Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS 15 May 2016
· Popular Bible teacher Alexander Strauch wrote the following in his book, Biblical Eldership, “In order to fully restore the eldership to its proper place and role in the church, we must identify and entirely eliminate the clergy-laity dichotomy. In loyalty to the Word of God and Jesus Christ, we must completely avoid all clergy-laity terminology, because such terminology conveys concepts that are antagonistic to the New Testament church. Perhaps even more important, we must dismantle every practice that falsely divides the Lord’s people into secular and sacred, ministerial and non-ministerial, ordained and non-ordained Christians.”
· Although I use Strauch’s book in training elders, I like to point out that his soap-box about not having paid, professional church leadership is rooted in a reactionary movement from the 1800’s called “the Bretheren” which responded to the unbiblical actions of some Anglican priests by swinging to the opposite extreme of saying that church pastors are the root of all the problems in the church and that to be pure and healthy, your church shouldn’t have clergy.
· Now, I recognize that there was a significant shift in church leadership between the Old Testament and the New, and I also recognize that there are times in history where special circumstances like persecution may not permit each church congregation to have a dedicated spiritual shepherd, and there is nothing necessarily morally wrong with Christians in these circumstances who cannot support a pastor with their own offerings, but, is this an ideal which the scriptures uphold?
· When we look at the Bible, we see men who are dedicated to the spiritual leadership of the church, from the Old Testament priests and prophets to the New Testament Apostles, Evangelists, and Pastor-Teachers.
o We see Jesus instructing disciples to leave their business and live – at least for a time – off of donations.
o We see Paul working for a living in some of the places he lived, and also living off of financial support in other places that he lived.
o And Paul defends that in his inspired instructions to a pastor he was mentoring in 1 Timothy 5:17-18, “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain," and, "The laborer is worthy of his wages." (NKJV)
· Our passage today at the end of Leviticus 7 is about this very principle.
· Earlier in the chapter, God was addressing the priests and giving them instructions, but now as we start in verse 28, the focus shifts back to addressing the people in the presence of the priests concerning the people’s duty to provide food for their spiritual leaders.
o In v.32, we even see a command to the people of Israel addressed as a second-person plural “y’all.”
o They do this through two specific offerings which some translations call “the wave” and “the heave,” so we’ll be looking at those two offerings in particular.
o I feel a little funny preaching on this topic, but honestly I didn’t even realize this would be the theme of the passage until late last week. So this is not me trying to make a statement about my salary as a pastor, this is just me trying to exegete the next passage in Leviticus.
o To the extent that you see practical ways to apply this principle of providing for priests, go for it, but if you are already doing what God has called you to do, don’t go on a guilt trip! I am content and feel very blessed in the provision I have been receiving as a minister for this congregation.
7:28 Again Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, 29 Speak to the children of Israel saying, “The one who offers his sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh shall bring his offering to Yahweh from his sacrifice of peace offerings. 30 It is his hands [that] should offer the burnt-offering of Yahweh: the fat with the breast. The breast is what he should bring to wave it [as] a wave-offering before Yahweh. 31 Then the priest shall offer the fat up in smoke on the altar, and the breast shall belong to Aaron and to his children.
· So one of the provisions for the priests was the breast meat from the animals offered as fellowship offerings. The fellowship offering, you remember would come after the burnt offering and the grain offering. Only its fat would be burned on the altar; the meat would be eaten as a fellowship meal on the tabernacle grounds.
o The priests were to be included in this fellowship BBQ, and they were to get the breast meat. This, along with other grain offerings, was divided up among all the priests – whether they were serving in the temple or not (2 Chron. 31:19) – and it provided food for each of their households.
o Lev. 10:14 mentions that it was also to feed his daughters, although if the daughter grew up and married someone who was not a priest, she wouldn’t get this provision anymore. (Lev. 22:12).
o Numbers 18:11 says it was to feed every member of the priest’s households – as long as they are ceremonially clean.
o One thing the priests could not do, however, was start a discount meat market and re-sell the meat to the public, as pagan priests in other cultures did. Meat from the sacrifices in God’s tabernacle had to be eaten in the tabernacle or by a priest’s family.
· This breast meat along with the fat was to be waved in the hands of the person making the offering. What was that about?
o Cohen expresses the traditional Jewish understanding of the meaning of “waving” in the Soncino Chumash saying, “The breast must be waved to show that it belongs to God... The breast with the fat lies upon the open hand of the man who makes the offering, and the priest’s hand below his, for the rite of waving.”
o The English reformer Matthew Henry added, “He was with his own hands to lift it up, in token of his regard to God as the God of heaven, and then to wave it to and fro, in token of his regard to God as the Lord of the whole earth, to whom thus, as far as he could reach, he offered it, showing his readiness and wish to do him honour.”
o In the absence of a detailed explanation in the Bible, those commentator’s explanation is as good as any.
· In addition to the wave offering of the breast, there was a second called...
7:32 Also y’all shall give the right thigh to the priest as a raised-offering from your sacrifices of peace offerings. 33 The right thigh shall belong to the one from among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat. It shall be an allotment for him, 34 for I have taken the breast of the wave-offering and the thigh of the raised-offering from the children of Israel from their sacrifices of peace offerings, and I have given them to Aaron the priest and to his children among the children of Israel [as] a lasting statute.
· The breast meat was to be distributed among all the priests whereas the thigh meat went just to the one priest who offered that particular animal.
· Cohen explained that this thigh piece was “the leg from the knee-cap to the thigh bone.”
· This portion is called terumah in Hebrew, from the root word רום, which means to “be high, exalted,” so some interpret it as something to do with “elevating” this piece of meat.
· This word terumah is used to describe other offerings besides meat:
o In Exodus 25:2-3 (and in ch. 35-36), it describes construction materials donated for building the tabernacle ("Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze” ~NKJV),
o in Exodus 30:13-14, it describes the half-shekel temple tax (“This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the LORD. Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the LORD. ~NKJV)
o In Numbers 15:19-21 it describes the offering of firstfruits of grain (“Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land to which I bring you, then it will be, when you eat of the bread of the land, that you shall offer up a heave offering to the LORD. You shall offer up a cake of the first of your ground meal as a heave offering; as a heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall you offer it up. Of the first of your ground meal you shall give to the LORD a heave offering throughout your generations. ~NKJV)
o In Numbers 18, it is also associated with the “tithe” (Numbers 18:24a “For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance...” ~NKJV cf. Mal. 3:8).
o Ezekiel 45 even mentions real estate as a terumah (Ezekiel 45:1 "And when you divide by lot the land for inheritance, you shall offer an allotment to the LORD, a holy portion of the land; the length shall be the length of 25,000 cubits, and the width shall be 20,000. It shall be holy within all its boundary round about. ~NASB).
· The breast and the right thigh are consistently mentioned together as though they are part of the same ceremonial function, however, one is waved laterally while the other is heaved vertically. Together they form the sign of the cross. I can’t say whether that is intentional or not, but it is interesting.[1]
· Why were the people to give these offerings to the priests? Verse 34 says “For/Because” God took the offerings and gave them to the priests. (Unfortunately, the NIV omitted the word “For/Because,” but it’s there in Hebrew and in most other English versions.) This seems to support the interpretation that the waving or lifting up of these food offerings was a symbol of offering them to God first, and then giving these food items to the priest was fulfilling God’s direction for these particular offerings.
· I see two applications in this little word “For”
o First: What we do in worship should be a result of what God has done and what God has given us to do, not the result of mere human creativity and tradition. God said, “Lift it up and wave it because it’s mine and because I want you to give it to a certain person.” To add or subtract procedures to what God commanded would dishonor God. Likewise when we come together to worship God in the church, we should do what we know the Bible says to do and not take undue liberties.
o Here’s another application: When you give your tithe and offerings, you know that a fair percentage is going to go to the pastor’s salary. You may not approve of some things the pastor does, or some of the ways he spends his money, and, as a result, you might feel like you’d rather not put money in the offering container, but this verse teaches that what you give, you give to God. You give because God is worthy, not because the pastor is worthy. Of course you should confront the pastor in a respectful manner if you see sin that needs to be corrected, but when you give to the church treasury, you are giving to God, not to the pastor. And the pastor is receiving his salary from God’s money, not yours. If the pastor is unwise in how he spends that money, God will hold him accountable, and it will be o.k. When people withhold tithes and offerings, it says in Malachi 3:8 that they are robbing God (not the pastor), "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. (NASB)
· Now, when I approached this passage, I thought I was dealing with an obscure custom in a murky backwater of Leviticus, and I wondered how I would get a whole sermon out of it, but when I started comparing scripture with scripture, I discovered that this principle of the breast wave-offering ant the thigh raised-offering was all over the place!
· Exodus 29:1-2 & 22-28 " "And this is what you shall do to them to hallow them for ministering to Me as priests: Take one young bull and two rams without blemish, and unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil (you shall make them of wheat flour)... [Offer the bull and one of the rams as burnt offerings, then kill the second ram.] Also you shall take the fat of the ram, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the fatty lobe attached to the liver, the two kidneys and the fat on them, the right thigh (for it is a ram of consecration), one loaf of bread, one cake made with oil, and one wafer from the basket of the unleavened bread that is before the LORD; and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and you shall wave them as a wave offering before the LORD. You shall receive them back from their hands and burn them on the altar as a burnt offering, as a sweet aroma before the LORD. It is an offering made by fire to the LORD. "Then you shall take the breast of the ram of Aaron's consecration and wave it as a wave offering before the LORD; and it shall be your portion. And from the ram of the consecration you shall consecrate the breast of the wave offering which is waved, and the thigh of the heave offering which is raised, of that which is for Aaron and of that which is for his sons. It shall be from the children of Israel for Aaron and his sons by a statute forever. For it is a heave offering; it shall be a heave offering from the children of Israel from the sacrifices of their peace offerings, that is, their heave offering to the LORD. (NKJV)
· Exo 35:22 They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart, and brought earrings and nose rings, rings and necklaces, all kind of gold jewelry, so every one waved a wave-offering of gold to the LORD. (NKJV)
· Leviticus 10:14-15 The breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering you shall eat in a clean place, you, your sons, and your daughters with you; for they are your due and your sons' due, which are given from the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel. The thigh of the heave offering and the breast of the wave offering they shall bring with the offerings of fat made by fire, to offer as a wave offering before the LORD. And it shall be yours and your sons' with you, by a statute forever, as the LORD has commanded." (NKJV)
· Lev 23:10-11 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. (NKJV)
· Numbers 18:8-32 And the LORD spoke to Aaron: "Here, I Myself have also given you charge of My heave offerings, all the holy gifts of the children of Israel; I have given them as a portion to you and your sons, as an ordinance forever. This shall be yours of the most holy things reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, every grain offering and every sin offering and every trespass offering which they render to Me, shall be most holy for you and your sons. In a most holy place you shall eat it; every male shall eat it. It shall be holy to you. "This also is yours: the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel; I have given them to you, and your sons and daughters with you, as an ordinance forever. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. "All the best of the oil, all the best of the new wine and the grain, their firstfruits which they offer to the LORD, I have given them to you. Whatever first ripe fruit is in their land, which they bring to the LORD, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. "Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. "Everything that first opens the womb of all flesh, which they bring to the LORD, whether man or beast, shall be yours... You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar, and burn their fat as an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the LORD. And their flesh shall be yours, just as the wave breast and the right thigh are yours. "All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to the LORD, I have given to you and your sons and daughters with you as an ordinance forever; it is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD with you and your descendants with you." Then the LORD said to Aaron: "You shall have no inheritance in their land, nor shall you have any portion among them; I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel. "Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Hereafter the children of Israel shall not come near the tabernacle of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever, throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance; therefore I have said to them, 'Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.' " Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak thus to the Levites, and say to them: 'When you take from the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them as your inheritance, then you shall offer up a heave offering of it to the LORD, a tenth of the tithe. And your heave offering shall be reckoned to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor and as the fullness of the winepress. Thus you shall also offer a heave offering to the LORD from all your tithes which you receive from the children of Israel, and you shall give the LORD's heave offering from it to Aaron the priest. Of all your gifts you shall offer up every heave offering due to the LORD, from all the best of them, the consecrated part of them.' Therefore you shall say to them: 'When you have lifted up the best of it, then the rest shall be accounted to the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and as the produce of the winepress. You may eat it in any place, you and your households, for it is your reward for your work in the tabernacle of meeting. And you shall bear no sin because of it, when you have lifted up the best of it. But you shall not profane the holy gifts of the children of Israel, lest you die.' " (NKJV)
· Num 8:11-19 and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the LORD like a wave offering from the children of Israel, that they may perform the work of the LORD. Then the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the young bulls, and you shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to the LORD, to make atonement for the Levites. "And you shall stand the Levites before Aaron and his sons, and then offer them like a wave offering to the LORD. Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be Mine. After that the Levites shall go in to service the tabernacle of meeting. So you shall cleanse them and offer them like a wave offering. For they are wholly given to Me from among the children of Israel; I have taken them for Myself instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the children of Israel. For all the firstborn among the children of Israel are Mine, both man and beast; on the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them to Myself. I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn of the children of Israel. And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the work for the children of Israel in the tabernacle of meeting, and to make atonement for the children of Israel, that there be no plague among the children of Israel when the children of Israel come near the sanctuary." (NKJV)
· A wave offering was also part of the jealousy test in Num. 5 and part of the Nazirite vow fulfillment in Numbers 6.
· There are also two times in the Old Testament history books where the people of Israel had fallen down on their duty to support the priests and revived this practice under godly leaders:
o 2 Chronicles 31:4-10 Moreover he [King Hezekiah] commanded the people who dwelt in Jerusalem to contribute support for the priests and the Levites, that they might devote themselves to the Law of the LORD. As soon as the commandment was circulated, the children of Israel brought in abundance the firstfruits of grain and wine, oil and honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything. And the children of Israel and Judah, who dwelt in the cities of Judah, brought the tithe of oxen and sheep; also the tithe of holy things which were consecrated to the LORD their God they laid in heaps... Then Hezekiah questioned the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps. And Azariah the chief priest, from the house of Zadok, answered him and said, "Since the people began to bring the [raised] offerings into the house of the LORD, we have had enough to eat and have plenty left, for the LORD has blessed His people..." 19 Also for the sons of Aaron the priests, who were in the fields of the common-lands of their cities, in every single city, there were men who were designated by name to distribute portions to all the males among the priests and to all who were listed by genealogies among the Levites. (NKJV)
o Nehemiah 10:29 these joined with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes... 35 to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, to the house of the LORD; to bring the firstborn of our sons and our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and our flocks, to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God; to bring the firstfruits of our dough, our [raised]offerings, the fruit from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the storerooms of the house of our God; and to bring the tithes of our land to the Levites, for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities.”[2] (NKJV, cf. 8:10)
· Do you see how pervasive this command was to provide for those who were vocationally called and dedicated to the service of the Lord? There was a clear role filled by these men. The next two verses call it...
7:35 This is an anointed-role of Aaron with respect to the burnt-offerings of Yahweh on the day he offers them to be a priest to Yahweh - and an anointed-role of his sons, 36 which Yahweh commanded to give to them on the day of His anointing of them from among the children of Israel. It is a lasting statute throughout their generations.
· The Hebrew word here is literally “anointing.”
· In Exodus 30, the recipe for a perfumed anointing oil is written down, and this special oil was to be used to consecrate the priests when they entered into their role as priests before God. (Exodus 40:15 “You shall anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may minister to Me as priests; for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations." (NKJV)
· Anointing with oil generally was symbolic of the Holy Spirit giving special help to that person to lead the people of God.
· Here the word “anointing” is symbolic of the special role which priests played, which included special benefits such as this free food, as well as special limitations which were not imposed on the rest of the Israelites, for instance, Leviticus 21:10-13, 'the high priest among his brethren, on whose head the anointing oil was poured and who is consecrated to wear the garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes nor shall he go near any dead body, nor defile himself for his father or his mother; nor shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him... [also] he shall take a wife in her virginity” (NKJV) (He can’t marry a widowed or divorced woman like other Israelites could.)
· The New Testament tells us that we have an “anointing” 1 John 2:20 & 27 – “They [the antichrists] were not from us, but you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know... the anointing which you have received abides with you and... teaches you...”
· In the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Gordon Wenham made the observation that following details demonstrates respect. “Careful attention to convention may be one way of demonstrating our reverence and love for God... [I]t has become commonplace to contrast spirit and form as if they were incompatible in worship... to justify slapdash leading of services and other Christian activities. Spontaneity and lack of preparation is equated with spirituality. Leviticus 6-7 denies this: care and attention to detail are indispensable to the conduct of divine worship. God is more important, more distinguished, worthy of more respect than any man... A glance at the performing arts dispels the illusion that a great and spirited performance can be achieved without practice and attention to detail.”[3]
· Care for priests.
o God says over and over that it is important that His people give these wave and heave offerings so that the priests and their families will be provided for.
o The thigh given to the priest who offered the supplicant’s sacrifice could be like the salary given to me as your pastor. My role is not exactly the same as that of the Old Testament priests, for you do not go through me to reach God. You go through Jesus to reach God, but it is still my job to pray for you and to be a minister of the gospel message which was symbolized by the animal sacrifices.
o The breast that was distributed among all the priests – even those not in the temple could be like the financial support our church gives to missionaries like the Calls in Uruguay and the Vaughns in Costa Rica and Melissa with International Student ministry at K-State, and the Ugandan pastors through the TentMaker Project – as well as others whom you may be supporting privately. There is a Biblical basis for that!
When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not
indicate it has done so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the
added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is
different from all the other translations, I underline it. When a
version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs too far from
the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of
the original Hebrew, I use strikeout. And when a version omits a word
which is in the Hebrew text, I insert an X. (Sometimes I will place the X at
the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English translation is
singular.) I have also tried to use colors to help the reader see correlations
between the various editions and versions when there are more than two different
translations of a given word.
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Septuagint (LXX) |
KJV |
NAW |
Masoretic |
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7:18 Καὶ ἐλάλησεν κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν λέγων |
28 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, |
28 Again Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, |
7:28 וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר: |
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7:19 Καὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ λαλήσεις λέγων Ὁ προσφέρων θυσίαν σωτηρίου κυρίῳ οἴσει τὸ δῶρον αὐτοῦ κυρίῳ ἀπὸ τῆς θυσίας τοῦ σωτηρίου. |
29 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the LORD shall bring his oblation unto the LORD of the sacrifice of his peace offerings. |
29 Speak to the children of Israel[a] saying, “The one who offers his sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh shall bring his offering to Yahweh from his sacrifice of peace offerings. |
7:29 דַּבֵּר[b] אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר הַמַּקְרִיב HiPTms אֶת-זֶבַח שְׁלָמָיו לַיהוָה יָבִיא אֶת-קָרְבָּנוֹ לַיהוָה מִזֶּבַח שְׁלָמָיו: |
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7:20 αἱ
χεῖρες αὐτοῦ
προσοίσουσιν
τὰ καρπώματα
κυρίῳ· τὸ
στέαρ τὸ ἐπὶ
τοῦ στηθυνίου |
30 His own hands shall bring the offerings of the LORD made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the LORD. |
30 It is his hands [that] should offer the burnt-offering of Yahweh: the fat with the breast. The breast is what he should bring to wave[c] it [as] a wave-offering before Yahweh. |
7:30 יָדָיו תְּבִיאֶינָהHiI3fp אֵת אִשֵּׁי יְהוָה אֶת-הַחֵלֶב עַל-הֶחָזֶה יְבִיאֶנּוּHiI3s+ אֵת הֶחָזֶה לְהָנִיףHiN אֹתוֹ תְּנוּפָה לִפְנֵי יְהוָה: |
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7:21 καὶ ἀνοίσει ὁ ἱερεὺς τὸ στέαρ ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, καὶ ἔσται τὸ στηθύνιον X Ααρων καὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς αὐτοῦ. |
31 And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'. |
31 Then the priest shall offer the fat up in smoke on the altar, and the breast shall belong to Aaron and to his children[d]. |
7:31 וְהִקְטִיר הַכֹּהֵן אֶת-הַחֵלֶב הַמִּזְבֵּחָה וְהָיָה הֶחָזֶה לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו: |
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7:22 καὶ τὸν βραχίονα τὸν δεξιὸν δώσετε ἀφαίρεμα τῷ ἱερεῖ ἀπὸ τῶν θυσιῶν τοῦ σωτηρίου ὑμῶν· |
32 And the right |
32 Also y’all shall give the right thigh to the priest as a raised-offering[e] from your sacrifices of peace offerings. |
7:32 וְאֵת שׁוֹק הַיָּמִין תִּתְּנוּQI2mp(ntn) תְרוּמָה לַכֹּהֵן מִזִּבְחֵי שַׁלְמֵיכֶם: |
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7:23 ὁ προσφέρων τὸ αἷμα τοῦ σωτηρίου καὶ τὸ στέαρ ἀπὸ τῶν υἱῶν Ααρων, αὐτῷ ἔσται ὁ βραχίων ὁ δεξιὸς ἐν μερίδι. |
33 He among the sons of Aaron, that
offereth the blood of the peace offerings, and the fat, X X shall have the
right |
33 The right thigh shall belong to the one from among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat. It shall be an allotment for him, |
7:33 הַמַּקְרִיבHiPTms אֶת-דַּם הַשְּׁלָמִים וְאֶת-הַחֵלֶב מִבְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן לוֹ תִהְיֶהQI3fs שׁוֹק הַיָּמִין לְמָנָה: |
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7:24 τὸ γὰρ στηθύνιον τοῦ ἐπιθέματος καὶ τὸν βραχίονα τοῦ ἀφαιρέματος εἴληφα παρὰ τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ ἀπὸ τῶν θυσιῶν τοῦ σωτηρίου |
34 For the wave breast and the heave |
34 for I have taken the breast of the wave-offering and the thigh of the raised-offering from the children of Israel from their sacrifices of peace offerings, and I have given them to Aaron the priest and to his children among the children of Israel [as] a lasting statute. |
7:34 כִּי אֶת-חֲזֵה הַתְּנוּפָה וְאֵת שׁוֹק הַתְּרוּמָה לָקַחְתִּי מֵאֵת בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מִזִּבְחֵי שַׁלְמֵיהֶם וָאֶתֵּןQI1s אֹתָם לְאַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן וּלְבָנָיו לְחָק-עוֹלָם מֵאֵת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: |
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7:25 Αὕτη ἡ χρῖσις Ααρων καὶ ἡ χρῖσις τῶν υἱῶν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν καρπωμάτων κυρίου ἐν ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ προσηγάγετο αὐτοὺς τοῦ ἱερατεύειν τῷ κυρίῳ, |
35 This is the portion of the anointing of Aaron, and of the anointing of his sons, out of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, in the day when he presented them to minister unto the LORD in the priest's office; |
35 This is an anointed-role[f] of Aaron with respect to the burnt-offerings of Yahweh on the day he offers them to be a priest to Yahweh - and an anointed-role of his sons, |
7:35 זֹאת מִשְׁחַת אַהֲרֹן וּמִשְׁחַת בָּנָיו מֵאִשֵּׁי יְהוָה בְּיוֹם הִקְרִיבHiP3ms אֹתָם לְכַהֵןPN לַיהוָה: |
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Septuagint (LXX) |
KJV |
NAW |
Masoretic |
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7:26 |
36 Which the LORD commanded to |
36 which Yahweh commanded to give to them on the day of His anointing of them from among the children of Israel. It is a lasting statute throughout their generations. |
7:36 אֲשֶׁר צִוָּהPP3ms יְהוָה לָתֵתQN לָהֶם בְּיוֹם מָשְׁחוֹQN אֹתָם מֵאֵת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל חֻקַּת עוֹלָם לְדֹרֹתָם: |
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7:27 οὗτος ὁ νόμος τῶν ὁλοκαυτωμάτων [καὶ] X θυσίας καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας καὶ τῆς πλημμελείας καὶ τῆς τελειώσεως καὶ [τῆς] θυσίας τοῦ σωτηρίου, |
37 This is the law of the burnt offering, of the meat offering, and of the sin offering, and of the trespass offering, and of the consecrations, and of the sacrifice of the peace offerings; |
37 This is the instruction for the whole-burnt-offering, [and] for the grain-offering, and for the sin-offering, and for the guilt-offering, and for the installation-offerings[g], and for the sacrifice of peace-offerings, |
7:37 זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה לָעֹלָה [h]לַמִּנְחָה וְלַחַטָּאת וְלָאָשָׁם וְלַמִּלּוּאִים וּלְזֶבַח הַשְּׁלָמִים: |
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7:28 ὃν τρόπον ἐνετείλατο κύριος τῷ Μωυσῇ ἐν τῷ ὄρει Σινα ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ ἐνετείλατο τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ προσφέρειν τὰ δῶρα αὐτῶν ἔναντι κυρίου ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ Σινα. |
38 Which the LORD commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai. |
38 which Yahweh commanded Moses on Mount Sinai on the day He commanded the children of Israel in the Sinai desert to offer their offerings to Yahweh. |
7:38 אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֶת-מֹשֶׁה בְּהַר סִינָי בְּיוֹם צַוֹּתוֹ PiN+3ms אֶת-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהַקְרִיבHiN אֶת-קָרְבְּנֵיהֶם לַיהוָה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינָי: פ |
[1] “Some observe a significancy in the parts assigned to the priests: the breast and the shoulder intimate the affections and the actions, which must be devoted to the honour of God by all his people and to the service also of the church by all his priests. Christ, our great peace-offering, feasts all his spiritual priests with the breast and shoulder, with the dearest love and the sweetest and strongest supports; for his is the wisdom of God and the power of God.” ~Matthew Henry
[2] Perhaps in fulfillment of the prophecies in Ezekiel 45?
[3] “The solemn acts of religious worship are... not things that we are left to our liberty in, and which we may do or not do at our pleasure; but we are under indispensable obligations to perform them in their season, and it is at our peril if we omit them. The observance of the laws of Christ cannot be less necessary than the observance of the laws of Moses was.” ~Matthew Henry
“...nor is it without reason that he carefully enters into these full details, for since God prefers obedience to all sacrifices, he was unwilling that anything should remain doubtful as to the external rites, which were not otherwise of great importance; that they might learn to observe precisely, and with the most exact care, whatever the Law commanded, and that they should not obtrude anything of themselves...” ~John Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Vol. 2, Lev. 6:8
[a] Now the instruction shifts back from addressing the priests to addressing the people in the presence of the priests concering the people’s duty to provide food for their spiritual leaders. In v.32, we see a command to the people of Israel addressed as a second-person plural “y’all.”
[b] The Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch spell this word as Second person singular Imperfect (“you shall say”) instead of the Masoretic Imperative form (“say”), calling into question the Masoretic text, and unfortunately, no known Dead Sea Scroll has a copy of this verse for comparison. What doesn’t make sense is that the manuscripts are all agreed in v.23 where is says the same thing, and there is no reason to create a variation except for the sake of variation. However, the two spellings basically mean the same thing, so there is no real discrepancy, just an interesting grammatical variant.
[c] Cohen expresses the traditional Jewish understanding of the meaning of “waving” in the Soncino Chumash saying, “The breast must be waved to show that it belongs to God... The breast with the fat lies upon the open hand of the man who makes the offering, and the priest’s hand below his, for the rite of waving.”
[d] Not just his sons but also his daughters (Lev. 10:14), and, for that matter, every member of his household – as long as they are ceremonially clean (Num. 18:11). The daughter loses this privilege only if she marries someone who is not a priest (Lev. 22:12). The breast meat was to be distributed among all the priests whereas the thigh meat went just to the one priest who offered that particular animal. In this way all the priests were provisioned – even the ones not on temple duty (2 Chron. 31:19). One thing the priests could not do, however, was start a discount meat market and re-sell the meat to the public, as pagan priests in other cultures did. Meat from the sacrifices in God’s tabernacle had to be eaten in a holy place by His holy priesthood.
[e] The root of this word terumah is רום, which means to “be high, exalted,” so some interpret it as something to do with “elevating” this piece of meat. Cohen explains that this piece was “the leg from the knee-cap to the thigh bone.” This word terumah is used in many other contexts to describe other offerings besides meat: In Exodus 25:2-3 (and in ch. 35-36), it describes construction materials donated for building the tabernacle, in Exodus 30:13-14, it describes the half-shekel temple tax. In Numbers 15:19-21 it describes the offering of firstfruits of grain; in Numbers 18:24, it is associated with the “tithe” cf. Mal. 3:8, and Ezekiel 45 even mentions real estate as a terumah
[f] The Hebrew word here is literally “anointing.” Exodus 30 contains the recipe for a perfumed anointing oil used to consecrate the priests in Exodus 40:15. cf. role-restrictions thich came along with the role priviliges of Lev 7 in 21:10-13. The New Testament tells us that we have an “anointing” 1 John 2:20 & 27
[g] This word whose root meaning is “to fill,” was introduced in Exodus 29 to describe the ordination ceremony of installing men to fill the office of priests. We’ll see it again in chapter 8 when we look at the priest’s consecration ceremony more in depth. (It is also used to describe the installation of gemstones into jewelry settings.)
[h] The Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Syriac, and several Hebrew manuscripts (none known among the DSS) put an “and” here. It makes no difference in meaning since the context obviously is an inclusive list, and in English we don’t usually put an “and” between the first and second items of a list of 3 anyway, so it’s not even noticeable in English.