Haftarah Tzav
“A Soothing Aroma”
Jeremiah 7:21-8:3; 9:22-23
excerpted from TorahScope Haftarah Exhortations
Our Torah portion for this week, Tzav (Leviticus 6:1[8]-8:36), continues by giving further instructions and explanations about various sacrificial offerings which the Lord required of Ancient Israel. More elaborate details about the burnt, grain, guilt, and peace offerings were given to the immediate sons of Aaron, who were designated to function as priestly mediators before the Most High. With all of this additional instruction, there are two important aspects of sacrificial offerings which can be reflected upon. First, there is the requirement to keep the sacrificial fires burning continually:
“Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out” (Leviticus 6:13, WMB).
Secondly, we see the Lord actually enjoying what is referred to in these passages, and others, as a “soothing aroma.” This was to emanate from the smoke of the sacrifice being burned:
“He put all these in Aaron’s hands and in his sons’ hands, and waved them for a wave offering before the LORD. Moses took them from their hands, and burned them on the altar on the burnt offering. They were a consecration offering for a pleasant aroma. It was an offering made by fire to the LORD. Moses took the breast, and waved it for a wave offering before the LORD. It was Moses’ portion of the ram of consecration, as the LORD commanded Moses” (Leviticus 8:27-29, WMB).
Long before the establishment of the Levitical priesthood, Noah offered various sacrifices to God, delivered unto Him as a burnt offering. After the waters of the great flood had subsided, the Lord was pleased with the soothing, aromatic smell of the offering presented to Him, and He declared that He would never again send such devastation:
“Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the pleasant aroma. The LORD said in his heart, ‘I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease’” (Genesis 8:20-22, WMB).
Was it the soothing aroma which caused God, to say that He would never send a judgment like the Flood again? If so, is it conceivable to conclude that since the Flood, some percentage of people are in some way, offering up something to God which functions as a “soothing aroma”? Could this not be praise and worship offered to the Holy One, as people not only recognize Him as a gracious Heavenly Father—but proclaim of His mercy, compassion, and grace to the rest of humanity?
Certainly, as one reads the instruction to the Levitical priests to physically worship the Lord through the various sacrificial offerings, it is understood that these physical acts would create a soothing aroma as their smoke ascended to God. Witnesses would be able to watch the smoke arise, and perhaps even smell a pleasing scent of roasting meat, and in their mind’s eye could imagine the Holy One of Israel appreciating the effort. Since part of the atonement procedure was to place one’s hands on the sacrificial animal, thereby imparting whatever sin upon the substitution, these acts of obedience certainly pleased the Lord. But, when you take a look at the Haftarah passages from Jeremiah we are considering this week, there is a somewhat challenging statement made in Jeremiah 7:21-24. Here, speaking for God, it almost sounds like the Prophet Jeremiah contradicted the commandments of Leviticus regarding the different burnt offerings:
“The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says: ‘Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. For I didn’t speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward” (Jeremiah 7:21-24, WMB).
The Prophet Jeremiah was not denying what Tzav said in Leviticus, but instead asserted how it was God’s preference for His people to obey His voice and walk in the way commanded. God’s principal intent for instructing His people was not to just tell them how to sacrifice, even though that is what it seemed to have become. As we know from our reading of the history of Israel as seen throughout the Tanakh, the people largely did not obey or incline their ears to obey God in good hearts, but rather walked in stubbornness found in evil hearts. It resulted in the great need to offer up sacrifices, so that through such experience, the people would learn the lesson to listen and obey the Word of the Lord.
As you read the balance of our Haftarah reading from Jeremiah, you realize that the Ancient Israelites did not often take the instructions from the Lord seriously. Instead, they often followed after the abominations of surrounding pagan nations which influenced them. Jeremiah was commanded to point out these deviations in some dramatic ways:
“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the LORD their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’ Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath” (Jeremiah 7:27-29, WMB).
Not only was Jeremiah to declare these statements and expect nothing in return, but he was to cut off his hair and go to mountain tops to make these proclamations. There was to be no excuse for the people, as they were to be chastised by the Lord for their disobedience. The ultimate degradation would come when those judged by the Lord, would have their remains strewn out of their graves and placed before the very Sun, Moon, and stars which had been worshipped by them—powerless elements of the cosmos which could not help them in life, let alone death:
“‘At that time,’ says the LORD, ‘they will bring the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves. They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth. Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,’ says the LORD of Hosts” (Jeremiah 8:1-3, WMB).
Further insolence toward the Creator was seen, when Jeremiah summarized how the remnant of these Israelites, eventually exiled, would largely choose death over life—not learning from the lessons.
The Sages did not want to end this Haftarah reading on a negative note, and so they fast forward readers to Jeremiah 9:23-24, where the emphasis is placed on understanding and knowing the Lord. God wants a people who love Him, obey Him, and walk in His ways, so that there will be a perpetual soothing aroma emanating from them. This is the ultimate goal, even if down through history, the steps of physical sacrifices are required to achieve it. In Jeremiah’s day, he was called to remind the people of their tendency to even wander away from the sacrificial offerings, to the abomination of pursuing other gods. These two verses summarize what the Lord requires:
“The LORD says, ‘Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for I delight in these things,’ says the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:23-24, WMB).
God wants His people to know and understand Him. This means that they will appreciate His lovingkindness, His justice, and His righteousness on Earth. They will be a living testimony, declaring to the world about God and His ways. They will be a soothing aroma, constantly offering up praises and worship to the Most High.
The Lord is far more interested in His people understanding and knowing Him, than going through various rituals of offering burnt sacrifices. When Messiah Yeshua was asked about the greatest commandment, He gave a rather significant response:
“One of the scribes came and heard them questioning together, and knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, ‘Which commandment is the greatest of all?’ Yeshua answered, ‘The greatest is: “Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” [Deuteronomy 6:4-5]. This is the first commandment. The second is like this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Leviticus 19:18]. There is no other commandment greater than these.’ The scribe said to him, ‘Truly, Rabbi, you have said well that he is one, and there is none other but he; and to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself [Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:5], is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ When Yeshua saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from God’s Kingdom’” (Mark 12:28-34, WMB).
The scribe who questioned the Lord, understood how the commandments regarding love of God and neighbor were far more important than the sacrificial system. In fact, Yeshua commended him, by saying that because this was his response, “You are not far from God’s Kingdom.”
By understanding and knowing this, and especially walking in it during one’s life on Earth, it actually gets us closer to the Kingdom of God and its power. As we seek to know Him (Philippians 3:10), we will understand more about Him and receive His lovingkindness, His justice, and His righteousness. Ultimately, we can each be like the Apostle Paul, giving significant thanks to God because of our relationship to Him through the shed blood of Messiah Yeshua—a thanks rooted in an experience of faith, and not just a thought of faith. In so doing, we can be a soothing aroma unto the Father:
“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Messiah, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place. For we are a sweet aroma of Messiah to God in those who are saved and in those who perish: to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Messiah” (2 Corinthians 2:14-17, WMB).
We can be a fragrant aroma to those we come in contact with in the world. But this requires us to live properly. The fact that we know Yeshua and the power of His resurrection, what He endured for us (Philippians 3:10-11), should empower us to point people to the salvation which is available in Him. It is a blessing to know that our lives can be a soothing aroma, just as burnt sacrifices were once to be! It is our praise and intercession before Him which presently enable His mercy to be manifest toward today’s sinful world. If we can try to emit a fragrant aroma via our testimonies of faith, then others can be prompted to inquire more of God’s goodness which we are demonstrating to them. And then they can know why we are able to emit such a soothing aroma…
