The Peace Offerings. These are of two kinds, thanksgiving and vow or free-will offerings. The former is specially connected with the bread or meal, in its character of a banquet (cf. Leviticus 3:1 ff.). But the relative portions of priest and offerer are here more closely defined. One cake is to be lifted up from the rest, as a heave-offering (Numbers 5:9 *), the due of the officiating priest. The second class of peace offerings is holier, and greater precautions are needed against the flesh going bad. The meal is to begin on the day of offering; and no part is to be kept more than one clear day. There may be a reminiscence of the early limitation of the duration of a festival to two days. (For another suggestion, see RS 2, p. 387.) Special care is needed to avoid the touch or presence of any uncleanness in connexion with this sacrifice. The caution was doubtless necessitated by the licence of the older sacrifices, where the circumstances of the feasts might easily be and actually were (cf. Amos 2:7 f.) conducive to much worse things than ritual uncleanness. Hence the sternness of the tone here.
Leviticus 7:11-21
11 And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the LORD.
12 If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried.
13 Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.
14 And of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for an heave offering unto the LORD, and it shall be the priest's that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.
15 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall not leave any of it until the morning.
16 But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice: and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten:
17 But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.
18 And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it: it shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.
19 And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire: and as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof.
20 But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
21 Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which pertain unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.