I don’t know if it’s part of the translation or if it’s just God’s desire for simplicity, but all of the sacrifices are relatively self-explanatory. A sin offering is for sin, a free will offering is given of our own free will, and a grain offering involves grain. Easy peasy.
But what’s a wave offering? Fortunately, there’s nothing mysterious about a wave offering. According to Exodus 29:19-28, you place food in the hands of the priests and literally “wave it” before God.
The direction the priests wave it in is somewhat debated. Some argue for a left/right motion, while others claim you should move it up and down. Still more say the priest was to wave it to all four corners to signify all of God’s creation.
Regardless of the direction, the point was to dedicate the contents of the wave offering to God. It was His to begin with, after all, but in some cases, God gives the wave offering back to the Priests. The fats in Exodus 29:22-25 are burned at the altar, but the breast from Aaron’s ordination ram is given “as his portion.”
The “portion” given to the priesthood seems to be the primary differentiator between a wave offering and other sacrifices. Whereas most of them are incinerated, the wave offerings are largely given to the priesthood to consume (Leviticus 7:30-35).
God’s care for those who minister to Him is built into both the Old and New Testaments. The wave offerings, the Levitical cities scattered throughout Canaan (Numbers 35:1-8), the tithes (Numbers 18:21-24)—all of these are taken from the nation as a whole and given as payment for Levitical service.
The New Testament carries this principle over. When Jesus sends out the seventy, He instructs them to take their support from those they minister to (Matthew 10:9-10). When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says that he’s entitled to make his living from the people he preaches to (1 Corinthians 9:13-14).
Interestingly, Paul even uses this principle to show that even though he’s worthy of support, he doesn’t always take it to set an example for the people. In 2 Thessalonians 3, he combats apathy in the local church by saying that he worked with his hands to provide for himself. If he can do that (and still preach), shouldn’t they be willing to work, too?
A wave offering is a way to say thank you to God for what you’ve been given before you take it into your own possession. A modern day corollary may be a family who says a prayer of thanks before eating dinner, or a man who sets aside money out of his paycheck to give to others. We should all strive to acknowledge God through our blessings, since all of them are derived from His hand to begin with.
