Biblion Bible Commentary
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Fat and Blood
Leviticus 7:1-27
1 “‘This is the law of the trespass offering: It is most holy. · WEB
The thanksgiving offering must be eaten the same day, and the two permanent prohibitions are the richest part of the meat and the blood.
The peace offering is subdivided here, and the distinction turns on why it was brought.
An offering for a thanksgiving comes with bread — unleavened cakes, wafers anointed with oil, cakes mixed with oil Leviticus 7:12 — and it must be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning Leviticus 7:15.
One day. A whole animal and a quantity of bread, and no leftovers permitted, which means a family cannot possibly finish it alone. The rule forces an invitation. Thanksgiving in this system cannot be done privately, because the timetable makes it physically impossible.
An offering brought for a vow or freely may be eaten on a second day Leviticus 7:16, and what remains on the third is burned. The urgency is proportioned to the occasion.
Then the two prohibitions, both stated as permanent and both carrying the same penalty.
You shall eat no fat, of bull, or sheep, or goat Leviticus 7:23. The restriction is specific to the animals that could be offered — an important limit, because the same passage allows the fat of an animal that died of itself to be used for any other service Leviticus 7:24. It may be rendered for lamps or leather. It may not be eaten. What is withheld is the best portion of the kind of animal that goes on the altar.
You shall not eat any blood, whether it is of bird or of animal, in any of your dwellings Leviticus 7:26.
This one is wider. It covers birds, which were never a peace offering, and it applies at home. It is also older than Israel, given to Noah for all his descendants Genesis 9:4, and the reason will be stated at length in chapter 17.
The penalty for both is the same: cut off from his people Leviticus 7:25 Leviticus 7:27. Whatever the phrase covered in practice, its force is exclusion from the community whose whole identity is the arrangement being violated.
So the meal shared with God has two things kept back from the table, and they are the two things that were burned or poured out on the altar. What the worshiper eats is everything except what was given.
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