Exodus Chapters 39 & 40
The cloud (With God in it) entered the Tabernacle. It went into the inner room and stood above the mercy seat where the gold angels stretched out their wings. When Moses was able to go in, God spoke to him from above the mercy seat and gave him many laws for the people of Israel.
God told Moses to bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the Tabernacle to consecrate them there. This meant Moses would make them priests. So Moses called them to come, and all the people came to watch.
First he washed Aaron and his sons and put Aaron’s beautiful clothes on him. Then he poured special olive oil on Aaron’s head, anointing him. He put the special clothing on Aaron’s sons and afterward offered sacrifices to God. So Aaron and his sons became priests; now God would let them burn incense and offer sacrifices to God for all of the people of Israel.
Before this, each man could offer his own sacrifices, as Abel, Noah, and Abraham had done. But now God had chosen Aaron and his sons to be priests, so no one else was allowed to offer a sacrifice. Everyone must bring his offering to the Tabernacle and let the priest’s burn it for him on the altar.
Then Aaron killed a lamb and laid it on the altar to be burned as an offering for the sins of all the people. He didn’t light a fire under it, though for the Lord sent fire down from heaven that burnt up the lamb! When the people saw the fire they shouted for joy, for now they knew that the Lord was pleased with their priest and with his sacrifice.
The priests always kept that fire from heaven burning on the altar. They never let it go out because the Lord had sent it.
The priests were commanded to sacrifice two lambs every day for the sins of the people of Israel. One was sacrificed in the morning and the other in the evening.
If anyone was sorry for his sins and wanted to be forgiven, he would bring an ox, a sheep, or a goat and lay his hand upon the head of the animal there at the door of the Tabernacle. This showed that the man wanted his sins taken away from himself and put on the animal. Then the man killed the animal; and Aaron’s sons, the priests, burnt it for him on the Altar. {See how important the church is as family working together in everything.} God was pleased and forgave his sins, not because the innocent animal had died, but because this animal was an example of what the Savior would do when He came. For the Savior would come to die for His people, just as the animal was killed and was burnt on the altar instead of the person who sinned.
These lambs that were sacrificed each day by Aaron and his sons, were like Abel’s lamb and like the Passover lambs that were killed that night in Egypt when the oldest sons of the people of Israel were kept safe because the blood of the lamb was on the door. Killing these lambs was like what would happen to the Savior who would come many, many, years later and die for the sins of the world. God was pleased when these lambs were sacrificed, for He had said to do this to show that the Savior was coming to die for us.
There were several different kinds of offerings. When someone had turned from his sins and wanted to be forgiven, he brought his offering to the priests and they burned all of it on the altar. It was called a burnt offering.
But when he brought an offering because he was thankful for some blessing God had given him or because he was asking God to answer some special prayer, then the priest took the animal and burnt only part of it on the altar. The priests kept some of it for themselves to eat, and some of it they gave back to the man for him to eat. Tis offering that was partly burned and partly eaten was called a “Peace with God” offering or a “Thank You” offering.
When the priest gave back part of the animal to the man who brought it, that man often invited his family and friends and perhaps his poor neighbors to feast on it with him. The man was not allowed to save the meat; it had to be eaten that same day or the day afterward.
Questions:
What kind of oil did Moses pour on Aaron’s head?
Why didn’t Aaron have to light the fire under the lamb when he sacrificed it?
Cn you think of two ways in which the sacrificed animals can remind us of Jesus?
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