Leviticus 7
DOYLYChap. VIII. ver. 3. — all the congregation] All the elders and principal officers. They seem to have been assembled on this occasion, to satisfy the people that Aaron and his sons did not intrude themselves on the office of the priesthood, but were solemnly consecrated by Moses, the servant of the Lord. Bp. Patrick.
Notwithstanding the Lord had fixed the whole ceremonial of the consecration, and chose the person, yet the congregation is summoned. For the presence of the people is required at the ordination of a priest, that all may know, and be certain, that the person elected is eminent among the people in character, for learning, sanctity, and virtue; and, being themselves their own witnesses of this, they may be precluded all scruples in future. Biblioth. Bibl.
Leviticus 7:10
- — shall all the sons of Aaron have.] It was said in the preceding verse, that the meat offering should be “the priest’s that offereth it.” Some reconcile the two, by distinguishing between that which was raw, and that which was dressed; the one belonging to the priest that offered, the other to the priests in common. Others interpret the matter thus: that each priest should have his day or turn of ministration, in which he might claim what was offered, as the other priests did in their turns. Biblioth. Bibl.
Leviticus 7:13
- — leavened bread] The leavened bread was not to be offered on the altar, for that had been absolutely forbidden at chap. ii. 11; but it was to be eaten by the priests and the offerer. Dr. Wells.
Leviticus 7:15
- — shall be eaten the same day] The reasons for this ordinance seem to have been, that the service of the sacrificial feast between God and man should be conducted with special reverence and decency, and that the meat might be taken fresh and untainted; also that none of it should be set by, and hoarded for private use and entertainment, but that it should be free and common to those who stood in need of it. Biblioth. Bibl.
Leviticus 7:16
- — a vow, or a voluntary offering.] A “vow” of
offering sacrifice to God upon receiving a benefit; as the “voluntary offering” was freely made beforehand, in the hope that God would confer the benefit. Bp. Patrick.
Leviticus 7:18
- — eaten at all on the third day.] The prohibition to eat the flesh on the third day might appear unnecessary in so warm a climate; but it should be remembered, that the practice of drying meat is frequent in those hot climates, and that this is sometimes done to flesh killed with a religious intention, which may have been the cause of this prohibition. The Mahometans, who go in pilgrimage to Mecca, are obliged, on a certain day, to sacrifice a sheep, part of which they dry for use at other times. Harmer.
— neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth] It shall not be looked upon by God as a peace offering made by him. Dr. Wells.
— the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.] That is, shall become guilty of a great sin; (Dr. Wells,) and suffer the punishment for it. Bp. Hall.
Leviticus 7:20
- — that soul shall be cut off] The person shall be excluded from all his privileges as an Israelite and member of God’s church and people. Pyle.
Leviticus 7:23
- — Ye shall eat no manner of fat.] None of those parts of fat and suet, which God had appropriated to the sacrifices on His altar. Pyle. See note on chap. iii. 17.
are forbidden. The priests’ portion. Before CHRIST 1490. used in any other use: but ye shall in no wise eat of it.
Leviticus 7:26
- — ye shall eat no manner of blood.] This command may be thus paraphrased: Forasmuch as the blood of animals is the very life and soul of them, I have separated or selected it to be a ransom for your souls, and for that most sacred use, the expiation of your sins. You are therefore strictly and scrupulously to abstain from blood, out of regard to this separation, and to be cautious not to bring to your tables that which I have consecrated to My altar. On blood depends the gift of My grace, and your life; and therefore you are not to put it to any vulgar use, nor presume to nourish your bodies with that, which is, as it were, the life and preservative of your souls. Dean Spencer. The custom of eating blood appears to have prevailed in the time of Moses; otherwise why would that have been forbidden, which was never practised? We have the testimony of different travellers, that this same practice still prevails in some countries, particularly in Abysimia, and in India at the sacrifices of their idols. Frogments to Calmet. It was the great end of the numerous sacrifices of the Mosaick ritual to impress the Jewish people, for a season the chosen depositaries of revealed truth, with an opinion of the necessity of a sanguinary expiation even for involuntary offences; to train them to the habitual belief of that awful maxim, that “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” The end of those earlier sacrifices, which were of use in the patriarchal ages, was unquestionably the same. To inculcate the same important lesson, in the earliest instance of a sacrifice upon record, respect was had to the shepherd’s sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock, rather than to the husbandman’s offering of the fruit of his ground; and for the same reason, by the prohibition laid upon the sons of Noah, and afterwards enforced in the severest terms in the Mosaick law, blood was sanctified, as it were, as the immediate instrument of atonement. The end of the prohibition was to impress mankind with a high reverence for blood, as a most holy thing, consecrated to the purpose of the general expiation; but this expiatory virtue belonged, not to the blood of bulls and of goats, but to the blood of Christ, of which the other was by God’s appointment made a temporary emblem. Bp. Horeley. See the notes on Gen. ix. 4; Levit. xvii. 11.
Leviticus 7:35
- This is the portion of the anointing &c.] That is, this (the wave breast and the heave shoulder) is the portion assigned to Aaron and his sons in their quality of priests consecrated to the Lord, and which shall contribute to their support. Calmet.
Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons. LEVITICUS. Their sin offering and burnt offering.
Before CHRIST 1490.