Psalm 100 and Leviticus 7:11 to 15 · Passage · Gratitude
Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving
Psalm 100 and Leviticus 7 show Israel's thanks both as a song of worship and as an offering eaten at the sanctuary.
The word Psalm 100:4 uses for thanksgiving, todah, is the word Leviticus 7:12 uses for the thank offering.
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; come into His presence with joyful songs.
- The passage
- Psalm 100:1 to 5, Leviticus 7:11 to 15
- Books
- Psalms, Leviticus
- Hold in memory
- Psalm 100:4, Hebrews 13:15
Summary
To enter His gates with thanksgiving, as Psalm 100:4 commands, is to come into the LORD's presence with thanks, and the psalm calls all the earth to do it. Leviticus 7 names thanksgiving as one of three reasons to bring a peace offering, a sacrifice shared as a meal, which the worshipper brought with bread and shared with the priests. Psalm 50 calls God's people to bring the offering of thanks and to keep their vows, the vows Psalm 116 pays in the courts of the LORD's house.
- Psalm 100:4 joins thanks to coming before God in His house.
- Psalm 100 gives two reasons for thanks: the LORD made us and we are His, and He is good, with loving devotion that endures forever (Psalm 100:3, 5).
- Of the peace offerings, the thanksgiving offering alone came with leavened bread and had to be eaten on the day it was offered (Leviticus 7:13 to 16).
- Hebrews 13:15 calls the praise of lips that confess His name a sacrifice that Christians offer to God continually through Jesus.
Psalm 100 and Leviticus 7
Psalm 100 is a call to worship of five verses that sends all the earth through the LORD's gates with thanksgiving. Leviticus 7:11 to 15 sets out the law of the thank offering, with its bread, its shares and its time limit.
Gratitude, the thanks God's people owe Him, has a place and a form in Scripture as well as a reason. The page asks what thanks looked like when Israel came to worship. It answers from Psalm 100, from the law of the thank offering, from Psalm 50's call to bring it, and from the New Testament's sacrifice of praise.
Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.The first reason is what the LORD is to His people, their Maker and their Owner.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and bless His name.This is the command at the centre of the psalm, set between its two reasons in verses 3 and 5.
For the LORD is good, and His loving devotion endures forever; His faithfulness continues to all generations.The second reason is His character, good and loving and faithful through every generation.
Now this is the law of the peace offering that one may present to the LORD: If he offers it in thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with olive oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, and well-kneaded cakes of fine flour mixed with oil.The law names thanksgiving first among the purposes for which a peace offering might be brought.
Along with his peace offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of leavened bread. From the cakes he must present one portion of each offering as a contribution to the LORD. It belongs to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering. The meat of the sacrifice of his peace offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day he offers it; none of it may be left until morning.The leavened bread, the bread portion for the priest and the one-day limit are the marks that set the thank offering apart.
Psalm 100:5, Leviticus 7:11 to 12, Leviticus 7:13 to 15
The Three Kinds of Peace Offering
A peace offering could be brought in thanksgiving, for a vow or as a freewill offering (Leviticus 7:12, 16).
Only the thanksgiving offering brought leavened bread, and only it had to be eaten on the day it was offered.
| Kind | What was brought | Who ate | When it was eaten |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thanksgiving (Leviticus 7:12) | The sacrifice, with unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, and cakes of leavened bread (Leviticus 7:12 to 13) | The priest who sprinkles the blood takes one cake of each kind (Leviticus 7:14), Aaron's sons take the breast and the right thigh (Leviticus 7:31 to 33), and anyone ceremonially clean eats the meat (Leviticus 7:15 to 19) | On the day it is offered, with none left until morning (Leviticus 7:15) |
| Vow (Leviticus 7:16) | The sacrifice alone, with no bread named for it (Leviticus 7:16) | Aaron's sons take the breast and the right thigh (Leviticus 7:31 to 33), and anyone ceremonially clean eats the meat (Leviticus 7:16 to 19) | On the day it is presented and on the next day, with meat left to the third day burned (Leviticus 7:16 to 17) |
| Freewill (Leviticus 7:16) | The sacrifice alone, with no bread named for it (Leviticus 7:16) | Aaron's sons take the breast and the right thigh (Leviticus 7:31 to 33), and anyone ceremonially clean eats the meat (Leviticus 7:16 to 19) | On the day it is presented and on the next day, with meat left to the third day burned (Leviticus 7:16 to 17) |
The leavened cakes of the thank offering never went on the altar, because Leviticus 2:11 forbids burning leaven in any offering made by fire to the LORD.
The Animal and the Day
The thank offering followed the peace offering's law for its animal and a second law for its day.
“If one’s offering is a peace offering and he offers an animal from the herd, whether male or female, he must present it without blemish before the LORD.Leviticus 3 opens the law of this offering, and the thank offering kept every rule written there.
When you sacrifice a thank offering to the LORD, offer it so that it may be acceptable on your behalf. It must be eaten that same day. Do not leave any of it until morning. I am the LORD.The one-day rule of Leviticus 7:15 comes again among the laws of acceptable sacrifices, where the LORD seals it with His own name.
The Offering God Asks For
Psalm 50 calls Israel to bring the thank offering, and Psalms 107 and 116, Jonah and Jeremiah speak of the same offering.
I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are ever before Me. I have no need for a bull from your stall or goats from your pens, for every beast of the forest is Mine— the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice a thank offering to God, and fulfill your vows to the Most High.God does not rebuke Israel's sacrifices here, and the psalm turns from the animals He already owns to the thank offering He asks them to bring.
He who sacrifices a thank offering honors Me, and to him who rights his way, I will show the salvation of God.”The psalm closes on the thank offering, so it is the last word the psalm gives God's people.
I will offer to You a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD. I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the LORD’s house, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Hallelujah!These verses carry the thank offering into the place Psalm 100 names, the courts of the LORD's house.
Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare His works with rejoicing.Psalm 107 joins the sacrifices of thanksgiving to telling aloud what the LORD has done.
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD!”Jonah vows thanks and sacrifice from inside the fish, before he has been brought out.
the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the LORD, saying: ‘Give thanks to the LORD of Hosts, for the LORD is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the LORD.Jeremiah promises that thank offerings will again be carried into the house of the LORD after the exile.
Psalm 116:17 to 19, Psalm 107:22, Jonah 2:9, Jeremiah 33:11
The Sacrifice of Praise
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name. And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.Hebrews keeps the word sacrifice for the worship believers now bring to God through Jesus, in speech and in deeds.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Hebrew (TBESH), STEP Bible, Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0.
- Brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922), STEP Bible, Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, book 8, chapter 1.
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