Text -- Leviticus 7:21-38 (NET)

7:21 When a person touches anything unclean (whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or an unclean detestable creature) and eats some of the meat of the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people.’”

Sacrificial Instructions for the Common People: Fat and Blood

7:22 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 7:23 “Tell the Israelites, ‘You must not eat any fat of an ox, sheep, or goat. 7:24 Moreover, the fat of an animal that has died of natural causes and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be used for any other purpose, but you must certainly never eat it. 7:25 If anyone eats fat from the animal from which he presents a gift to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people. 7:26 And you must not eat any blood of the birds or the domesticated land animals in any of the places where you live. 7:27 Any person who eats any blood– that person will be cut off from his people.’”

Priestly Portions of Peace Offerings

7:28 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 7:29 “Tell the Israelites, ‘The one who presents his peace offering sacrifice to the Lord must bring his offering to the Lord from his peace offering sacrifice. 7:30 With his own hands he must bring the Lord’s gifts. He must bring the fat with the breast to wave the breast as a wave offering before the Lord, 7:31 and the priest must offer the fat up in smoke on the altar, but the breast will belong to Aaron and his sons. 7:32 The right thigh you must give as a contribution offering to the priest from your peace offering sacrifices. 7:33 The one from Aaron’s sons who presents the blood of the peace offering and fat will have the right thigh as his share, 7:34 for the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution offering I have taken from the Israelites out of their peace offering sacrifices and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons from the people of Israel as a perpetual allotted portion.’” 7:35 This is the allotment of Aaron and the allotment of his sons from the Lord’s gifts on the day Moses presented them to serve as priests to the Lord. 7:36 This is what the Lord commanded to give to them from the Israelites on the day Moses anointed them– a perpetual allotted portion throughout their generations.

Summary of Sacrificial Regulations in Leviticus 6:8-7:36

7:37 This is the law for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering, and the peace offering sacrifice, 7:38 which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai on the day he commanded the Israelites to present their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 7:21

¹ sn For these categories of unclean animals see Lev 11.

² sn For the interpretation of this last clause see the note on Lev 7:20.

NET Notes: Lev 7:22

¹ sn See the note on Lev 6:8 [6:1 HT] above.

NET Notes: Lev 7:24

¹ tn Heb “carcass,” referring to the carcass of an animal that has died on its own, not the carcass of an animal slaughtered for sacrifice or killed by wild beasts. This has been clarified in the translation by supplying the phrase “of natural causes”; cf. NAB, TEV “that has died a natural death.”

² tn Heb “shall be used for any work”; cf. NIV, NLT “may be used for any other purpose.”

NET Notes: Lev 7:25

¹ sn See the note on Lev 7:20.

NET Notes: Lev 7:26

¹ tn Heb “and any blood you must not eat in any of your dwelling places, to the bird and to the animal.”

NET Notes: Lev 7:27

¹ sn See the note on Lev 7:20.

NET Notes: Lev 7:28

¹ sn See the note on Lev 6:8 [6:1 HT].

NET Notes: Lev 7:30

¹ tn Heb “on the breast.”

² tc Many Hebrew mss and some versions (esp. the LXX) limit the offerings in the last part of this verse to the fat portions, specifically, the fat and the fat lobe of the liver (see the BHS footnote). The verse is somewhat awkward in Hebrew but nevertheless correct.

tn Heb “the breast to wave it, a wave offering before the Lord.” Other possible translations are “to elevate the breast [as] an elevation offering before the Lord” (cf. NRSV) or “to present the breast [as] a presentation offering before the Lord.” See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 91, J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:430-31, 461-72, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 3:63-67.

NET Notes: Lev 7:32

¹ tn Older English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV) translate this Hebrew term (תְּרוּמָה, tÿrumah) “heave offering,” derived from the idea of “to raise, to lift” found in the verbal root (cf. NAB “a raised offering”). “Contribution offering” is a better English rendering because it refers to something “taken out from” (i.e., “lifted up from”; cf. the Hebrew term הֵרִים (herim) in, e.g., Lev 2:9; 4:8, etc.) the offering as a special contribution to the specific priest who presided over the offering procedures in any particular instance (see the next verse and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 4:335-37). Cf. TEV “as a special contribution”; NCV, NLT “as a gift.”

NET Notes: Lev 7:34

¹ tn Or “a perpetual regulation”; cf. NASB “as their due forever”; NRSV “as a perpetual due”; NLT “their regular share.”

NET Notes: Lev 7:35

¹ tn Heb “the day he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “in the day of he presented them to serve as priests to the Lord.” The grammar here is relatively unusual. First, the verb “presented” appears to be in the perfect rather than the infinitive (but see GKC 531), the latter being normal in such temporal expressions. Second, the active verb form appears to be used as a passive plural (“they were presented”). However, if it is translated active and singular then Moses would be the subject: “on the day he [Moses] offered them [Aaron and his sons].”

NET Notes: Lev 7:36

¹ tn Heb “the day he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “which the Lord commanded to give to them in the day he anointed them from the children of Israel.” Thus v. 36 is tied syntactically to v. 35 (see the note there).

³ tn Heb “for your generations”; cf. NIV “for the generations to come”; TEV “for all time to come.”

NET Notes: Lev 7:37

¹ sn The Hebrew term translated “law” (תוֹרָה [torah]) occurs up to this point in the book only in Lev 6:9 [6:2 HT], 14 [7 HT], 25 [18 HT], 7:1, 7, 11, and here in 7:37. This suggests that Lev 7:37-38 is a summary of only this section of the book (i.e., Lev 6:8 [6:1 HT]-7:36), not all of Lev 1-7.

² tc In the MT only “the grain offering” lacks a connecting ו (vav). However, many Hebrew , Smr, LXX, Syriac, and some mss of Tg. Onq. have the ו (vav) on “the grain offering” as well.

³ sn The inclusion of the “ordination offering” (מִלּוּאִים, milu’im; the term apparently comes from the notion of “filling [of the hand],” cf. Lev 8:33) here anticipates Lev 8. It is a kind of peace offering, as the regulations in Lev 8:22-32 will show (cf. Exod 29:19-34). In the context of the ordination ritual for the priests it fits into the sequence of offerings as a peace offering would: sin offering (Lev 8:14-17), burnt and grain offering (Lev 8:18-21), and finally peace (i.e., ordination) offering (Lev 8:22-32). Moreover, in this case, Moses received the breast of the ordination offering as his due since he was the presiding priest over the sacrificial procedures (Lev 8:29; cf. Lev 7:30-31), while Aaron and his sons ate the portions that would have been consumed by the common worshipers in a regular peace offering procedure (Exod 29:31-34; cf. Lev 7:15-18). For a general introduction to the peace offering see the note on Lev 3:1.