Leviticus 2: The Handful and the Rest of the Flour

Ben found the flour on Sunday afternoon, while Melissa had bread dough going and stepped out to answer the phone, and when she came back our two-year-old was standing in the open pantry with one fist raised like a man about to give a toast. He let go. A white cloud hung in the light from the window for about a second and then settled on the floor and on Ben and on Biscuit, who had wandered in to see what the noise was and left with a pale nose.

I thought of it again Monday morning at the counter with Leviticus 2, because the second verse has a handful in it, and what happens to that handful turned out to be the least of what I'd had wrong about the chapter.

What is the meat offering in Leviticus 2?

The King James word is "meat," and there isn't any. In 1611 it meant food in general, so what you have here is a grain offering of fine flour, olive oil and frankincense. No blood, no animal. Leviticus 1 was the burnt offering, where the man killed the animal himself, and chapter 2 is the same altar with a completely different kind of gift.

It opens with a phrase I'd read past before, "when any will offer." Nobody is told to. The chapter reads like instructions for something a person might decide to do on a Tuesday because the barley came in and he felt like saying so.

And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:

That voluntary streak is why the chapter sits next to Paul's cheerful giver in my head, the one I went through in 2 Corinthians 9. A gift nobody forced out of you is a different object from one they did, even when the amounts match.

Fine flour was work, since somebody ground it and somebody shook it through a cloth while the coarse part stayed home for supper.

So the offering was the best of a week's labor, handed over before anyone ate. The verse leaves no room to pass off the second-best.

Who actually eats the grain offering?

I had this backwards for most of my adult life. I pictured the burning as the main event, the whole offering going up in smoke with priests standing around it, and whatever was left as an administrative detail. Then I read verses 2 and 3 slowly with flour still on the counter.

And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:

One handful of the flour goes on the fire, and the frankincense goes with it, every bit, because the verse says "all the frankincense." Everything else belongs to the priests. A handful out of a full bowl is a small fraction. The cheap ingredient is what survives while the one costly thing, the resin, is burned up completely, which is the reverse of how I'd have arranged it if I wanted the thing to look impressive.

Then verse 3.

And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.

The remnant is "most holy," which I'd missed, having treated the burned handful as the sacred part and the rest as leftovers when the text calls the leftovers the most holy thing in the chapter, bread a priest's family sits down to eat, which Leviticus won't let you rank below the smoke.

That one line turned the whole chapter around for me.

I keep trying to say why it bothers me in a good way, and I think it's that this is how I'd like to think about ordinary work and almost never do. The part that goes up where everyone can see it gets all my attention, whether that's a launch or a Sunday talk or a finished table. The part that feeds somebody's Tuesday gets none, and 2:3 says that part is holy too.

A caution, because it's easy to be cynical here. Priests in Israel had no land to farm, so this was their groceries. Reading the chapter as a convenient deal for the priests would be a cheap shot, since the whole offering passes through God's hands first and then comes back out as bread.

Why salt, and why no honey or leaven?

Two things are forbidden and one is required, and verse 13 is the one that sounds odd in a modern kitchen.

And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.

I cook in a Dutch oven more than is reasonable, and bread without salt tastes like paste. You can eat it but nobody asks for a second piece. So at the level of flavor the instruction is plain common sense, and then "the salt of the covenant" takes it somewhere bigger. Salt keeps things. It was how a food got through a winter, and a covenant that doesn't spoil is a fair thing to call by that name.

Leaven I understand better, because the chapter has Egypt behind it and unleavened bread is the bread of leaving in a hurry. Commentaries read leaven as sin spreading through the whole batch, and anyone who has watched a jar of starter take over a counter knows why that picture holds.

Honey is the one I can't settle, and I've gone back and forth on it all week. The reason I usually see is that honey belonged to the worship of other gods, and I've also seen the argument that honey ferments the way leaven does and so goes in the same bin. The chapter forbids both and doesn't tell you which reason is right, and I'm not going to push a tidy answer into the text.

The LDS teachers I read take the oil as the Holy Ghost and the frankincense as prayer. I find that moving and reasonable, and I also know it's something later teaching brings to the chapter. Leviticus 2 itself says "sweet savour" and "most holy" and leaves the ingredients unexplained, so I try to keep the two things apart when I read.

What does the firstfruits offering add?

The chapter ends with the one form that has no recipe.

And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.

Parched corn, beaten out of the ear, with no sifting and nothing fine or baked about it. It's whatever you have the week it's ready.

Our garden gave up its first ripe tomato on Friday (a lopsided Cherokee Purple) and I ate it standing next to the vine because I'd gone out to move the sprinkler and hadn't planned any ceremony. I'd like to say the offering crossed my mind. It didn't. I thought it was very good, and then Lily came around the corner wanting to know where hers was.

She got half.

That's the closest I can get to firstfruits as a feeling. The first of anything goes fast and a little selfishly, and a law that says bring it before you eat it is asking you to feel the pull and do the other thing for once. I'd have done worse than the average Israelite, going by Friday.

If you've been reading front to back, the altar this goes on was built back in Exodus 38, and now you find out what people put on it. A bowl of flour. For a book with a reputation for blood, Leviticus keeps opening with quiet things.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the King James Bible call it a meat offering when there's no meat?

In 1611 "meat" meant food of any kind. The offering is flour, oil and frankincense with no animal in it, and modern translations say grain offering or cereal offering for the same thing.

Who could bring a grain offering?

The chapter opens with "when any will offer," so it wasn't tied to a particular kind of person, and nothing in it says it was required. It was a gift a person chose to bring, which is why the verses read more like a recipe than a command.

What happened to the grain offering after it was brought?

The priest took a handful of the flour and oil with all the frankincense, and burned it on the altar as the memorial. The rest belonged to Aaron and his sons, and verse 3 calls that remainder most holy. Most of the offering ended up as food for the priests' households.

Why was salt required and leaven forbidden?

Verse 13 calls it the salt of the covenant and says it must never be lacking, and salt has always been what keeps food from spoiling. Leaven is usually read as corruption spreading through a batch. The text gives the rules without spelling out a reason for either.

What does the grain offering teach LDS readers about Christ?

LDS teaching reads these offerings as pointing to Christ, with the sacrament as the modern counterpart. That reading comes from later revelation and teaching and isn't spelled out in Leviticus 2 itself, and I find it easier to hold the chapter as written and the tradition that reads it side by side without blurring them.

Tonight is family home evening, and Caleb has already asked whether there'll be a snack to go with the lesson. I told him it's a lesson about flour, so we'll see. Leviticus 3 is on the counter for Wednesday.

— D.