Numbers 18:8

The Portion of the Priests

18:8 The Lord spoke to Aaron, “See, I have given you the responsibility for my raised offerings; I have given all the holy things of the Israelites to you as your priestly portion ¹  and to your sons as a perpetual ordinance.

Exodus 29:27-28

29:27 You are to sanctify the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution, ²  which were waved and lifted up as a contribution from the ram of consecration, from what belongs to Aaron and to his sons. 29:28 It is to belong to Aaron and to his sons from the Israelites, by a perpetual ordinance, for it is a contribution. It is to be a contribution from the Israelites from their peace offerings, their contribution to the Lord.

Leviticus 7:14

7:14 He must present one of each kind of grain offering ³  as a contribution offering ⁴  to the Lord; it belongs to the priest who splashes the blood of the peace offering.

Leviticus 7:30-34

7:30 With his own hands he must bring the Lord’s gifts. He must bring the fat with the breast ⁵  to wave the breast as a wave offering before the Lord, ⁶  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 ⁷  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.’” ⁸ 

¹ tn This is an uncommon root. It may be connected to the word “anoint” as here (see RSV). But it may also be seen as an intended parallel to “perpetual due” (see Gen 47:22; Exod 29:28; Lev 6:11 [HT]).

² sn These are the two special priestly offerings: the wave offering (from the verb “to wave”) and the “presentation offering” (older English: heave offering; from a verb “to be high,” in Hiphil meaning “to lift up,” an item separated from the offering, a contribution). The two are then clarified with two corresponding relative clauses containing two Hophals: “which was waved and which was presented.” In making sacrifices, the breast and the thigh belong to the priests.

³ tn Here the Hebrew text reads “offering” (קָרְבָּן, qorbban), not “grain offering” (מִנְחָה, minkhah), but in this context the term refers once again to the list in 7:12.

⁴ tn The term rendered “contribution offering” is תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah), which generally refers to that which is set aside from the offerings to the Lord as prebends for the officiating priests (cf. esp. Lev 7:28-34 and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 4:335-37). Cf. TEV “as a special contribution.”

⁵ tn Heb “on the breast.”

⁶ 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.

⁷ 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.”

⁸ tn Or “a perpetual regulation”; cf. NASB “as their due forever”; NRSV “as a perpetual due”; NLT “their regular share.”