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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Leviticus 6:8 - 6:13
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Of Burnt Offerings
v. 8. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
v. 9. Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it. All the paragraphs following contain special instructions for the priests with regard to the various offerings. The first paragraph relates to the daily burnt offering of a lamb at evening and in the morning, which was made at the cost of the entire congregation. Cf Exo_29:38; Num_28:3. "The slow fire of the evening sacrifice was to be so arranged as to last until the morning; that of the morning sacrifice was ordinarily added to by other offerings, or if not, could easily be made to last through the much shorter interval until the evening. The evening sacrifice is naturally mentioned first because, in the Hebrew division of time, this was the beginning of the day. "
v. 10. And the priest shall put on his linen garment, Exo_28:40, and his linen breeches shall be put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar; the sacrifices having been turned to ashes in the burning, the officiating priest was to remove all these ashes; and he shall put them beside the altar, a special place being provided for that purpose on the east side of the court.
v. 11. And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place. This duty was afterward performed by such members of the priestly family as were excluded from officiating at the altar by some bodily defect, Lev_21:16-23. During the wilderness journey some clean place outside of the camp could be used for the ashes from the altar of burnt offering; when the sanctuary of the Lord was in the Temple at Jerusalem, a place outside of the city was chosen.
v. 12. And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out, even when there were no sacrifices to be burned; and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, build up a great, glowing fire from the embers that had kept the fire going during the night, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn there on the fat of the peace-offerings, Leviticus 3.
v. 13. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. It signified the continual, uninterrupted fellowship of the children of Israel with the covenant God. In the heart of the Christians the flame of love toward God should burn at all times with unabated vigor, until the worshiper passes from believing to seeing.