LEVITICUS: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: PART 2

Various Passages In reading about all the required sacrifices and festivals, I am wondering who offers these? The head of the family, each person, each tribe? Does each person bring the sacrifice on the same day? It seems there would be quite an excess of animals sacrificed and a lot of blood sprinkled on the altar. I was wondering about the sheer number of animals this would require. Are you aware of any estimates in this regard?

These are quite general questions that are impossible to answer briefly with any sort of specificity. The

reasons for the difficulty are many: there are many types of sacrifice for various occasions and each one 

has its own rules; in some cases the head of the family would present the sacrifice and in other cases, 

each individual needed to present his own; sometimes the blood was sprinkled on the altar and in other

cases it was burned with the fatty portions; sometimes the one offering did the butchering and sometimes

it was done by the priest; sometimes the whole animal was burned and at other times the priest and/or the

offerer's family would share part of the animal at a communal meal; sometimes the animals were small 

and sometimes they were large; some offerings were given by the priests every day while others were 

only offered at certain feast times when there would be a large number of pilgrims to Jerusalem, each 

family bringing one or more animals to sacrifice.  

In terms of estimated animals slaughtered at any one time, we do have some data to go by for special 

events in Israel's history.  At the dedication of the temple, King Solomon offered 22,000 oxen and 

120,000 sheep for sacrifice (II Chronicles 7:5). When King Asa rededicated himself and the people to 

God, the people offered a total of 1,700 oxen and 7,000 sheep (II Chronicles 15:11). At the re-dedication 

of the temple after the return from the exile, the people (who were relatively few in number at that time) 

offered 100 bulls, 200 rams and 400 lambs. (Ezra 7:17)

Estimates from several sources, including Josephus, indicate that the number of animals sacrificed during

the time of Christ at a major festival such as Passover could total 250,000. “Thus the Temple and its

courts were transformed into a huge slaughter house.” (John Kinsella, The Legacy of Solomon, pp. 

135-136)  To put this in modern context, at a 2009 religious festival in Nepal approximately 500,000 

animals were slaughtered, according to an Internet news source.

To our perspective, the sight would have been unbelievably gory and hard to take. But the same thing 

could be said if we had been present to view the sacrifice of the One who put an end to the need for such 

temporary cleansings from sin and now reigns as our High Priest in heaven.  

Leviticus 17:1-7  They are told they must no longer offer their sacrifices to goat idols. The Daily Bible 

footnote says “or demons.” Can you elaborate on what is meant by this? 

This is actually a complicated question that scholars are still debating, and it is closely related to a proper

understanding of the “scapegoat” in the previous chapter.  In Leviticus 16, a goat “designated for azazel” 

is chosen to carry away the sins of the people into the wilderness. Depending on the possible origins of 

this rare word, it may mean: going away or removed, the wilderness region to which the goat goes, a 

goat-demon who inhabits that region, destined for destruction, or a precipice from which the goat is 

pushed. As George Wenham states, whatever the meaning, “it all comes back to the same basic idea: that

 sin is exterminated from Israel.” (The Book of Leviticus, p. 235)

One of these above interpretations may reflect on Leviticus 17:7 (which literally says “goat” only): 

namely, the belief in a goat demon named Azazel living in the wilderness. The main problem with this 

interpretation is that it seems to imply that the scapegoat was sacrificed to this demon in order to remove 

the sins of the people. This is inconsistent with everything we are taught in Scripture and is directly 

contradicted by the prohibition in Leviticus 17:7 which says we should not worship “goat demons.” 

Such goat demons were actually later incorporated into Israelite worship by King Jereboam 

(II Chronicles 11:15), and the popular non-canonical Book of Enoch features Azazel as a powerful fallen 

angel. In addition, Isaiah mentions goat demons twice (13:21-22 and 34:14) as inhabiting wilderness 

areas.

One way (but not the only one) of putting all these pieces together is to recognize that demonic forces, 

pictured with goat-like features, were worshiped at one time or another by the Jews and neighboring 

peoples. However, the scapegoat ceremony outlined in Leviticus 16 should not at all be construed as 

meaning that the people were giving an offering to such a god-demon. Instead, “the goat took the sins of 

Israel back to their place of origin [the wilderness where demonic forces were concentrated], breaking

their binding and oppressive power.” (New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and 

Exegesis, I, p. 850)

It is interesting, and not coincidental, that demonic beings such as satyrs, the nature god Pan, and Satan 

himself were all commonly pictured having the legs of goats. 

 Leviticus 21:16-24  In these verses God will not allow any person with a “defect” to serve as a priest.

I can understand objections to offering sacrifices with defects, but not allowing someone to serve as a 

priest due to a birth defect, over which they had no control, seems harsh; does it not? What do you make 

of this? 

One easy, but very unsatisfying, way to answer this question is to simply say, “God's ways are not our 

ways.”  Another truism is that God slowly revealed truths to mankind so that what is concealed in the 

Old Testament is only revealed fully in the New Testament. But we can probably go into a little more 

depth than that. 

As mitigating factors to what seems like a harsh rule, we must first keep in mind that these restrictions 

did not apply to Jews in general or even the priesthood in general, but only to the high priest who would 

offer sacrifices in the very presence of God (according to The New Bible Commentary: Revised, p. 160).  Even though such priests with physical blemishes could not be considered holy, they were not considered to be ritually impure and could handle sacred items unless they happened to be temporarily disqualified through other reasons outlined in Leviticus 22:1-16.

Allen Ross  (Holiness to the LORD, pp. 386-387) has perhaps best expressed the reason for such 

restrictions: “The priests were holy because they were in the presence of the Holy One. Their entire 

physical condition had to display the perfection of God's creation, just as the sacrifices had to be the best 

of the animal world. Bodily perfection was an extension of holiness...The Old Testament dealt with 

physical features because the cultic laws required physical wholeness for temple worship – because it 

foreshadowed the actual going into the presence of God in glory. Churches today have no ruling 

corresponding to the physical defects listed here; the church is primarily concerned that ministers meet 

the spiritual qualifications for leadership taught elsewhere in the Old Testament...and that they have the

proper spiritual gifts expected of those who lead the congregation.”

Some other possibly relevant Scriptures:
	Isaiah predicted a time when being a eunuch would no longer bar a person from the LORD's 

presence. (Isaiah 53:3-4) 

 	Jesus specifically singled out the crippled and the blind as those we should invite to our

banquets (Luke 14:13) 

 	The first recorded Gentile convert was a eunuch. (Acts 8) 

Old Testament worship was but a shadow of what was to come. With Jesus as our perfect high priest in 

heaven, everyone who approaches him, regardless of physical handicap, has access to God's very 

presence. (Hebrews 8)