Bible Lexicons

Girdlestone's Synonyms of the Old TestamentGirdlestone's OT Synonyms

Offerings

Few elements in the Mosaic dispensation are more interesting to the Christian student than the system of offerings there in prescribed. The practice of slaying animals for a religious purpose appears to have been called into existence at a very early stage of human history, but the Levitical system claims to have been elaborated under Divine direction during the sojourning in the wilderness, and that with a fulness of detail which must arrest the attention of every reader. If it be true that even in earthly matters 'coming events cast their shadows before,' much more is it to be expected that when the Author of all existence was about to make a special intervention in the affairs of man, He would not only intimate his purpose to some of those whom He was about to benefit, but would also prefigure the course which He was about to adopt. The system of offerings appointed to Israel may thus be regarded as a book of pictures, sketched in shadowy outline, indicating to God's people the work which was to be accomplished by Divine grace when the fulness of the time should have come.

There is a further re as on for a patient and accurate examination of this system. Among the controversies of the present day, few have given rise to such vehemence and acrimony as the questions, how far any part of the Levitical system of offerings is, or ought to be, reproduced in connection with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and whether the rite in question is a sacrifice, the holy table an altar, and the minister a priest.