Leviticus 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter continues the instructions for offerings. It gives the law of the guilt offering, states which parts of the burnt offering and the grain offering go to the priests, and sets out the law of the peace offerings, including the thanksgiving offering, the vow, and the freewill offering, with rules about how long the meat may be eaten and who may eat it. The LORD then tells Moses to forbid Israel to eat fat or blood, and assigns the waved breast and the lifted thigh of the peace offerings to Aaron and his sons. The chapter closes by naming the laws the LORD gave Moses at Mount Sinai.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • This is the law of the guilt offering.
   • The guilt offering is most holy.
2. 7:2
   • The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered.
   • Its blood is to be dashed against the altar on all sides.
3. 7:3
   • All the fat of the guilt offering is to be offered from it.
   • The fat tail is to be offered.
   • The fat that covers the entrails is to be offered.
4. 7:4
   • The two kidneys are to be offered.
   • The fat that is on the kidneys, which is by the loins, is to be offered.
   • The lobe on the liver is to be removed along with the kidneys.
5. 7:5
   • The priest is to burn these parts on the altar.
   • They are an offering made by fire to the LORD.
   • It is a guilt offering.
6. 7:6
   • Every male among the priests may eat of it.
   • It is to be eaten in a holy place.
   • It is most holy.
7. 7:7
   • The sin offering and the guilt offering are alike.
   • There is one law for both of them.
   • The offering belongs to the priest who makes atonement with it.
8. 7:8
   • A priest presents a man's burnt offering.
   • The hide of the burnt offering he presented belongs to that priest.
9. 7:9
   • Every grain offering baked in an oven belongs to the priest who presents it.
   • Every grain offering prepared in a pot or on a griddle belongs to the priest who presents it.
10. 7:10
    • Every grain offering, whether mixed with oil or dry, belongs to all the sons of Aaron.
    • Each son of Aaron receives an equal share of it.
11. 7:11
    • This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings.
    • The peace offering is one that a person offers to the LORD.
12. 7:12
    • If a person offers the peace offering for thanksgiving, he is to offer certain items along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving.
    • He is to offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil.
    • He is to offer unleavened wafers spread with oil.
    • He is to offer cakes of fine flour, well soaked, mixed with oil.
13. 7:13
    • Along with the cakes, he is to present cakes of leavened bread as his offering.
    • This accompanies the thanksgiving sacrifice of his peace offerings.
14. 7:14
    • He is to present one of each kind of offering as a contribution to the LORD.
    • That contribution belongs to the priest who dashes the blood of the peace offerings.
15. 7:15
    • The flesh of the thanksgiving sacrifice of his peace offerings is to be eaten on the day it is offered.
    • He is not to leave any of it until morning.
16. 7:16
    • If the sacrifice of his offering is a vow or a freewill offering, it is to be eaten on the day he offers his sacrifice.
    • What remains of it may also be eaten on the next day.
17. 7:17
    • What remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day is to be burned with fire.
18. 7:18
    • If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings is eaten on the third day, it will not be accepted.
    • It will not be credited to the one who offered it.
    • It will be a foul, rejected thing.
    • The person who eats of it will bear his iniquity.
19. 7:19
    • Flesh that touches anything unclean is not to be eaten.
    • Such flesh is to be burned with fire.
    • As for the flesh, anyone who is clean may eat it.
20. 7:20
    • A person eats flesh from the sacrifice of peace offerings that belongs to the LORD while his uncleanness is upon him.
    • That person is to be cut off from his people.
21. 7:21
    • A person touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness, an unclean animal, or any unclean detestable thing.
    • That person then eats flesh from the sacrifice of peace offerings that belongs to the LORD.
    • That person is to be cut off from his people.
22. 7:22
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
23. 7:23
    • The LORD told Moses to speak to the children of Israel.
    • They are not to eat any fat of ox, sheep, or goat.
24. 7:24
    • The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be used for any other purpose.
    • They are certainly not to eat it.
25. 7:25
    • Whoever eats the fat of an animal from which an offering made by fire is presented to the LORD is to be cut off from his people.
26. 7:26
    • They are not to eat any blood in any of their dwellings.
    • This applies to the blood of birds and of animals.
27. 7:27
    • Any person who eats any blood is to be cut off from his people.
28. 7:28
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
29. 7:29
    • The LORD told Moses to speak to the children of Israel.
    • The one who offers his sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD is to bring his offering to the LORD from his sacrifice of peace offerings.
30. 7:30
    • His own hands are to bring the offerings made by fire to the LORD.
    • He is to bring the fat along with the breast.
    • The breast is to be waved as a wave offering before the LORD.
31. 7:31
    • The priest is to burn the fat on the altar.
    • The breast belongs to Aaron and his sons.
32. 7:32
    • They are to give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution from their sacrifices of peace offerings.
33. 7:33
    • The son of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat is the one who receives the right thigh as his portion.
34. 7:34
    • The LORD has taken the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution from the children of Israel, out of their sacrifices of peace offerings.
    • The LORD has given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons.
    • This is given as a perpetual due from the children of Israel.
35. 7:35
    • This is the portion of the anointing of Aaron and of the anointing of his sons from the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
    • It dates from the day they were presented to serve the LORD as priests.
36. 7:36
    • The LORD commanded that this be given to them by the children of Israel on the day he anointed them.
    • It is a perpetual statute throughout their generations.
37. 7:37
    • This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering, and the sacrifice of the peace offerings.
38. 7:38
    • The LORD commanded Moses these laws at Mount Sinai.
    • He commanded them on the day he commanded the children of Israel to offer their offerings to the LORD.
    • This took place in the wilderness of Sinai.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

7:1

"Law" here renders Hebrew *torah*, which means an instruction or ruling, a set of working procedures for the priests, rather than legislation in the modern sense. The guilt offering (KJV "trespass offering") covered wrongs that involved damage or fraud: misusing something dedicated to the sanctuary, cheating a neighbor, swearing falsely about property. It normally came with repayment of the loss plus a fifth. "Most holy" is a technical grade, not praise: it marks offerings that only priests could eat, and only inside the sanctuary area.

7:2

The burnt offering was killed on the north side of the altar (Leviticus 1:11), so this fixes the spot. "Sprinkle" understates the Hebrew, which means to throw or dash the blood from a basin against the sides of the altar.

7:3

KJV "the rump" means the fat tail. The sheep of the region were a broad-tailed breed whose tail was a heavy slab of fat, sometimes weighing several pounds, and counted the choicest part of the animal. "The inwards" are the intestines and stomach, which in a sheep or ox are wrapped in sheets of fat.

7:4

The "flanks" are the loins, the lower back. "The caul that is above the liver" is the lobe or fatty appendage attached to the liver, the same organ that Israel's neighbors read for omens, though nothing of that sort is in view here. These particular fatty parts, with the kidneys, were the portion always burned rather than eaten.

7:5

"An offering made by fire" translates a Hebrew term traditionally connected with the word for fire; some scholars take it to mean simply a gift presented to God. Either way it names the portion turned to smoke on the altar rather than eaten.

7:6

"The holy place" here means the enclosed sanctuary courtyard, where the priests' quarters and the altar stood, not the curtained inner room of the tent, which only priests on duty entered and where no meal was eaten.

7:7

"Makes atonement" translates a verb whose root sense is disputed: either to cover over, or to wipe clean, or to pay a ransom. In sacrificial contexts it describes the priest performing the rite that clears the wrong or the impurity away.

7:8

The hide was the one substantial part of a burnt offering not consumed on the altar. Leather was valuable, so this was a real form of payment for the priest's work.

7:9

KJV "meat offering" does not mean flesh. In 1611 "meat" meant food of any kind, and this offering was made of grain (flour, oil and sometimes incense) with no animal in it at all. The three cooking methods named are an enclosed clay oven, a deep pan, and a flat griddle.

7:10

The distinction is between grain offerings already cooked, which go to the individual priest who handled them, and uncooked flour offerings, which are divided equally among all the priests.

7:11

The peace offering (Hebrew *shelamim*, related to the word for wholeness or well-being) was the one sacrifice the worshiper's own family ate. Part was burned, part went to the priests, and the rest became a meal at the sanctuary. The name has been understood as an offering of well-being, of fellowship, or of settled obligation; the Hebrew does not settle it.

7:12

Bread "without yeast" was made from dough that had not been left to ferment. The word behind "fried" or "well mixed" is uncertain in Hebrew; it may mean stirred, soaked with oil, or scalded.

7:13

Leavened bread was normally kept off the altar entirely, so these risen loaves were not burned. They belonged to the meal, one loaf going to the priest, the rest eaten by the worshiper's household.

7:14

"Heave offering" (Hebrew *terumah*) does not mean the bread was heaved into the air. The term means a portion lifted out and set apart from a larger amount as a contribution, here one loaf of each kind, taken off the top for the priest.

7:15

In a hot climate with no way of preserving cooked meat, a same-day rule meant a whole animal had to be shared out and eaten at once, which made the offering a communal meal rather than a private one.

7:16

Two different occasions. A vow offering pays off a promise made earlier, usually conditional, if God grants such a thing, I will sacrifice. A freewill offering is spontaneous, owed to nothing. Because neither is a thanksgiving, the eating period runs two days instead of one.

7:17

Burning the leftovers made sure no one ate meat that had gone bad, and kept the holy gift from being thrown out with the trash.

7:18

"Imputed" means credited or reckoned to his account: the sacrifice simply would not count. "Abomination" here renders a specific Hebrew term, *piggul*, used only of sacrificial meat that has gone past its permitted time and so become foul and rejected. "Bear his iniquity" is a legal idiom meaning to carry the liability for the offense oneself.

7:19

"Clean" and "unclean" are not about dirt or about morality. They describe a person's ritual state, whether they are currently fit to approach holy things. Ordinary events such as childbirth, illness, bodily discharges or contact with a corpse made a person unclean for a set period, after which washing and time restored them.

7:20

"Cut off from his people" translates a fixed Hebrew formula whose exact force is disputed even among ancient interpreters: it has been understood as expulsion from the community, as dying childless so the family line ends, or as death brought about by God rather than by a court. The one thing clear is that no human penalty is specified.

7:21

"The uncleanness of man" means human sources of ritual impurity, a corpse, a skin disease, bodily discharges. "Any abominable unclean thing" renders a separate Hebrew word used of creatures classed as detestable to eat, such as swarming things and certain water creatures.

7:23

The fat forbidden here is the hard suet packed around the organs and kidneys, the same portion burned on the altar. Fat naturally marbled through the meat itself was not covered by the ban, or the meat could not have been eaten at all.

7:24

An animal that died by itself or was killed by a predator could not be sacrificed and its meat was off limits, but its fat was not wasted: it could be rendered for lamp fuel, for greasing leather and equipment, or for making soap-like cleaners.

7:26

The ban on blood applies everywhere, not only at the sanctuary, "in any of your dwellings" makes it a rule for ordinary home cooking. Elsewhere the reason given is that the life of a creature is in its blood, so it was drained onto the ground rather than consumed.

7:29

The worshiper, not the priest, does the bringing. The point of the verse is that the person who benefits from the sacrifice must present the offering personally.

7:30

The "wave offering" (Hebrew *tenuphah*) was a gesture made with the portion before it changed hands. What the gesture actually was is disputed: a horizontal waving toward and away from the altar, or a raising of the portion, or simply a formal act of presentation.

7:32

KJV "shoulder" is misleading. The Hebrew word means the upper part of the hind leg, the thigh or haunch, which with the breast made up the two best cuts of the animal.

7:34

"A statute for ever" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning lasting or perpetual; it marks a standing arrangement with no time limit built in, rather than making a claim about eternity.

7:35

Anointing meant having olive oil poured or smeared on the head, the standard ceremony for installing someone in office. Aaron and his sons were anointed as priests, and these food portions were the income attached to that office, priests held no farmland of their own.

7:37

KJV "the consecrations" renders a Hebrew phrase literally meaning "the filling of the hands", the idiom for installing a priest, since part of the ceremony involved placing the offering into the new priest's hands. The offering used at that ceremony is meant here.

7:38

"In the day that" is a Hebrew idiom for "at the time when," not necessarily a single calendar day. "The wilderness of Sinai" is the dry, largely unsettled region around the mountain, where the account places Israel camped.