos pan sin levadura, harina, pasteles finos delgados ya sea formados a la imagen de Ishtar o que llevaban su marca. Su “marca” o la forma moldeada, como sabemos por los abundantes hallazgos arqueológicos (incluyendo todo su templo excavado en Nínive y un gran número de tabletas que nos da una increíble riqueza de conocimiento sobre su culto – demontres, ¡incluso sabemos que sus sacerdotes eran travestis!), habría sido una de cuatro cosas posibles – la estrella de ocho puntas, el león, el búho, o tal vez estaban moldeadas en la forma de su cuerpo que de alguna manera ella era una especie única de diosa de la fertilidad sin ser una diosa madre (diosa de los almacenes y de las prostitutas, como si tuviese un trabajo de día y un trabajo de noche).

Entonces, ¿qué comió Ishtar? Tortas delgadas, de flor de harina, sin levadura modeladas o estampadas con su símbolo – combinadas con una buena copa de Chianti. (Está bien, probablemente no era Chianti)

¿Quiere esto decir que el pan sin levadura es de alguna manera pagano? ¿O el vino derramado sobre el altar? Por supuesto que no – no más que la carne, pan leudado, miel, sal, leche y otros alimentos. El pan sin levadura es simplemente pan hecho sin esperar a que el proceso de fermentación ocurra, que en la antigüedad era un proceso largo y complicado.

Al final, una ofrenda pagana requiere un objetivo e intención paganos. La forma y función de trabajar contiguos para el propósito específico de acercarse a otra deidad. Nada de lo ofrecido a los dioses paganos era, de por sí, pagano – pero moldearlo o estampar una torta sin levadura plana con la imagen de Ishtar y luego intencionalmente ofrecerlo a ella, eso Sí, es pagano. El contexto y la intención cambian todo – y sobre todo cambia la forma en que leemos e interpretamos la Biblia.

Biografía y Fuentes de Referencia

(1) Barrows, E. P., The Manners and Customs of the Jews: pg 99; also Luzac’s Semitic Texts and Translation Series, Vol. 15, The Devils and Evil Spirits in Babylonia, p 19

(2) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Je 7:18). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(3) Ackerman, Susan, “And the Women Knead Dough: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth Century Judah” in Bach, Alice, Women in the Hebrew Bible (1999) pp 21-32

(4) The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Je 44:19). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

WWIE? (What Would Ishtar Eat?) Baking Cakes for the Queen of Heaven: Jeremiah 7 in Context Part 2

So, this is not what I was studying. I was looking into Molech worship from the vantage point of Emperor Cult and cult prostitution in the light of this week’s Torah Portion – and then I stumbled upon this by accident. And it was way too cool not to dig into, explore and share.

“Oh Istar, merciful goddess, I have come to visit you. I have prepared for you an offering, pure milk, a pure cake baked in ashes (kamanu tumri), I stood up for you a vessel for libations, hear me and act favorably towards me.” – A hymn of Ishtar (there have been many different hymns preserved), quoted in Ackerman

What is Kamanu tumri? It is a thin unleavened loaf of fine flour baked in ashes – literally called an “ash cake” (as opposed to bread made in a formal oven, tumru bread is made on the go, in haste). In fact it is still made by Arabs to this day. (1) What is a pure cake? I believe that calling it a “pure cake” would probably be a reflection of the fact that it hasn’t had time to become leavened.

Not immediately a game changer until you look at Jeremiah 7:18

The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes (kawwanim) for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. (2)

Kawwanim is a loan word derived from the Akkadian kamanu (3) and the only other place we see it in scripture is Jer 44:19

And the women said, “Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands’ being involved?” (4)

In context, Jeremiah 44 concerns the return of the Jews to the worship of the Queen of Heaven as they feel they had been cursed since abandoning her. Going back to the first quotation from the Hymn of Ishtar, the entire reason the hymnist was offering milk, cakes and wine was in order to be heard and blessed.

Look at that unique phrase in Jer 44:19 – marked with her image – l’ha’asibah. The only other place we see this in scripture is when Job is speaking of being fashioned by God’s own hands in Job 10:8. So we have unleavened, thin, fine flour cakes either fashioned in the image of Ishtar or bearing her mark. Her “mark” or fashioned shape, as we know from the plentiful archaeological finds (including her entire Temple excavated in Ninevah and a great many tablets giving us an incredible wealth of knowledge about her cult – heck, we even know that her priests were cross-dressers!), would have been one of four possible things – the eight pointed star, the lion, the owl, or perhaps they were fashioned in the shape of her body in some way as she was a unique sort of fertility goddess without being a mother goddess (goddess of the storehouse and of prostitutes, go figure – kinda like having a day job and a night job).

So what would Ishtar eat? Thin, fine flour, unleavened cakes fashioned or stamped with her sign – paired with a nice glass of Chianti. (well okay, probably not Chianti)

Does this mean that unleavened bread is somehow pagan? Or wine poured out on the altar? Of course not – no more so than the meat, leavened bread, honey, salt, milk and other foods. Unleavened bread is simply bread made without waiting for the leavening process, which in ancient times was a long and complicated process.

In the end, a pagan offering requires a pagan target and pagan intent. Form and function working together for the specific purpose of drawing near to another deity. Nothing offered to pagan gods was, in and of itself, pagan – but shaping or stamping a flat unleavened cake with the image of Ishtar and then purposefuly offering it up to her? Yeah that’s pagan. Context and intent change everything – and they especially change how we read and interpret the Bible.

(1) Barrows, E. P., The Manners and Customs of the Jews: pg 99; also Luzac’s Semitic Texts and Translation Series, Vol. 15, The Devils and Evil Spirits in Babylonia, p 19

(2) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Je 7:18). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(3) Ackerman, Susan, “And the Women Knead Dough: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth Century Judah” in Bach, Alice, Women in the Hebrew Bible (1999) pp 21-32

(4) The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Je 44:19). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Acharei Mot in the Context of Passover: Can we sacrifice a Passover lamb in the backyard?

Wedged in between the Yom Kippur commandments and the chapter that my fifteen year old twins grudgingly listen to every year (“okay mom, you don’t need to teach us this part! We get it!”) is Leviticus 17. So what exactly is wedged between these two chapters? Something equally as important – the prohibition from making offerings on a non-consecrated altar, as well as by anyone other than a priest. The penalty is karet – being cut off from the people of Israel. (Note: this is specifically concerning peace offerings, if you want to understand the transgression offerings and the reason why they cannot be offered anywhere but in the Temple, click here.)

This chapter is specifically about the shelamim, or peace offerings, which are found described in Leviticus 3. They are not a transgression/purification offering but instead a shared meal between man and God and therefore the meat must be holy. The best known example of a type of shelamim is the Passover. What we celebrate today is a memorial, very different from the Passover meal that we would be able to celebrate with a Temple standing.

Let’s go through it verse by verse, so that there is no confusion:

If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp, and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people. (1)

This seems straightforward enough – in the camp in the wilderness, it was commanded that no one kill an animal within the camp or outside of it without bringing the LORD’s portion to Him. Any violations of that Law renders a man as guilty as if he had committed a murder. There were a number of reasons for this – first of all, the camp in the wilderness had a hypersensitive purity level and the shedding of the blood of a clean sacrificial animal without applying that blood to the altar was a pollution in the camp. The second reason this was a problem is because God was providing them with manna daily, as well as quail – if they in addition slaughtered a livestock animal and ate of it without offering God the best of the portions, it was a dishonor to Him. The eating of a livestock animal was a big deal in the ancient world – it was a party – and to have said party without inviting or even acknowledging the King is a problem.

But more than that, there was a third reason given in the next verse:

This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice in the open field, that they may bring them to the LORD, to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the LORD (2)

God wanted a cultural change – up until that point, the Patriarchs had no central point for worship – but now here was the very presence of God in their midst, His throne within His portable (and later permanent) palace. They would no longer be wanderers, strangers in a strange wilderness – they would be a settled nation with one God, who had one Temple, and who called all of the shots. He didn’t want them slaughtering livestock for food UNLESS it was as a peace offering (what all my friends call the “barbeque offering”). This total restriction on the eating of meat having to take the form of an offering was modified when they went into the Land and God allowed them to eat meat all throughout the Land of Israel without it being a sacrifice. But that was the understanding – no meat slaughtered and eaten throughout the Land qualified as a sacrifice.

“When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. If the place that the LORD your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. (3)

The point being, of course, was that they were no longer within the precincts of the Tabernacle – imagine the poor priests, as the population grew, having to sacrifice animals whenever anyone wanted meat! That being said, throughout the history of Israel, most people generally ate meat only once a year, and that was on Passover, when it was a requirement for the native born. Otherwise, animals were far too valuable to use for the regular consumption of meat.

The next verse shows clearly that meat slaughtered outside of the Tabernacle grounds was not holy and had no restrictions, and was not holy.

Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. (4)

The commandment for eating hunted animals was simply that their blood be drained out on the ground and covered with dirt. Look at the next statement “the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.” Did you know that only people who were ritually clean could eat of sacrificed animals? Once the blood touched the altar, that meat was holy and could only be eaten by people with the required level of holiness! To eat a livestock animal within the camp of the Israelites required the sanctification provided by the altar. To eat the actual Passover Lamb, by extension (the holiest offering that an average Israelite would ever consume), required that it be consecrated by the altar so that it became holy (this is also the reason that circumcision was required, it raised the holiness level of the male to the proper level, which transferred to the women in his family as well). The eating of meat in the camp was, in essence, a holy act performed in the presence of God, the Creator of all life. Every sacrifice is holy and therefore must be handled in the prescribed manner, in the prescribed place, by the prescribed people, and eaten by the prescribed people.

Back to Leviticus 17:

And the priest shall throw the blood on the altar of the LORD at the entrance of the tent of meeting and burn the fat for a pleasing aroma to the LORD. So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations. (5)

As we see here, the blood of any sacrifice had to be thrown or poured out at the altar, and that fat always had to be burned upon the altar. God even compares not doing this properly to whoring after goat demons. We can’t chose a place to sacrifice and then just do it, not anymore, not once there was a consecrated altar and not once there was an eternal Aaronic priesthood. Did this have an expiration date? No, it is a statute forever throughout their generations – which means it applies to us. We cannot sacrifice anywhere but at the consecrated altar, and a priest must handle the blood. To do otherwise is to be lumped in with those who sacrifice to goat demons, because when we do not do things God’s way, we are not sacrificing to Him.

I want everyone to catch that – when we don’t sacrifice according to His specific instructions, we aren’t sacrificing to Him. The original Passover was a unique act, which has never needed to be repeated. No destroying force is coming in to kill the firstborn this weekend. What we celebrate now is a memorial tribute Feast – but unlike the Feast celebrated in the days of Yeshua, the meat is not holy – it is not a true Passover lamb.

What’s the penalty for sacrificing in “our own way?”

“And you shall say to them, Any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it to the LORD, that man shall be cut off from his people. (6)

Whoever tries to perform a sacrifice in their own way, in their own place, and who is not a priest – they will be cut off. God determined that only the Priests, descended from Aaron through Phineas and then Zadok, could perform this ritual and that has not changed. It is a perpetual ordinance and we cannot change that – there has been no dispensational change that gives us the right to consecrate our own altars (as was done in people’s front yards as part of the Imperial Cult parades) and to become priests (especially since we do not live according to the priestly restrictions, nor have we been ordained in the prescribed way) – as the book of Hebrews points out, even Yeshua didn’t have the right to be a priest on earth as He was the wrong tribe.

Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law (7)

If Yeshua never personally performed a sacrifice while on earth as a priest, neither before nor after His death – are we greater than our Master? Did the disciples ever slaughter a Passover lamb as though they were priests, how about Paul? The answer is no, and nowhere do we see even a hint of them doing it. Did they keep the Passover? Of course – Yeshua even told them to eat that Passover meal in remembrance of Him. But the Passover lamb was a very holy offering, so holy that only the native-born Israelites or circumcised converts could eat of it. (Ex 12:48-49) It was a memorial of deliverance, a celebration of the mighty arm of God to save, and now also a celebration of Yeshua’s (Jesus’) deliverance of all those who call upon His Name. The sacrifice was performed at the altar, in the Temple, and only by Priests.

To offer it up ourselves, however, when there is no altar for the blood? That is strange, unauthorized worship indeed.

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(1)The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Le 17:3–4). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

2) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Le 17:5). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(3) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Dt 12:20–21). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(4) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Dt 12:22). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(5) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Le 17:6–7). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(6) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Le 17:8–9). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

(7) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Heb 8:4). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.