“And if his offering is of the flocks – of the sheep or of the goats – as a burnt sacrifice, he shall bring a male without blemish. He shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the Lord; and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall sprinkle its blood all around on the altar.” Leviticus 1:10-11.

The intent of this post is to show us that there is a difference between the right hand and the left in Scripture. In many ways this is more important than you would think.

The book of Leviticus is mainly instructions to the priests showing them how God wants them to carry out the sacrifices for various sins committed by individuals, priests and the nation.

“And if his offering is of the flocks – of the sheep or of the goats – as a burnt sacrifice, he shall bring a male without blemish. He shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the Lord…” Leviticus 1:10-11a.

The person who is offering his sin offering before the Lord is to put his hand on the sacrifice to lay his sins upon it. He is then to kill it on the north side of the altar.

The north side is mentioned only once in the book of Leviticus. Some feel like it means that this is the only sacrifice in which the priests are instructed to do this, yet perhaps it is mentioned only once because it is understood that all the sacrifices are killed on the north side.

The east side of the altar is mentioned only once too, because this is the place where the rejected inward parts of the animal are thrown down “…and cast it beside the altar on the east side, into the place for the ashes.” Leviticus 1:16b.

Notice also that on the east side of the altar the location is called “…the place for the ashes” indicating that this is the only place around the altar where the unwanted offal is discarded.

Now the point that is being made is, where is the north side of the altar? Hopefully you may be able to find a diagram of the wilderness tabernacle, if you cannot, I will try to describe it as well as possible.

The outer fence of the tabernacle is rectangular in shape facing east and west with the only gate located on the east end.

Just inside the east gate sits the brazen altar which we have been discussing.

As we continue walking west, we come to the laver which is a bowl filled with water sitting on a pedestal where the priests wash before entering through the curtains to the Holy place which contains the golden candlestick, and the 12 loaves of shewbread.

As you approach a second curtain which hides the Holy of Holies you will see the golden altar of incense.

There are strict commands concerning the High Priest’s entrance into the Holy of Holies because God’s presence is above the Ark of the Covenant therein.

Now that we can visualize the layout of the tabernacle where God dwelt it is possible to reckon where north is.

God is everything, not only does He show Himself in the Holy of Holies but, everything about the tabernacle is symbolic and prophetic of the Lord Jesus who will come to this earth some 1400 years later to live among us and die for us on the cross.

So, we find God’s presence above the Mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant on the far west end of the tabernacle.

This tells us that He would be facing east through the Holy place, past the laver and directly at the altar. If God is facing east toward the altar, this means that the north side of the altar where the sacrifice is killed will be at God’s left hand.

For those who have trouble understanding how we found the north side of the altar try this.

Put a chair in the middle of a room facing the east where the sun rises, sit in the chair, west will be behind you where the sun goes down, point your right hand south toward Mexico, then point your left hand north toward the North Pole, this is the same as the north side of the altar at God’s left hand.

To see if this is a consistent statement let us try an example of what God commanded the children of Israel to do when they entered the promised land.

“These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; and these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.” Deuteronomy 27:12-13.

God commanded the children of Israel to carry out the above exercise to place themselves under oath to God to acknowledge that if they continued to honor God in all their ways they would be blessed and if they strayed from God they would be cursed.

Because of disobedience these curses fell upon them as any study of the Bible will show.

However, we see here another example of the curse being on the left hand.

Mount Gerizim and Ebal are two mountain ranges that run roughly parallel to each other in an east to west direction with a lush very narrow valley between them about 500 yards wide.

Mount Ebal is north of this valley and Gerizim is to the south, with the Levites situated in the valley below along with the Ark of the Covenant.

When the people were assembled as per the description in Deuteronomy 27:12-13 shown earlier, the Levites would call out the blessings and the curses and the people on Mount Gerizim or Ebal would respond in agreement.

God would undoubtedly attend this event. If He were to seat Himself at this ceremony, it would no doubt be in the west end of the valley with His back to the Mediterranean Sea and facing the east with Mount Gerizim to the south on His right hand and Mount Ebal to the North on His left hand where the curses were called out.

Now, let us go on to a very clear example of what God means when He speaks of the left hand and the right hand. The following incident will take place when Jesus returns to the earth to rule for a thousand years at the end of the seven years of tribulation which will soon be upon us.

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on His throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” Matthew 25:31-33.

“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…’” Matthew 25:34.

“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…’” Matthew 25:41.

The events shown above are future and take place after the catastrophic 7year tribulation period when Jesus comes back to rule the world for a thousand years.

The nations gathered before Him are the survivors of this deadly period of time.

The people to the right of Jesus are obviously Christians as shown by their actions described in Matthew 25:34-40.

The Christ rejectors are on the left of Jesus Christ and showed by their actions that they had no love for Jesus or His followers in Matthew 25:41-46.

Please read the whole chapters of the quotations in this study so you can confirm the things posted herein.

The following example took place nearly two thousand years ago when Jesus was crucified to pay for our sins. There were some very powerful things that occurred during Jesus’ crucifixion.

“And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center.” John 19:17-18.

“Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.” Matthew 27:38.

“Now it was the third hour [9 a.m.], and they crucified Him.  And the inscription of His accusation was written above: The King of the Jews. With Him they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the other on His left.” Mark 15:25-27.

“There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.” Luke 23:32-33.

In all four gospels it is noted that Jesus was crucified between two criminals as stated in John. And more specifically on the right and on the left in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

To add to the demonic villainy of this scene Jesus was treated cruelly and mocked by nearly everyone, including the two criminals.

“He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.” Matthew 27:42-44.

Then something happened, one of the criminals had a change of heart. Can you guess which criminal was on the left and which on the right?

“Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, ‘If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.’ But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.’” Luke 23:39-43.

Utterly dead and without hope this man reached out to Jesus and heard these blessed words, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18.

Left Or Right taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 4-2-25 ck.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.