Leviticus 7:11-15
Lev 7:11-12 The Law of the Peace-Offerings, “which he shall offer to Jehovah” (the subject is to be supplied from the verb), contains instructions, (1) as to the bloodless accompaniment to these sacrifices (Lev 7:12-14), (2) as to the eating of the flesh of the sacrifices (Lev 7:15-21), with the prohibition against eating fat and blood (Lev 7:22-27), and (3) as to Jehovah’s share of these sacrifices (Lev 7:28-36). - In Lev 7:12 and Lev 7:16 three classes of shelamim are mentioned, which differ according to their occasion and design, viz., whether they were brought על־תּודה, upon the ground of praise, i.e., to praise God for blessings received or desired, or as vow-offerings, or thirdly, as freewill-offerings (Lev 7:16). To (lit., upon, in addition to) the sacrifice of thanksgiving (Lev 7:12, “sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace-offerings,” Lev 7:13 and Lev 7:15) they were to present “unleavened cakes kneaded with oil, and flat cakes anointed with oil (see at Lev 2:4), and roasted fine flour (see Lev 6:14) mixed as cakes with oil,” i.e., cakes made of fine flour roasted with oil, and thoroughly kneaded with oil (on the construction, see Ges. §139, 2; Ewald §284 a). This last kind of cakes kneaded with oil is also called oil-bread-cake (“a cake of oiled bread,” Lev 8:26; Exo 29:23), or “cake unleavened, kneaded with oil” (Exo 29:2), and probably differed from the former simply in the fact that it was more thoroughly saturated with oil, inasmuch as it was not only made of flour that had been mixed with oil in the kneading, but the flour itself was first of all roasted in oil, and then the dough was moistened still further with oil in the process of kneading. Lev 7:13-14 This sacrificial gift the offerer was to present upon, or along with, cakes of leavened bread (round, leavened bread-cakes), and to offer “thereof one out of the whole oblation,” namely, one cake of each of the three kinds mentioned in Lev 7:12, as a heave-offering for Jehovah, which was to fall to the priest who sprinkled the blood of the peace-offering. According to Lev 2:9, an azcarah of the unleavened pastry was burned upon the altar, although this is not specially mentioned here any more than at Lev 7:9 and Lev 7:10; whereas none of the leavened bread-cake was placed upon the altar (Lev 2:12), but it was simply used as bread for the sacrificial meal. There is nothing here to suggest an allusion to the custom of offering unleavened sacrificial cakes upon a plate of leavened dough, as J. D. Michaelis, Winer, and others suppose. Lev 7:15-18 The flesh of the praise-offering was to be eaten on the day of presentation, and none of it was to be left till the next morning (cf. Lev 22:29-30); but that of the vow and freewill-offerings might be eaten on both the first and second days. Whatever remained after that was to be burnt on the third day, i.e., to be destroyed by burning. If any was eaten on the third day, it was not well-pleasing (ירצה “good pleasure,” see Lev 1:4), and was “not reckoned to the offerer,” sc., as a sacrifice well-pleasing to God; it was “an abomination.” פּגּוּל, an abomination, is only applied to the flesh of the sacrifices (Lev 19:7; Eze 4:14; Isa 65:4), and signifies properly a stench; - compare the talmudic word פּגּל faetidum reddere. Whoever ate thereof would bear his sin (see Lev 5:1). “The soul that eateth” is not to be restricted, as Knobel supposes, to the other participators in the sacrificial meal, but applies to the offerer also, in fact to every one who partook of such flesh. The burning on the third day was commanded, not to compel the offerer to invite the poor to share in the meal (Theodoret, Clericus, etc.), but to guard against the danger of a desecration of the meal. The sacrificial flesh was holy (Exo 29:34); and in Lev 19:8, where this command is repeated, ▼▼There is no foundation for Knobel's assertion, that in Lev 19:5. another early lawgiver introduces a milder regulation with regard to the thank-offering, and allows all the thank-offerings to be eaten on the second day. For Lev 19:5. does not profess to lay down a universal rule with regard to all the thank-offerings, but presupposes our law, and simply enforces its regulations with regard to the vow and freewill-offerings, and threatens transgressors with severe punishment.
eating it on the third day is called a profanation of that which was holy to Jehovah, and ordered to be punished with extermination. It became a desecration of what was holy, through the fact that in warm countries, if flesh is not most carefully preserved by artificial means, it begins to putrefy, or becomes offensive (פּגּוּל) on the third day. But to eat flesh that was putrid or stinking, would be like eating unclean carrion, or the נבלה with which putrid flesh is associated in Eze 4:14. It was for this reason that burning was commanded, as Philo (de vict. p. 842) and Maimonides (More Neboch iii. 46) admit; though the former also associates with this the purpose mentioned above, which we decidedly reject (cf. Outram l.c. p. 185 seq., and Bähr, ii. pp. 375-6).
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