Leviticus7chapter 7

Leviticus 7:1-7

Chapters 4 and 5 kept the sin offering and the trespass offering apart, and verse 7 puts them under one law. The blood is sprinkled round about the altar, the fat is burnt, and every male among the priests eats the rest inside the holy place, so the offering brought for a wrong done to a neighbour is handled as most holy. The Hebrew name of this offering is asham, and Isaiah 53:10 uses that word of the Servant when it says thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.

Leviticus 7:8-10

Verse 8 gives the officiating priest the skin of the burnt offering, which is the one part of a whole burnt offering that does not go up from the altar in smoke. The meat offering is then divided two ways without a reason given. What was baked in the oven or dressed in a pan belongs to the priest who offered it, and what came mingled with oil or dry is shared among all the sons of Aaron, one as much as another. Adam Clarke passes on an older suggestion that the priest's right to the skin began with the coats of skins of Genesis 3:21, and he gives it as a supposition rather than as something the text states.

Leviticus 7:11-15

The peace offering stood third in the worshipper's list at chapter 3 and stands last in the priest's list here, so the section that opened with the burnt offering closes with the one sacrifice the offerer eats from. A thanksgiving peace offering carries bread with it, and verse 13 requires leavened bread alongside the unleavened cakes, when leaven is the thing put out of every house at passover. The flesh of a thanksgiving offering is eaten the same day and none of it is left until the morning.

Leviticus 7:16-22

A vow or a voluntary peace offering may be eaten on a second day and a thanksgiving offering may not, and the text draws that line without saying why. On the third day the remainder is burnt, and eating it makes the sacrifice an abomination that shall not be accepted nor imputed to the man who brought it, so an offering already made can be spoiled by what is done with the meat afterwards. A man who eats the flesh while his uncleanness is upon him is cut off from his people, and the chapter says it twice in two verses.

Leviticus 7:23-27

Fat and blood are forbidden together and both carry the same penalty of being cut off from the people. The fat of a beast that died of itself or was torn may be put to any other use, and only the eating of it is barred, so the rule guards what belongs on the altar rather than the carcase. Leviticus 17:11 gives the one reason the book ever gives for the blood, that the life of the flesh is in it, and Acts 15:20 and 15:29 carry the same prohibition into the first council of the church.

Leviticus 7:28-34

The man who brings a peace offering carries the fat and the breast to the altar in his own hands, so the part of the ritual a worshipper performs himself is the handing over. The breast is waved and goes to Aaron and to all his sons, the right shoulder is heaved and goes to the priest who offered the blood and the fat, and the man who did the work takes the larger single portion. Verse 34 says the LORD took those parts from Israel and gave them to the priests, which makes the priest's food a gift out of the altar rather than a fee collected from the offerer.

Leviticus 7:35-38

Verse 37 names all five offerings in one line and adds the consecrations, closing the run that began at chapter 1. The order ends on the peace offerings, where the worshipper's list in chapters 1 to 5 put them third and ended on the trespass offering. Verse 38 places the giving of these laws in mount Sinai and in the wilderness of Sinai, while Leviticus 1:1 has the LORD calling to Moses out of the tabernacle of the congregation. Commentators account for the two settings in different ways and the text itself settles nothing.