Leviticus 17:1 - Meaning and Application

This law required all the people of Israel to bring every sacrifice to God’s altar and offer it there. To understand it rightly, we need to look at how things had been before, and how this law changed them.

Before this law, people were allowed to build altars and offer sacrifices to God wherever they wanted. Wherever Abraham set up his tent, he built an altar, and every family head acted as priest for his own household, as in Job 1:5. But this freedom had led to idolatry. When every man was his own priest and had his own altar, people slowly followed their own empty ideas and began to invent gods of their own, then offered sacrifices to demons, or evil spirits, in Leviticus 17:7.

The word used here means rough or hairy goats, because evil spirits were likely to appear in that shape. They did this to invite sacrifices and make people think their worship was accepted. Since the devil turned away from God and became his enemy, he has always tried to take God’s honor for himself. He even had the boldness to ask our Lord Jesus Christ to worship him.

The Israelites had already learned in Egypt to sacrifice to demons. Some of them, it seems, kept doing this even after the God of Israel had shown his power so clearly among them. Scripture says they went whoring after these demons, because this broke their covenant with God the way adultery breaks marriage. They became so attached to idol worship, and so hard to turn away from it, that God rightly calls himself a jealous God.

This law settled the matter in a firm way. Some think it meant that while Israel was in the wilderness, they could not kill any beef, mutton, veal, lamb, or goat for ordinary eating except at the door of the tabernacle. There, the blood and fat were to be offered to God on the altar, and the meat given back to the worshiper to eat as a peace offering. The wording in Leviticus 17:3-4 seems to support that view, because it speaks broadly of killing any ox, lamb, or goat. Dr. Cudworth understood it this way, and thought that while the tabernacle stood in the middle of the camp, they ate no flesh that had not first been offered to God.

On that view, this arrangement changed when they were about to enter Canaan, as in Deuteronomy 12:21. Then they could kill their herd and flock animals at home, just as they could kill deer and gazelles. Even so, they were still to come before God at his tabernacle three times a year and eat and drink before him there. This idea also fits the wilderness setting, since the people seem to have eaten very little meat except from their peace offerings, preserving most of their cattle for breeding until they reached Canaan. That may help explain why they complained for flesh and grew tired of manna, as in Numbers 11:4 and Numbers 11:22.

Still, it is hard to treat this as only a temporary rule, because the law calls it a statute forever in Leviticus 17:7. So it seems better to understand it as forbidding the killing of animals for sacrifice anywhere except at God’s altar. They were not to make offerings in the open field, as they had done before, not even to the true God, but must bring them to the priest to be offered on the Lord’s altar. The recent setting apart of both the priests and the altar gave strong reason for them to keep to the place God had clearly chosen and approved.

This law applied not only to the Israelites, but also to the foreigners living among them who had been circumcised and joined the covenant community. These people were especially in danger of holding on to their old ways of worship. If anyone broke this law and offered sacrifice anywhere except at the tabernacle, the guilt was serious. Blood would be charged to that person, because he had shed blood, even though the victim was only an animal, Leviticus 17:4.

The reason is that the right to kill animals belongs to us only by God’s gift, and even then only under his limits. We must not do it with cruelty or with superstition, as in Genesis 9:3-4. No creature has ever been more abused than when people made it either a false god or a sacrifice to false gods. That may be part of what the apostle means when he speaks of the creature being brought into vanity and bondage of corruption, in Romans 8:20-21, and compare Romans 1:23 and Romans 1:25. Idol sacrifices were seen not only as adultery, but as murder. As Isaiah says, whoever offers them is like one who kills a man, Isaiah 66:3.

The punishment was also severe. That man was to be cut off from among his people. If the crime was open and obvious, the magistrate was to punish it. If it was not, God would take the matter into his own hands, and the offender would be cut off by direct judgment from him.

God gave this law for several reasons. One was to prevent idolatry and superstition. If sacrifices were to be offered to God properly and without change, they had to be offered by the priests, who served in God’s house, and under the eye of the high priest, who oversaw the house and made sure everything was done according to God’s command. Another reason was to protect the honor of God’s temple and altar, whose special dignity would be weakened if people could sacrifice anywhere they pleased. A third reason was to preserve unity and brotherly love among the Israelites, so that meeting at one altar, as children in one family meet daily at one table, they might live together as brothers and be of one mind in the Lord.

When Israel was faithful, they guarded this law carefully, as seen in their strong reaction to the altar built by the two and a half tribes, which they would never have allowed to stand if they had thought it was meant for sacrifice, Joshua 22:12 and following. But for many generations, breaking this law became a shameful and lasting sin in the Jewish church. We see it again and again in the history of even the good kings: “The high places were not removed.” This opened the door to the worst forms of idolatry. Yet in special cases, this law was set aside.

Gideon’s sacrifice (Judges 6:26), Manoah’s sacrifice (Judges 13:19), Samuel’s sacrifices (1 Samuel 7:9; 1 Samuel 9:13; 1 Samuel 11:15), David’s sacrifice (2 Samuel 24:18), and Elijah’s sacrifice (1 Kings 18:23) were accepted, even though they were not offered at the usual place. But these cases were either ordered by angels or offered by prophets. Some also think that after Shiloh was destroyed, and before the temple was built, sacrifices were more allowable in other places, since the ark and altar were not settled.

Now, what does this law mean for us today? Spiritual sacrifices are not limited to one place. Our Savior made that clear (John 4:21), and so did the apostle (1 Timothy 2:8), in line with the prophecy that incense would be offered in every place (Malachi 1:11). We no longer have one temple or one altar that makes the gift holy. Gospel unity is not found in one location, but in one heart and in the unity of the Spirit.

Christ is our altar and the true tabernacle, the sacred tent where God meets his people (Hebrews 8:2; Hebrews 13:10). In him, God lives among us. In him alone our sacrifices are acceptable to God (1 Peter 2:5). To set up other mediators, that is, other go-betweens, or other altars, or other sacrifices for sin, is really to set up other gods. Christ is the center of unity, the place where all God’s Israel come together.

Even so, we should still care about public worship. We must not stop meeting with God’s people (Hebrews 10:25). The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the homes of Jacob, and we should love them too (Ezekiel 20:40). God will gladly accept our worship at home, but that does not mean we should neglect the door of the tabernacle, the place of public worship.