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Roots of Worship (Part 2): The Grain Offering

  • Timothy Harolds
  • Oct 11
  • 9 min read

Updated: Oct 17

Quick Overview

Part two explores the unique grain offering, which contained no blood but four simple ingredients: fine flour, olive oil, frankincense, and salt. The article explains how each element symbolises humility, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, prayer and worship, and the enduring covenants. This offering invited worshippers to dedicate their labours to God; a portion was burned as a “memorial” while the remainder fed the priests. The article links the grain offering to the Last Supper, showing that breaking bread symbolises Jesus’ body and our appointment as servants in the new covenant.

Now it is God who strengthens us, with you, in Christ and has anointed us. 2 Corinthians 1:21

the beginning of each month [Num 28:11–15], to fulfill a vow, as a free will offering and at appointed festivals [Num 15:2-4; 28:19-24; 28:26-31 29:1-6; 29:12-15]. It was also one of the offerings brought on the Day of Atonement [Num 29:7-11]. Grain Offerings, like animal sacrifices, were not uncommon in the Near Eastern world. “…bread and cereal dishes were one of two most crucial foods of the Hittites, based on the Hittite gods’ diet.”¹ According to their tradition, the gods requested the offerings for food and received over a hundred different bread types² with ingredients such as “fruits, vegetables, fats and oilseeds, cheese, and honey.”³ These two rituals differ significantly from what we find in Israelite tradition in their motive and contents, primarily since Yahweh does not rely on our culinary provisions. In this article, we will discuss the regulations and meaning of the Grain Offering as it is presented in Scripture.


Regulations for the Grain Offering

The regulations for this offering are laid out by Moses in Leviticus 2. What sets this offering apart from the others is that no meat or blood was involved, and unlike Hittite tradition, it consisted of only 4 main ingredients:

  • Fine flour;

  • Olive oil;

  • Frankincense;

  • Salt.


The offering could either be prepared uncooked, on a griddle, in a pan, or baked in an oven, and the combination of ingredients depended on which method was used.


Instructions

The offerer would bring their offering to the priest. From the raw offering, the priest would take a handful of fine flour, oil, and all of its frankincense. This was then burned as the “memorial portion” on the altar, “…a fire offering of a pleasing aroma to the Lord” [Lev 2:9]. The rest of the Grain Offering belonged to the priests. This part was called “…the holiest part of the fire offerings to the LORD” [Lev 2:10], and any male descendant of Aaron could eat it from it in the courtyard of the tent of meeting. But “any grain offering that is baked in an oven or prepared in a pan or on a griddle belongs to the priest who presents it; it is his” [Lev 7:9].


Ingredients

Fine Flour (sōlet)

The flour of the offering could not contain any yeast or honey. The Israelites could “…present them to the Lord as an offering of firstfruits, but they are not to be offered on the altar as a pleasing aroma” [Lev 2:12]. The flour, therefore, had to be unleavened. Jewish Bible scholar Jacob Milgrom claims that “clearly, it was choice flour, and it is listed with such luxury items as honey and oil (Ezek 16:13, 19; cf. Gen 18:6; 1 Kgs 5:2). Even in the royal household, twice as much qemaḥ, ordinary flour, was consumed as sōlet (1 Kgs 5:2); an even smaller proportion of sōlet could have been afforded by the ordinary Israelite family. Yet it was even less expensive than birds (see 5:11) and therefore considered the offering of the poor.”⁴ The amount of flour used is not specified, but, based on passages like Leviticus 6:13 and Numbers 5:11, 14, many fix it at one-tenth of an ephah,⁵ which roughly comes down to 2,2 liters. If the sacrifice was baked in an oven, it could either be unleavened wafers (rĕqîqîm) or cakes (ḥallôt). What we know about the wafers is that “the root rqq means 'thin' in biblical Hebrew (see Gen 41:19) as well as in Akk[adian].” The Arabic ruqāqat is a thin, round cake.⁶ However, “the shape of the ḥallôt is not clear. Because the root ḥll means 'pierce,' some say that the bread was ring-shaped; others claim it was perforated, that is, pricked before or after baking.”⁷


The significance of unleavened bread is emphasized in Scripture multiple times. For instance, God commanded the Israelites not to present the blood for His sacrifice with anything leavened [Exod 34:25] and during the Festival of Passover, God’s people were only allowed to eat unleavened bread, also called “…the bread of hardship…”, for seven days. No yeast was to be found in their territory during this period [Deut 16:3-4]. The reason for this is allegorically tied to the function of yeast. When we dive into today’s baking blogs, we learn that yeast “…releases the carbon dioxide that makes bread rise…”⁸ In more technical terms, “carbon dioxide released by yeast is trapped in bread dough’s elastic web of gluten; think of blowing up a balloon.”⁹ Yeast, or leaven as a broader term, causes bread to be puffed up, making it, in a sense, fuller than it actually is. This is why the New Testament uses this element in a strong allegorical sense to describe someone’s spiritual life. Jesus warns His disciples about the “…yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Soon after, “…they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the yeast in bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” [Matt 16:6-12]. More specifically, He told them to “be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” [Luke 12:1]. The New Testament speaks extensively of the Pharisaic lifestyle where “they do everything to be observed by others…” [Matt 23:5] and look righteous on the outside, while being hypocrites on the inside [Matt 23:27-28]. This is why any amount of yeast was prohibited in any of the Old Testament sacrifices, for “…a little yeast permeates the whole batch of dough…” [1 Cor 5:6].


There was also the exclusion of honey. The term “…devash occasionally refers to the honey of bees. Most authorities…insist that devash in the Bible refers primarily to the nectar of dates and possibly of other fruits. It is, after all, a general term for ‘sweetness.’”¹⁰ There can be various reasons for its exclusion from the sacrifices. For one that it acted as an artificial sweetener and enhanced flavor, the latter also being a quality of yeast. This could, in an allegorical sense, be tied to “corrupting” the flavor of the sacrifice. Another reason could be that “…records from Mesopotamia and ancient Syria often list dishpu, ‘honey-nectar,’ as an offering. By prohibiting the use of honey on the altar, the priestly laws may have been directed at eliminating pagan practices.”¹¹


Olive Oil (šemen)

Within Scripture, oil is frequently used in a spiritual sense. Milgrom points out that “it is associated with joy (Isa 61:3; Ps 45:8; Prov 21:17), especially at festive meals (Pss 23:5; 92:11; 104:15; etc.) but avoided in times of mourning (2 Sam 14:2; Dan 10:3).”¹² Olive oil is also a key ingredient in the holy anointing oil [Exodus 30:23–25]. Considering this and the fact that it was the sole element used in the sanctuary to keep the lamp burning continually [Lev 24:1–4], Olive oil is often understood to represent the Holy Spirit.


Frankincense (lĕbōnâ)

This ingredient was “…a fragrant gum-resin tapped from three species of the Boswellia tree native only to southern Arabia (see Jer 6:20) and Somaliland.”¹³ Milgrom notes that this ingredient was most likely not present in the cooked offerings, since we do not see it specified here.¹⁴ Because it was rather costly, “the omission of the frankincense requirement may be regarded as a deliberate concession to the poor.”¹⁵


Frankincense was the main ingredient for the sacred incense that burned on the altar in the sanctuary [Exod 30:1–9]. In the text of Scripture, incense is related to prayer and worship. David uses this idea in his psalm when he says, “may my prayer be set before You as incense…” [Ps 141:2]. The Book of Revelation is even more straightforward when it mentions that the 24 elders were holding “…gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints” [Rev 5:8]. Because all of the frankincense was included in the memorial portion, presented as a fire offering to God, none of it was ever left for the priest.


Salt (melaḥ)

The last ingredient is salt. This was used as a seasoning and could not be omitted from any type of Grain Offering. The exact wording was “…you must not omit from your grain offering the salt of the covenant with your God” [Lev 2:13]. “The idiom melaḥ bĕrît ʾĕlōhêkā is used again to refer to the binding character of the priestly perquisites (Num 18:19) and of the Davidic dynasty (2 Chr 13:5).”¹⁷ This idiom was most likely derived from salt’s preservative properties.¹⁶ A similar use of the term is found in neighboring cultures. In Arabic, “milḥat, a derivative of malaḥa ‘to salt’, means “a treaty.”¹⁸


In Scripture, “covenant of salt” symbolizes an everlasting agreement that would not be broken. “A figurative extension of its preservative properties is the reference to the apostles as “the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:17), in other words, teachers who guard the world against moral decay.”¹⁹ In his writings, we find that Paul associates the seasoning quality of salt with grace. In one of his letters, he tells the Colossians: “Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person” [Col 4:6].


A grain offering burns on the bronze altar outside the Tabernacle at dusk, with smoke rising into a crown shape, symbolizing Christ's sanctifying sacrifice.

Significance & Meaning

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9

We find two significant moments when this offering was presented. The first one is during the inauguration ceremony for Aaron and his sons to become priests over Israel [Lev 9:16–17]. What was special about the Grain Offering presented to consecrate (or install) a High Priest is that “it must be completely burned as a permanent portion for the Lord…it is not to be eaten” [Lev 6:22-23]. A second time is when the Angel of the Lord visits Manoah and his wife to tell them that they will conceive a son (Samson) who “…will be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines” [Judg 13:5]. Upon receiving the news “Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord…” [Judg 13:19].


The Purpose of the Sacrifice

A consistent pattern that we see here is that when the Grain Offering is presented, someone is being dedicated for divine service to God. Along with the Burnt Offering, the atonement of our past sins and repentance, the Grain Offering signifies how we vow to be servants of God. Philipp Jakob Spener, known as one of the founders of Pietism, writes in his Pia Desideria (Pious Desires) that “Christians are made priests by their Savior, are anointed by the Holy Spirit, and are dedicated to perform spiritual-priestly acts.”²⁰ The olive oil does not just demonstrate the Christian being anointed by the Holy Spirit, but also how this anointing is dedicated to the God Who anoints him. The fine flour shows how the Christian comes before God just as he is, leaving no room for hypocrisy and pride, only this way presenting a pleasing aroma. In the words of Ignatius of Antioch: “I know that ye are not puffed up, for ye have Jesus Christ in yourselves. And all the more when I commend you, I know that ye cherish modesty of spirit…”²¹ The frankincense is the offerer’s prayer to God, which belongs only to God (explaining its absence in the priestly portion). Finally, the seasoning with salt depicts the everlasting covenant between God and His anointed.


New Testament Fulfillment

One can make several references between Christ and the Grain Offering. For instance that, just as the offering on the griddle was broken into pieces [Lev 2:6], Jesus, during the Lord’s Supper, “…took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘This is My body, which is given for you…’ [Luke 22:19]. Our own bodies are tainted with leaven, but Jesus’ body was pure, unleavened. This body was given to us to present to the Father as our own. And because of His death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we have stepped into an everlasting covenant with God where He has divinely appointed us as His servants.


Footnotes

  1. Joanna Golec-Islam, The Food of Gods and Humans in the Hittite World (BA thesis, University of Warsaw, 2016), supervised by Dr. Anna Smogorzewska, 43.

  2. Golec-Islam, The Food of Gods and Humans, 43.

  3. Golec-Islam, The Food of Gods and Humans, 45.

  4. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 3 of Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 179.

  5. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 179.

  6. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 184.

  7. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 184.

  8. Exploratorium, “Bread Science 101,” Exploratorium, accessed August 8, 2025, https://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/cooking/bread-science.

  9. King Arthur Baking Company, “The Beginner’s Guide to Baking with Yeast,” King Arthur Baking, May 10, 2023, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/05/10/guide-to-baking-with-yeast.

  10. Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 12.

  11. Levine, Leviticus, 12.

  12. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 180.

  13. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 183.

  14. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 183.

  15. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 180.

  16. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 191.

  17. Philo, On the Special Laws 1.289; Theophylact, Commentary on Luke 14.34; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 8.35 (Pythagoras, 19); and Pliny, Natural History 31.45 (9), all cited in Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 191.

  18. G. B. Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament, as cited in Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 191 (citing Gray, 232).

  19. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 191.

  20. Philipp Jakob Spener. 1964. Pia Desideria. Fortress Press: 92.

  21. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 12, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 64.


Bible translation: The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2009).

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