With each row you shall place pure frankincense, which is to be a token offering for the bread, as an offering by fire to the Lord. (Lev 24:7, 1985 JPS Tanakh)
And present it [the meal/grain offering] to Aaron's sons, the priests. The priest shall scoop out of in a handful of its choice flour and oil, as well as all of its frankincense; and this token portion he shall turn into smoke on the altar, as an offering by fire, of pleasing odour to the Lord. (Lev 2:2, 1985 JPS Tanakh)
In "Remembrance" and the Eucharist: Does Αναμνησις mean "memorial sacrifice"? I discuss the term αναμνησις and the popular claim by Catholic apologists that it means “memorial sacrifice.” For this reason, it would be prudent to examine the meaning of the underlying Hebrew of the occurrence of the term in the LXX.
With respect to Lev 24:7, where the LXX translates the Hebrew לְאַזְכָּרָה (KJV: “memorial”; NRSV: “token offering”) as εις αναμνησιν (the same locution that appears in Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24-25), Jacob Milgrom wrote:
a token offering for the bread. lalleḥem lě’azkārā. The token (‘azkārā) was always offered up with parts of the minḥâ, the cereal offering (e.g., 2:9), but in this instance, since none of the bread is burned on the altar, the text has to state explicitly that the frankincense is offered in place of the bread. The reason for this exception is that it is prohibited to offer food to God inside the shrine—that is, in his “house” (cf. Exod 30:9). (Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001], 2098)
Milgrom then refers to his commentary on Lev 2:2 for more information, which reads thusly:
this token portion. Four renderings of ‘azkārtâ have been suggested: (1) “memorial,” as in zikkārôn (Sipra, Nedaba par 9:12); (2) “the burnt portion” (see Ps 20:4, where yizkōr is paralleled by “reduce to ashes” (Saadiah); (3) “the fragrant portion” (Hos 14:8; see Isa 66:3; Ibn Ezra [2]); (4) “invocation portion” from hizkîr ‘pronounce’, in other words, the name of YHWH is pronounced when this portion is burned (Schottroff 1964); for evidence see the superscriptions to Pss 38 and 70 and Akk. Šumka azkur, the pronunciation of the divine name in the cult (Eising 1980). Each of these theories is subject to serious question: theory 1, the purpose of such a “memorial” is unclear; theory 2, Ps 20:4 is frail proof because it most likely should be rendered “He will approve the token portion of your cereal offerings and approve the ashes of your burnt offering”; theory 3, token portions are taken from expiatory cereal offerings (5:12; Num 5:15), but these can hardly be intended to provide fragrance; theory 4, why should the name of the deity be invoked for a cereal offering, which in a sacrificial series is only an accompaniment of the meat offerings? And why should there be no invocation of the deity when the cereal offering is entirely consumed (as in the high priest’s offering, 6;12-16 and the public cereal offering, Num 28-29) or when there is no cereal offering at all (e.g., with the expiatory sacrifices, Lev. 4-5)? No definitive answer can be given. Provisionally, it is best to understand ‘azkārâ as related to zēker ‘remembrance’, referring to the fact that the entire cereal offering should really go up in smoke and that the portion that does is pars pro toto: it stands for the remainder; in other words, it is a “token portion.” Alternatively, it may derive from Akk. Zikru ‘image, counterpart, replica’ (CAD 21.116) and hence yield “token” (Levine 1989). (Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991], 181-82)
With respect to Akkadian Zikru, here is a scan of the relevant section of the lexicon Milgrom references (click to enlarge):
Source: The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, volume 21: Z, eds. Ignace J. Gelb, Benno Landsberger, and A. Leo Oppenheim (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1961, 1998), 116
