Why Did People in the Bible Offer Burnt Offerings?
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It sounds a little barbaric, smelly, and perhaps a bit gross, but throughout the Old Testament, we’re told how God’s people would commonly offer burnt offerings as a gift of honor to the Lord. Many times, these were elaborate rituals involving costly sacrifice, such as the firstborn best lamb belonging to a people who perhaps had little or nothing else. We wonder why they’d do such a thing – burn a perfectly good offering into ashes, turn something life-giving into something wasteful just to honor God – when surely God wouldn’t really want His people to do such a thing?
Why did people in the Bible offer burnt offerings to God?
Often, they did so out of love, respect, payment of debt, apology, honor to God, and a way of offering up genuine obedience to the One who created all things and holds the universe in His hands.
What Is a Burnt Offering?
A burnt offering is a worthy, acceptable animal — one free of disease, blemish, or any other imperfection as representative of the best of the flock or herd — ritualistically killed and then placed upon a public sacrificial altar, where it would slowly be burned until wholly consumed. Its ashes would be scattered in a clean area, and it would not be eaten or disturbed in any way other than to be entirely burned in the fire and offered in totality to the Lord.
Offerings were to be male, typically a year-old perfect bull, sheep, or goat, though if no livestock were available, then a bird could be sacrificed.
God’s people offered burnt offerings since the earliest days. In Genesis 8:20, we’re told Noah sacrificed burnt offerings in gratitude and respect to God after the flood. When the earth was completely dry, Noah, his wife, and children emerged from the ark with all the birds and animals. Then Noah built an altar to God and took a portion of all the clean animals and clean birds and sacrificed them.
In response, the Bible tells us, “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease’” (Genesis 8:21-22).
The Hebrew word used here is olah. It doesn’t translate to “burnt offering” but rather “ascent,” meaning something brought up or offered up. (Imagine the smoke wafting up to the heavens, intended as a lovely and soothing aroma to please God.)
Later, in Leviticus, the Bible tells us God instructed Moses to have the people regularly make burnt offerings as a way to make atonement through “an aroma pleasing to the Lord” (Leviticus 1:1-9).
Why Do People in the Bible Offer Burnt Offerings?
People offered burnt offerings as a way to atone for their wrongdoings, to show appreciation for the Lord, and because they saw it as a way to appease God, whose wrath they feared. They hoped it would serve as a symbolic representation of their wholehearted apology for any and all things they had done wrong or would potentially offend the Lord, whether intended or not.
When Noah offered the burnt offering after the flood, Scripture tells us God was pleased and then made a promise never again to destroy living creatures in this way; clearly, the people saw sacrifice as a way to make up for wrongdoing and attempt to appease their Creator so He would bless them, not destroy them.
Later, when God promised Abraham He would make him into a great nation (Genesis 12), it took many years for God to bless Abraham and Sarah with their miracle son, Isaac. Then after his beloved son was born, God asked the seemingly unthinkable — for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his perfect and precious child, whom he had longed for all these years, upon the altar to God (Genesis 22).
When God saw Abraham was willing to do this, He provided a ram in Isaac’s place before the child could be sacrificed (Genesis 22:13). The ram then took the place of the human, therefore symbolizing the payment of a debt. People do wrong, they offer a sacrifice completely burnt up as a symbol of their full and utter repentance and obedience to God, and God is therefore appeased and moved to bless them, not pour out His wrath upon them.
God offered specific instructions on how an animal was to be sacrificed, including who does it (a priest), that the priest must lay his hand upon the animal’s head to signify it was offered “on behalf of” the person or the people, as well as what should be done with the blood, the pieces of the animal, and so on. The elaborate ceremony meant something – there was great meaning. The fire could not go out, and these burnt offerings happened regularly, not just on special occasions.
What Does the Bible Say about Burnt Offerings?
The Old Testament is filled with examples of God’s people making burnt offerings. For instance, when Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, learned God rescued the people from the Egyptians, Jethro “brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God” (Exodus 18:12).
Later, after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and he shared them with the people, they agreed to follow these commandments, then offered burnt offerings to the Lord to seal the covenant (Exodus 24:5).
At the consecration of Aaron and his sons as God’s priests, God commanded Moses to offer a burnt offering, and he complied. As the Bible explains, “It was a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses” (Leviticus 8:21).
Later, after Joshua, Caleb, and the Israelites entered the Promised Land and defeated Ai through the hand of God, they built an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal and made burnt offerings as a way of renewing the covenant between God and God’s people and seeking God’s blessing (Joshua 8:30-35).
Throughout 1 and 2 Samuel, the prophet Samuel, King David, and the people as a whole offered numerous burnt offerings to God as a plea on Israel’s behalf (1 Samuel 6:14-15, 1 Samuel 7-9-10, 1 Samuel 13:9-12, 2 Samuel 6:17-18, 2 Samuel 24:22-25).
In 1 Kings, Solomon continued in the ways of his father and Samuel and the righteous, God-fearing leaders before them, making burnt offerings consistently to the Lord. Before Solomon built God’s Temple, after his marriage to the daughter of the king of Egypt, the Bible says Solomon showed his love for the Lord and “offered a thousand burnt offerings” on the altar at Gibeon (1 Kings 3:3-4). We see much the same throughout 1 Kings, such as in 1 Kings 3:15, 8:64, 9:25, and 18:34-38.
Examples of burnt offerings continue throughout 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and into the prophets. Ezra describes the burnt offerings made after the people’s return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple, and Nehemiah after he and the people rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 10:33).
The psalms contain numerous poetic references to the act of love for the Lord and repentance for wrongdoings represented in the burnt offerings.
Are All Burnt Offerings Pleasing to God?
Not all burnt offerings are pleasing to God. Even though God commended the people to make burnt offerings, it is clear from reading Scripture that the sacrifices themselves are not the point of the act — rather it is listening to God, the honor and obedience shown God, the genuine love and redemption found in the act, not the act itself.
Indeed, many times throughout Scripture, we become aware God has grown tired and even despises the offerings of the people — for He sees them as empty and shallow, not genuine acts of repentance and love.
For instance, the Lord reveals through the prophet Hosea, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6).
And in Amos 5:22-23, “Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.”
As well, in Isaiah 1:13, “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.”
God is tired of a rebellious people who are seemingly paying lip service to His decrees. He wants their hearts, their souls, their genuine love, not petty or false acts of service.
Why Don't We Offer Burnt Offerings Today?
Today, however, we don’t offer burnt sacrifices to the Lord — not because we have paid the price for our sins, but because Jesus did. In days of old, before God sent Jesus to show us the way to salvation, God allowed His people to offer animal sacrifices as a way of attempting to atone for their wrongdoings. God hates sin. Our sins make us unholy, impure, unrighteous, and detestable.
But we know from John 3:16-18 that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
When we believe in Jesus, repent of our sins, and strive to follow Him, we are made holy because of Him. As the Bible reveals in Hebrews 10:10-14, “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Jesus is the ultimate and perfect offering, and the salvation Jesus offers is available to anyone who chooses to follow Him and turn their hearts and souls toward God now and forever. No one is too lost, too sinful, too broken, or too far gone for the redemption inherent in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As John the Baptist said of Jesus when he first saw the Lord coming toward him, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Amen and amen.
Photo credit: Unsplash/Joshua Newton
