Chapter Seven

Repetition and supplementation of regulations concerning various sacrifices, chiefly from the point of view of the obligations and rights of priests in relation to sacrificial offerings

Leviticus 7:1. This is the law of the guilt offering: it is most holy; Leviticus 7:2. The guilt offering shall be slaughtered at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood shall be dashed on the altar all around; Leviticus 7:3. The one offering it shall present from it all the fat, the broad tail and the fat that covers the entrails, Leviticus 7:4. And both kidneys and the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the appendage on the liver; with the kidneys he shall remove it; Leviticus 7:5. And the priest shall burn it on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord: it is a guilt offering. Leviticus 7:6. Every male among the priests may eat it; it shall be eaten in a holy place: it is most holy. Leviticus 7:7. Like the sin offering, so it is with the guilt offering; the law is the same for both: it belongs to the priest who makes atonement with it. The guilt offering is “most holy.” The ritual of the sacrifice is detailed: the place of slaughter, the manner of blood sprinkling (according to tradition, sprinkling of the burnt offering altar occurred with two swings of the cup with blood at the northeast and southwest corners – Mishnah, Zebachim 5:4; see Zech 9:15), Lev 7:2; the parts burned, Lev 7:3-5; the use of the remaining sacrificial meat – by the male members of the priestly clan. By all these ritual features, the guilt offering is extremely close to the sin offering.

Leviticus 7:8. And when a priest brings anyone’s burnt offering, the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered shall belong to the priest; Leviticus 7:9. And every grain offering that is baked in the oven, and every one prepared in a pan or on a griddle, shall belong to the priest who offers it; Leviticus 7:10. And every grain offering, mixed with oil and dry, shall belong to all the sons of Aaron, one as well as the other. The burnt offering and the grain offering – grain. While in other bloody sacrifices (except for cases of the sin offering indicated in Lev 6:30) the priests have the right to certain parts of the meat of sacrificial animals, at the burnt offering they have only the skin (according to Jewish tradition, in peace offerings the skin returned to the offerer: this agrees with the biblical indication that at the peace offering the offerer took what remained, after the removal of the fat portions for fire and the breast and right shoulder for the priest, the meat and made a meal for himself). In grain offerings of all kinds, the priests-performers use the right of ownership over what is dedicated to God, the remainder belongs to the offerer (see Lev 7:14).

Leviticus 7:11. This is the law of the peace offering that one may offer to the Lord: Leviticus 7:12. If he offers it for a thanksgiving offering, then along with the thanksgiving sacrifice he shall offer unleavened bread mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil, and of fine flour mixed with oil, cakes mixed with oil; Leviticus 7:13. Besides the loaves, he shall offer leavened bread as part of his offering with his peace offering of thanksgiving; Leviticus 7:14. And from it he shall offer one loaf from each offering as a contribution to the Lord; it shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering; Leviticus 7:15. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering; he shall not leave any of it until the morning. Leviticus 7:16. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow or a freewill offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day what remains may be eaten, Leviticus 7:17. But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice shall be burned on the third day. Leviticus 7:18. If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on the third day, it shall not be accepted, nor shall it be credited to the one who offers it; it shall be an abomination, and the one who eats of it shall bear his iniquity. Leviticus 7:19. Flesh that touches anything unclean shall not be eaten; it shall be burned with fire. As for the flesh, all who are clean may eat it; Leviticus 7:20. But the person who eats flesh from the sacrifice of peace offering that belongs to the Lord while unclean, that person shall be cut off from his people; Leviticus 7:21. And if anyone touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness or an unclean animal or any unclean abomination, and then eats from the sacrifice of the peace offering that belongs to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from his people. A grain offering is necessarily attached to the peace offering, and about the latter the lawgiver speaks now with special detail, distinguishing especially the thanksgiving sacrifice (zebach todah), in view of its special, seemingly, importance and solemnity compared with the two other kinds of peace offering – the sacrifice of a vow (z. neder) and the freewill offering (z. nedabeh). To the thanksgiving peace offering it is prescribed to add leavened bread as well, but not for sacrificial burning – nothing leavened could be brought as a sacrifice (Lev 2:11) – but as an addition to the meal made after the peace offering: this meal reflected the ordinary nourishment of a human (but in a mysterious sense – communion with God), and therefore the leavened element was quite appropriate here. In view of the more solemn and numerous meal at the thanksgiving sacrifice than at the sacrifices of vows and freewill offerings, which had a private character and were accompanied by modest meals with the participation of only the nearest relatives, it was prescribed regarding the first that its flesh be eaten necessarily on the very day of the sacrifice, from the sacrifices of vows and freewill offerings it was permitted to eat on the 2nd–3rd day (Lev 7:15). According to Blessed Theodoret, God “wishes those offering the sacrifice not only themselves to participate in the feast, but to share the meat with the needy. Therefore he commands to eat of this meat on the first and second day, but to burn the excess, so that, compelled by this necessity, they make the poor participants in the feast” (question 6 on Leviticus).

Leviticus 7:20. But the person who eats flesh from the sacrifice of peace offering that belongs to the Lord while unclean, that person shall be cut off from his people; Leviticus 7:21. And if anyone touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness or an unclean animal or any unclean abomination, and then eats from the sacrifice of the peace offering that belongs to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from his people. Impressing on the Israelites a sense of reverence for the holiness of the sacrifice and vigilance toward spiritual and bodily purity in general, the lawgiver says that if an unclean or defiled person eats from the peace offering, then “that person shall be cut off from his people” (see Exod 31:14), that is, either be subjected to excommunication from the theocratic community and deprivation of the rights connected with belonging to it, both religious and civil, or be subjected to divine punishment in the form, for example, of childlessness or premature death (see 1 Cor 11:30). According to Blessed Theodoret (on Leviticus, question 7), “by this small thing (forbidding contact with uncleanness) he cures great diseases. For if the natural, by law, defiles, then the more the moral, properly speaking called unlawful.”

Leviticus 7:22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Leviticus 7:23. Say to the people of Israel: You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat. Leviticus 7:24. The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but you shall not eat it. Leviticus 7:25. For whoever eats the fat of an animal that may be offered as a sacrifice to the Lord shall be cut off from his people. Leviticus 7:26. And you shall eat no blood of any creature in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or of beast. Leviticus 7:27. Whoever eats any blood shall be cut off from his people. The prohibition on the consumption of fat and blood as food is set forth in more extensive form than in Lev 3:17. The use of fat in crafts was not forbidden.

Leviticus 7:28. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Leviticus 7:29. Speak to the people of Israel, saying: Whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offering to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from his sacrifice of peace offering; Leviticus 7:30. His own hands shall bring the offerings by fire to the Lord; the fat with the breast he shall bring that the breast may be waved as a wave offering before the Lord; Leviticus 7:31. The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons; Leviticus 7:32. And the right thigh you shall give to the priest as an offering from your sacrifices of peace offering; Leviticus 7:33. From the sacrifices of your peace offerings, the one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood and the fat shall have the right thigh as his portion; Leviticus 7:34. For the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the offering I have taken from the people of Israel, from their sacrifices of peace offering, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as a perpetual due from the people of Israel. Leviticus 7:35. This is the portion of Aaron and the portion of his sons from the offerings of the Lord, from the day on which they were presented to the Lord to serve as priests, Leviticus 7:36. Which the Lord commanded to be given them by the people of Israel from the day of their anointing. This is a perpetual statute throughout their generations. – After a certain break (Lev 7:22-27) the regulations concerning peace offerings are concluded. Here the active participation of the offerer in the sacrifice is brought to the fore: he necessarily brought the sacrificial animal with his own hands, laid his hands on it, slaughtered it, probably cut the meat into pieces (all of this also took place in other bloody sacrifices), then together with the priest performed the symbolic ceremony of waving the breast before the Lord (Lev 7:30-32). This active participation of the offerer, besides its symbolic significance, had moral significance, in that it indicated the willing submission of the offerer to the law of the Lord, who provided the sacred tribe with a share or lot (such is the meaning of the Hebrew mischcham, Lev 7:35, imprecisely rendered in the LXX as: ἡ χρίσις, Slavic, “anointing”).

Leviticus 7:36. Which the Lord commanded to be given them by the people of Israel from the day of their anointing. This is a perpetual statute throughout their generations. – Leviticus 7:37. This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the offering of ordination, and of the sacrifice of peace offering, Leviticus 7:38. Which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day when he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai. The first section of the Book of Leviticus (chapters 1–7) concerning various kinds of sacrifices is concluded, and the time of origin of the laws of sacrifices is established, namely: their composition is dated to the time of the stay of the Hebrews at Sinai, more specifically – after the second descent of Moses from the mountain, when the Lord “commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord” (Lev 7:38, see Exod 34:18 and following).