Here are given supplementary rules about the priest's perquisite in the Burnt offering, and in the Meal offering. These Jehovah was pleased to add at this point, before entering on the law of the sacrifice of Peace offerings, where the offering priest had his prescribed part, while the high priest and his sons had theirs, and others too with unusual width, as we shall consider in its place.
“And the priest that offereth any man's Burnt offering, the priest shall have to himself the skin of the Burnt offering which he hath offered. And every Meal offering that is baken in the oven, and all that is prepared in the cauldron and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it; to him it shall belong. And every Meal offering, mingled with oil and dry, shall all the sons of Aaron have, one as another” (vers. 8-10).
It is notorious that the commentators are here remarkably silent; or, if they speak, they bring in Jehovah Elohim clothing Adam and Eve with the coats of skins He made for them (Gen. 3:2121Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)). Some of them add Jacob personating Esau by the kid-skins Rebekah's craft put upon his hands and neck to deceive his dim-sighted father (Gen. 27). Such applications cannot stand; especially as it is here no question of providing for the offerer's nakedness or need, but of the offering priest, who as usual represents Christ in His official capacity, if we are consistent in reading the type as we surely ought to be.
In what sense then may we, according to the analogy of faith, regard Christ as the Priest receiving for Himself the skin of the Burnt offering which He had offered? It would not become one to speak boldly where the scripture of the N.T. leaves the matter simply to spiritual judgment; but it is suggested that the Priest has for Himself the memorial and the display of that which set forth beyond all other offerings His giving Himself for us to God unreservedly. To the holocaust therefore was this significant token here appended. There could be no eating in this case, as in the Meal offering and in the sacrifice of Peace offerings as well as in the common or lesser offerings for sin or trespass. And the skin of the Burnt offering seems only reserved for the priest on the occasion of “any man's burnt offering” i.e. in ordinary cases. But there is no hint of the priest clothing himself with it: he certainly was not naked. Yet his perquisite it was, the abiding token and remembrance to Him of His offering and sacrifice to God for an odor of sweet smell.
But the Meal offering denoted Christ in His life, not in His blood-shedding or death, yet tested no less by the supreme judgment of God in the fire that consumed and drew out nothing but a savor of rest. Here the offering priest was to have every such oblation that is baken in the oven, and all that is prepared in the cauldron (or, frying pan) and in the pan (or, flat plate). Christ in every way put to the proof here below answers to the type, not merely kept but eaten. There were trials of Christ which He only could enter into and appreciate. Even of the great temptation in the wilderness, none of the details is revealed to us. How well He knows them! And what, to take another example, did the sleeping apostles know of that in the garden of Gethsemane?
Yet we have the closing efforts of Satan, when the forty days were completed, revealed to us carefully in both Matt. 4 and Luke 4. Accordingly we learn in ver. 10 that, “every meal offering mingled with oil, and dry, shall all the sons of Aaron have one as the other.” Christ and His own enjoy thus together the offering of all His life here below as an oblation to Jehovah.