Leviticus 7: On Those to Whom Offerings Belong

Today's post will brief since I have very little time to write. As always, there is a lot going on in the passage, but I will focus on the instructions about who gets the parts of the offerings that aren't burned.

Yesterday I discussed at some length why it makes sense that no one receives back any part of their own offering. But I evidently didn't think the issue all the way through since today I found out that in the case of peace offerings, one does get some of the offering back. A peace offering must be given with some unleavened bread, which is for the priests, and after the sacrifice itself the priests are given the breast of the animal and its right thigh. Also, the chapter does not explicitly say that the offering must be eaten in a holy place probably so that people are not deterred from bringing peace offerings because they don't have time. I'm sure everyone had very demanding jobs on farms and the like, and couldn't easily be away for extended periods of time.

Okay, so why does one get to eat the meat of one's own peace offering? It turns out that one major difference between peace offerings, and guilt and sin offerings is that peace offerings are not made to right a wrong. In my post on chapter 3, I had assumed peace offerings were establishing peace with God where before there had been enmity, but it turns out that they are offered when peace with God already exists. In particular, one brings a peace offering as a thanksgiving offering, a vow offering, or a freewill offering. So my thought now is that, for the reasons I mentioned yesterday, one should not receive anything material for offerings that right wrongs. But those reasons do not apply to a peace offering. In giving a peace offering I cannot think that I am paying a priest to make me right with God since things are already fine. Also, I need a specific reason to bring the offering, so I can't use peace offerings merely as a cheap way to cook my food. It might not end up being cheap anyway since one must also give some bread made with fine flour, and the breast and right thigh of the animal. Regardless, this offering is more of a celebration, and I am fairly certain that the idea is to gather a bunch of people to share the food with while praising God.

For the other offerings where not everything is burned, the rule is that the priest that performs the sacrifice gets the parts that are not burned. All the priests may eat what isn't burned, but it belongs to the one who performs the sacrifice. Presumably this means that the priest to whom the food belongs controls its distribution among the other priests. What I find interesting is that God chose this method of food distribution rather than the other natural method, which would be to command that the food always be distributed equally. I assume the goals of doing things the way God did is to teach the priests to be charitable. They received the food they have as a gift from God, so they should not hesitate to likewise give their food to others. Unless there are enough sacrifices being given that all the priests have enough without the help of others, they will be forced to become more charitable, or more stingy (which might be a consequence of ownership of goods quite generally, but that is a topic for another time).

So there you have it! A little post in proper philosophical style about why I wasn't really wrong yesterday (even though I kind of was). Have a wonderful day, and God bless!