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.
Eaten the same day that it is offered. The flesh of the sacrifices was eaten on the day of the offering, or on the day following.
Verse 16. But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering - х neder (H5088), a votive offering, as opposed to nªdaabaah (H5071), a free-will offering].
On the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten. This prohibition clearly implied that the offerer was to entertain his friends in a festive manner. Such voluntary offerings, differing from those offered in fulfillment of a vow, were provided for in the law; and they were frequently offered in connection with the great public festivals, both for the sake of convenience and in honour of these sacred seasons. The flesh, however, was to be eaten on the same or the next day; beyond which time none of it might be kept. Reland holds that the eating of the sacrifice the same day it was offered means only before the morning of the next day, although the latter part, i:e., the night, be in strictness part of the next day, according to the Jewish reckoning (see Whiston's 'Josephus' Antiquities,' b. 3:, ch. 9:, sec. 3; b. 4:, ch. 4:, sec. 4).
This reservation of some of the offering until the next day was not allowed in case of a thank offering. But if any part of it remained until the third day, it was, instead of being made use of, to be burned with fire. In the East butcher meat is generally eaten the day it is killed; and as it soon putrifies in hot climates, and in a decayed state is unfit for use, it is rarely kept a second day; so that, as a prohibition was issued against any of the flesh in the peace offerings being used on the third day, it has been thought, not without reason, that this injunction must have been given to prevent a superstitious notion arising that there was some virtue or holiness belonging to it.
Such a superstition actually exists among the Mohammedan pilgrims to Mecca. They are required on a certain day to sacrifice a sheep, to be shared with friends and the poor of Mecca. But a portion of it is reserved by the sacrificer for his own use, which is dried, in order to be eaten during his return. 'Many of the ceremonies observed in the Mecca pilgrimage are well known,' says Harmer ('Observ.,' vol. 1:, pp. 457-460), 'to be of great antiquity, and to be the relics of Arab pagan customs. Something of this pagan practice might obtain as early as the time of Moses, and be the occasion of the prohibition. It would not have suited the genius of the Mosaic dispensation to have allowed the people to have dried the flesh of their peace offerings, whether for thanksgiving in consequence of a vow, or merely voluntary, and have afterward eaten the flesh very commonly in a sparing manner, or communicated only some small portion of it to their particular friends. The peace offerings, on the contrary, were to be eaten with festivity, communicated to their friends with liberality, and bestowed on the poor with great generosity-that these might partake with the offerers of those sacred repasts with joy before the Lord (Deuteronomy 16:11). To answer such views, it became requisite to eat the sacrificial flesh while it was fresh.'