The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting. He said, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any of you brings an offering to the LORD, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.” (Leviticus 1:1,2, NIV)
The ritual prescribed in the Bible for the offering of the best of the herd (a bull) was this one: The animal was to be presented to the Tent of Meeting (or the Tabernacle) in order to be given to the Lord. Hands must be laid for the sacrifice and then be slaughtered. The blood must be spilled “against the altar” at the Tabernacle’s entrance. While the sacrifice was chopped up in pieces, the fire was ready for the sacrifice to be burnt. The pieces were to be arranged on the altar’s burning wood. The inner parts were to be washed, and all of it was burned. With the best of the flock (a goat or sheep), the sacrifice was to be slaughtered at the north side of the altar, and the same ritual ensued.
For those who were poor or couldn’t afford buying a bull or a sheep, doves or pigeons were also used as atonement. The priest brought it to the altar, and the head was wrung and burnt. The blood was drained on the altar’s side, and the crop (the canal thingy birds have) in the east side. It was to be torn open (though not too harshly), and burn it in the altar.
Y’know what’s interesting?
It had to be a MALE sacrifice. I guess this was a meaning for strength.
It had to be WITHOUT BLEMISH. It was supposed to be perfect, without stain nor nothing nasty…
It had to be WITHOUT DEFECT. It couldn’t be crippled. The sacrifice to be burnt was to be of the BEST and HIGHTEST quality. It wasn’t your ordinary picnic to Shiloh: this was for the God of Hosts, the Lord of the Higest Glories.
Hands were LAID ON THEIR HEAD. They were saying, “God, I deserve to be on that goat’s/sheep’s place; but I recognize that this offering will give its life for my unworthiness.”
They had to be CUT INTO PIECES. Were they “chopping off” our own unworthiness like every time my mom would chop meat with a meat cleaver?
It was BURNT COMPLETELY. That aroma, the aroma of worship, truth and redemption, was taken to the Lord as an offering pleasing to His Glory. The fire made that person clean, whole, pure, and vindicated from the Utmost.