Sacred Meals Have Portions and Deadlines

Chapter 5 told the offender to bring a ram but never said what the priest did with it. This is the first time the procedure of the asham, the trespass or reparation offering, is actually set out, and it opens by ranking it “most holy”.

The blood is dashed “round about” against the altar, as for the burnt and peace offerings, and not dabbed with a finger on the horns as for the sin offering. The asham’s blood is handled like a burnt offering’s even though its meat is handled like a sin offering’s.

“The rump” heads the list because the trespass offering was always a ram (5:15, 6:6), never a goat, so the broad sheep’s tail was always there to be removed. The chapter lists fats by what the animal actually has.

Later Jewish law gave these altar portions a collective name, emurim, “the things spoken of”, meaning the parts that the law names for the altar. The list in this verse is the same five items given for the peace offering in chapter 3.

The word asham reappears in Isaiah 53:10, where the servant’s soul is made “an offering for sin”; the Hebrew there is asham, this offering, the one that repays a debt. The phrase that closes this verse is its name.

A whole ram gives far more meat than one priest can eat in a day, which is presumably why “every male among the priests” may share it. The Mishnah (Zevachim 5:5) allowed it to be eaten that day and the following night until midnight.

“One law for them” is the phrase Exodus 12:49 used of the Passover, one law for the native and the stranger. Here it binds two offerings rather than two kinds of people: the sin offering and the trespass offering go the same way once the blood has been applied.

Hides were valuable as leather, for waterskins, sandals and tent coverings. Since the burnt offering left nothing to eat, the skin was the officiating priest’s only material return. “Any man’s burnt offering” means the rule applies to every worshipper’s gift.

The three utensils of chapter 2 return: oven, deep pan, griddle. Cooked offerings go to the one priest who offers them, while the raw flour of verse 10 is divided among all. A plausible reason, though not stated, is that bread must be eaten fresh while flour can be shared out.

“One as much as another” is ish ke’achiv, “each man like his brother”, an idiom of equal shares. “Dry” means without oil, like the poor man’s flour of 5:11 and the offering of jealousy in Numbers 5:15.

The peace offering comes last in the priests’ manual, though it was third in chapters 1 to 3. The rabbis called it one of the qodashim qalim, “lighter holy things”, since lay people ate most of it and it could be eaten anywhere in the camp.

“Thanksgiving” is todah, from yadah, to acknowledge or praise, the same root as the verb “confess” in 5:5. Acknowledging a wrong and acknowledging a mercy are one word in Hebrew. The fried cakes are the murbekhet of 6:21, soaked in oil.

Leavened bread comes with this offering, one of only two in Leviticus to include it (the other is the loaves of 23:17). Rabbinic law set the thanksgiving at forty loaves, ten of each of the four kinds.

“One out of the whole oblation” was read by the rabbis as one loaf from each kind. The heave offering is the terumah, the portion lifted off; it goes to the priest who dashed the blood, and the offerer and his guests eat the rest.

“He shall not leave any of it until the morning” is the rule of the Passover lamb in Exodus 12:10. A thanksgiving with forty loaves and a whole animal, all to be eaten in a day and a night, could only be kept by inviting others to share it.

A vow, neder, is paid after a promise made in trouble, like Jacob’s at Bethel (Genesis 28:20) or Hannah’s at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:11). Psalm 66:13-15 describes paying it: “I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered… when I was in trouble.”

Leftover sacrificial meat is not thrown away; it is burned, like the flesh made unclean in verse 19. What once belonged to the LORD’s offering never becomes ordinary refuse.

“Imputed” is nechashev, reckoned, the verb of Genesis 15:6, where Abram’s faith was “counted” to him for righteousness. “Abomination” here is piggul, a technical term for sacrificial meat kept past its time. The rabbis held that intending, while slaughtering, to eat it late spoiled the offering from the start.

“All that be clean shall eat thereof” opens the meal to lay people. This is the first time in Leviticus that anyone outside the priesthood eats of a sacrifice, and the only condition named is being clean.

“Cut off from his people”, karet, first appears in Genesis 17:14 for the uncircumcised, and here for the first time in Leviticus. “That pertain unto the LORD” is repeated in the next verse: the meat eaten at a family table is still the LORD’s.

“Abominable unclean thing” is sheqets, a detestable thing, the word chapter 11 uses for forbidden creatures. The Samaritan Pentateuch and some Hebrew manuscripts read sherets, a swarming creature, instead, a difference of one letter.

The speech now turns from the priests’ manual to rules for all Israel, spoken in their homes as well as at the altar. The next five verses are addressed to the people, not to Aaron.

Only ox, sheep and goat are named, the three species that could be sacrificed. Deuteronomy 12:15, 22 lets Israel eat deer and gazelle at home “as the roebuck, and as the hart”, and their fat is not forbidden.

The torn animal is terefah, the word that became the Yiddish treif for anything not kosher. The fat of a carcase can be “used in any other use”, as tallow for lamps or grease for leather, but it cannot be eaten.

The reason clause is in the verse: the fat is from a beast “of which men offer an offering made by fire”. Fat from those species belongs to the altar even when the animal is killed for an ordinary meal at home.

Fowl and beast are named; fish are not. The Talmud (Keritot 21a) accordingly allowed the blood of fish. “In any of your dwellings” carries the rule into every home, wherever the animal was killed.

The fourth “cut off” in the chapter (verses 20, 21, 25 and here). When the blood law is given again in 17:10-11, God makes the penalty personal, “I will even set my face against that soul”, and gives the reason: “the life of the flesh is in the blood”.

The peace offering receives two speeches (verses 11-21 and this one), more than any other offering in the manual. It is the only one divided three ways, among the altar, the priests and the worshipper, and this speech settles the priests’ share.

Out of his own peace offering the worshipper must bring a portion that is called an oblation “unto the LORD”, even though it will be eaten by the priest. The priests’ share is presented as a gift to God first.

The wave offering is the tenufah. Rabbinic tradition (Menachot 61a) described it as moved forward and back, then up and down, with the priest’s hands placed under the owner’s. The fat is carried in with the breast because both are presented before being separated.

The breast goes to the priests collectively. Deuteronomy 18:3 names a different share from ordinary sacrifices, “the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw”, so the priests’ portions were not the same in every law.

The “shoulder” is shoq, the upper hind leg, and most modern versions render it “thigh”. It is the choicest cut, and the right side was the favoured one. Samuel sets exactly this piece before Saul at the meal in 1 Samuel 9:24.

The officiating priest gets the thigh. In 1 Samuel 2:13-14 Eli’s sons ignored the rule and had a servant thrust a three-pronged fork into the pot and take whatever came up, and their contempt for the offerings is what condemned them.

The wave breast and the heave shoulder were first assigned at the ordination in Exodus 29:27-28. This verse turns a one-time ordination portion into a permanent claim on every peace offering Israel would bring.

“Portion of the anointing” translates mishchah, which can mean anointing or a measured portion; Numbers 18:8 uses it in the second sense. Either way it ties the priests’ share to the day of their installation.

The verse speaks of the anointing as already done, though chapter 8 has not yet narrated it. The priests’ portions are being described from the standpoint of an ordination about to take place.

“Consecrations” is millu’im, literally “fillings”, from the idiom of filling the hand, which means to install a priest (Exodus 28:41, where “consecrate them” is “fill their hand”). The ordination is listed among the offerings as if it were one of them.

“In mount Sinai” and “in the wilderness of Sinai” sit together, though 1:1 had these laws spoken from the tent. The usual reading takes “in mount Sinai” loosely, as the region of the mountain. The collection of offering laws closes here.