Qorban to Korban. Korban to Qorban

Qorban:  An offering brought near the Alter

Korban: An offering dedicated to God and misused by the Jews as a way to evade their rightful duty to God to care for aged parents or other responsibilities.

1The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, 2“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.

3“If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. 4He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.                Leviticus 1:1-4

First let’s note that this book was wrote to the people of Israel. Those who chose to believe and follow God. If that applies to you, this text is for you. The word used here for offering in Leviticus is Qorban. The entire book of Leviticus has to deal with offerings, sacrifices and atonement. It has to do with the “ Holy” things. The word “Holy” is used 87 times in the book of Leviticus. The Hebrew word for "holy" used in Leviticus, qodesh, means "that which is set apart and marked off; that which is different; separateness; apartness; sacredness." If this reminds you that Ephesians 1 tells us that the Lord chose us in him to be Holy and Blameless in his sight, give yourself a fist bump. So, now lets jump forward to Matthew 27…

     3Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. 6But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. 8Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, 10and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”       Matthew 27:3-10

The word used here for treasury is Korban or Corban. Judas had a huge awakening after he gave up Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The 30 pieces of silver relates back to the old testament when you would have to pay someone 30 pieces of silver if your animal mauled someone’s slave. Mauled someone’s slave. Read that again. Mauled someone’s slave. Hmm. Everything in the Old testament is  useful. There is always a transition of words through the years. Spelling changes and often through territories, pronunciation alters. The word Korban was coming from the older Hebrew word Qorban. The Chief Priests knew that this money was not fit to be a gift because of what it had been used to buy. This money was what we would call “dirty”. Kinda sounds like unclean. Hmm. The only other time we see this word used in the new testament is in Mark 7.

 5And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
7in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”9And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)12then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”   Mark 7:5-13

Here we see Jesus dig into the Pharisees and the scribes. He is calling them out for their clear hypocrisy. The Pharisees and scribes were known for telling their children to use “Corban” as an excuse to not offer things to their parents or others they were responsible to. Always claiming, I cannot give you that, it is for God. When the reality is that they just did not want to give it away. Their gifts to offering were not to give God something from their heart, it was to get out of helping other. The word here for Corban is again: Korban. So, in the New Testament we see Korban used two different ways. One: The Chief Priests admit the dirty money cant be Korban. Two: The Pharisees are called out for giving Korban not from the heart but out of selfishness and pride.  

How did we go from Qorban to Korban? How did we go from offering God something we care about, something without blemish, something acceptable to the Lord, something that we desire to give to the God we love… to offering him something he never wanted, something that may have innocent blood on it, something that we give out of selfishness or pride? I am not talking about the sin we walk away from. I am talking about the things we offer God. This is something different for everyone. Time, Money, Love, Marriage, Children. Etc.. What is the heart behind what we offer the Lord?  What is the heart behind the things we refuse to offer the Lord?