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Leviticus Offerings

Leviticus 1–16 · Modern Spelling Tyndale

Six offering types, and the seven occasions that assemble them into a rite. For each one: what sets it off, what the animal has to be, who has to kill it, where the blood goes, and who gets fed.

The offering types

Burnt offering

olahLeviticus 1

What sets it off: Nothing has to. A person brings one because he wants to. No occasion, no sin named. The reasons given are that he wants to be accepted — “that he maye be accepted before the Lorde” (1:3) — and that it atones for him (1:4).
Separately: two yearling lambs burn every morning and every evening, forever (Ex 29:38–42). No individual brings that one. It is the priesthood’s own, and it runs whether anybody shows up or not.
Animal & sex: Ox, sheep or goat — male only (1:3, 1:10). If he cannot afford one, a turtledove or pigeon, where no sex is given (1:14).
Who kills it: The person bringing it. Hand on the head, then “let him kyll the oxe before the Lorde” (1:4–5). At the bird tier he does not — the priest wrings its neck (1:15).
The blood: Sprinkled round about on the outer altar (1:5, 1:11). For a bird, run out down the altar’s side (1:15).
Who eats it: Nobody. All of it burns. The priest keeps the hide (7:8).

Grain offering

minchahLeviticus 2

What sets it off: Voluntary, any time (2:1). The first of a harvest (2:14). And every day, forever, for the priest himself — a tenth of an ephah, “halfe in the morninge and halfe at nighte” (6:20).
Animal & sex: No animal. Fine flour with oil and frankincense. No leaven and no honey may be burned (2:11); salt is required (2:13).
Who kills it: Nothing is killed.
The blood: There is none.
Who eats it: A handful burns. The priests keep the rest (2:3).

Peace offering

shelamimLeviticus 3 · 7:11–34

What sets it off: Giving thanks, paying a vow, or simply wanting to (7:12, 7:16). That is the whole list. Nothing obligates it and no misfortune triggers it.
Animal & sex: Ox, sheep or goat — male or female (3:1, 3:6). No bird tier and no flour tier. There is no cheap version of this one.
Who kills it: The person bringing it, at the tent door (3:2, 3:8).
The blood: Sprinkled round about on the outer altar.
Who eats it: All three parties. God gets the fat (3:16–17). The priest gets the breast and the right shoulder (7:31–32). The person who brought it eats the rest (7:15–16).

Sin offering

chatta’tLeviticus 4 · 5:1–13 · 6:24–30

What sets it off: The general rule: breaking any commandment through ignorance (4:2).
Something you did or did not do: you were called as a witness and stayed silent (5:1); you swore rashly, forgot, then remembered (5:4).
Something you touched: the carcass of an unclean animal, unaware (5:2); any human uncleanness, unaware (5:3).
Something your body did: childbirth (12:6); a discharge stopping (15:15, 15:30); recovering from skin disease (14:19).
A date: the Day of Atonement (16:3, 16:5).
Animal & sex: Your rank picks it, before money is considered.
The anointed priest → an ox, male (4:3)
The whole congregation → an ox, male (4:14)
A ruler → a he-goat (4:23)
A common person → a she-goat or a ewe — female, and not optional (4:28, 4:32, 5:6)
Below that, only if he cannot afford her: two birds (5:7), then flour (5:11).
Who kills it: The person bringing it, every animal case (4:4, 4:24, 4:29, 4:33). For the congregation, the elders (4:15). At the bird tier, the priest (5:8). At the flour tier, nothing.
The blood: How far in it goes depends on rank.
Priest’s own → inside the tent: seven times before the veil (4:6), on the horns of the incense altar (4:7)
The congregation’s → the same (4:17–18)
A ruler’s → the horns of the outer altar (4:25)
A commoner’s → the horns of the outer altar (4:30, 4:34)
A bird’s → the side of the outer altar (5:9)
Who eats it: The priest who performs it (6:26), and the males of Aaron’s house (6:29). Except his own and the congregation’s — those two had blood taken inside, so 6:30 bars eating them, and they are burned outside the camp (4:11–12, 4:21).

Guilt offering

ashamLeviticus 5:14–19 · 6:1–7 · 7:1–10

What sets it off: Doing something forbidden without knowing it was forbidden (5:17–19). Trespassing against holy things in ignorance (5:15–16).
Cheating a neighbour — denying his deposit or pledge, robbing him, lying to him, keeping something you found, or swearing falsely about it (6:1–7).
A man sleeping with a slave woman promised to another man (19:20–22).
Animal & sex: A ram — male, every time (5:15, 5:18). Valued in silver. No bird tier, no flour tier.
Who kills it: Killed where the burnt offering is killed (7:2).
The blood: Sprinkled round about on the outer altar (7:2). Never inside.
Who eats it: The priest who performs it (7:6–7). And there is a bill on top: the full value plus a fifth — to the priest for holy things (5:16), to the person you wronged when it is a neighbour (6:5).

Full offering

millu’imLeviticus 8:22 · Exodus 29:22

What sets it off: Ordination only. The second ram, the ram of consecration. It appears once in the book and never again.
Animal & sex: A ram — male.
Who kills it: Moses. Aaron and his sons only lay hands on its head.
The blood: On Aaron’s right ear, right thumb and right great toe, then his sons’ (8:23–24).
Who eats it: Aaron and his sons, at the tent door.

The occasions that assemble them

Seven places where Leviticus stops and prescribes a whole sequence rather than a single offering. These are the only ones the book calls out.

Childbirth

Leviticus 12

What sets it off: Every birth. She waits 40 days for a son, 80 for a daughter, then brings it.
What she brings: A yearling lamb as the burnt offering, and a pigeon or turtledove as the sin offering (12:6). If she cannot afford the lamb, two birds, one of each (12:8). Never fewer than two animals, at either tier.
Worth noting: The bird is the sin offering even for the woman who can afford a lamb. And the circumcision of a son on the eighth day is written as one clause inside her uncleanness — verse 2 is her seven days, verse 3 is the cut, verse 4 is her thirty-three more.

Cleansing a skin disease

Leviticus 14:1–32

What sets it off: Being pronounced clean — after the disease has already healed. The priest walks out of the camp to certify it (14:2–3). Nothing in the rite heals anything.
What he brings: Two live birds first: one killed over running water, the other dipped in its blood and released (14:4–7). Then one he-lamb as the guilt offering (14:12), a sin offering (14:19), a burnt offering (14:20) and a grain offering. Poverty tier: one lamb as the guilt offering, two birds for the other two (14:21–22).
Worth noting: Four offering types on one man — the largest rite in the book for an ordinary person. The blood goes on his right ear, right thumb and right great toe (14:14) — word for word the pattern used to ordain Aaron (8:23–24).

Cleansing a house

Leviticus 14:33–53

What sets it off: A plague in the walls of a house. The priest shuts the house up seven days (14:38) and looks again on the seventh (14:39).
What is brought: The same two-bird rite used on a person: one killed over running water, one released, and the house sprinkled seven times (14:49–53).
Worth noting: A building is quarantined on the same schedule as a human being, examined on the same day, and cleansed by the same rite. No offering type is named for it — just the birds.

A discharge stopping

Leviticus 15

What sets it off: A discharge ending, in either sex. Count seven clean days, then the eighth.
What they bring: Two turtledoves or two pigeons — “the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering” (15:14–15, 15:29–30).
Worth noting: Identical price for men and women here. An ordinary menstrual period triggers no offering at all — seven days and nothing to pay (15:19). It is the one bodily case in the book with a waiting period and no price.

The Day of Atonement

Leviticus 16

What sets it off: A date. The tenth day of the seventh month (16:29). Nothing triggers it — it arrives once a year for everyone at once, whatever anyone has or has not done.
What is brought: For the priest: a young ox as the sin offering, a ram as the burnt offering (16:3). For the people: two goats as the sin offering, a ram as the burnt offering (16:5). Lots are cast over the two goats; one dies and one walks away alive (16:8).
Worth noting: The only day blood goes inside the veil, and the high priest goes alone. Nobody eats any of it — the blood went in, so the carcasses are burned outside the camp (16:27).

Ordaining the priests

Leviticus 8 · Exodus 29

What sets it off: Installing Aaron and his sons. Once.
What is brought: An ox as the sin offering (8:14), a ram as the burnt offering (8:18), and a second ram as the full offering (8:22).
Worth noting: The ox at Exodus 29:14 is the first sin offering anywhere in the Bible — and it is not for a sin. It is for installing the priesthood.

The eighth day

Leviticus 9

What sets it off: Aaron’s first day actually officiating.
What is brought: For himself: a calf as the sin offering, a ram as the burnt offering (9:2). For the people: a he-goat as the sin offering, a calf and a lamb as the burnt offering (9:3), an ox and a ram as peace offerings, with a grain offering (9:4).
Worth noting: All five types in one day, and his own before the people’s (9:7–8, 9:15). Then fire comes out and eats the offering in front of everyone (9:24).

Patterns we’re picking up on

Only two offerings ever take a female animal. The peace offering allows either. The sin offering requires one — but only from a commoner. Everything a priest or a ruler is obliged to bring is male.
A female animal is worth more than a male one. One male breeds many females. Kill a female and you lose every animal she would have had. So the man at the top gives up the animal that costs him least, and the man at the bottom gives up the one that costs him most. The text never explains the tiers. This is what the prices do, not what the book says.
You kill your own animal — unless you are poor. Hand on the head, then you do it yourself. At the bird tier the priest takes the knife. At the flour tier nothing dies. The poorest person never touches the death he is paying for.
The higher your rank, the further in your blood goes. Priest and congregation: inside the tent. A ruler or a commoner: the outer altar’s horns. A bird: the altar’s side. An ordinary person’s blood never enters the building.
The priest eats every sin offering except his own. Offerings whose blood was taken inside cannot be eaten (6:30), and only two ever are — his, and the congregation’s. A commoner’s goat feeds the priest. The priest’s own ox is burned to ash outside the camp.
The only offering you eat is the only one with no cheap version. The peace offering has no bird tier and no flour tier. Everything compulsory has a poverty option. The one that is a pleasure does not.
Only two things in the system happen without a death: the grain offering, and the flour tier of the sin offering — which exists only for someone who cannot afford two pigeons.

Notes

On the names. The “fellowship offering” in modern versions is the peace offering — Hebrew shelamim. Tyndale and the KJV say peace. Not a separate type. And the “meat offering” in older English means the grain offering: meat meant food, not flesh.

Confession comes before the animal. For the four cases in 5:1–4 — the silent witness, the two touchings, the rash oath — 5:5 comes first: “he shall confesse that wherein that he hath synned.” It is the only place in these chapters where saying it out loud is part of the price.

One thing we are not claiming. The book says plainly that the priest eats the sin offering (6:26, 7:7) and keeps the flour (5:13). It never says so about the bird. The general rule would cover it, and the bird’s blood stays outside the tent so 6:30 does not exempt it — but that last step is our inference, not a verse. Every birth hands a priest a bird. Whether he eats it, the text does not say.

Sources. All quotations Modern Spelling Tyndale, checked verse by verse: Leviticus 1–9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19; Exodus 29. Scope: Leviticus 1–16, plus the two guilt-offering triggers in chapter 19. Drink offerings accompany other rites rather than standing alone and are not counted here as a type.