Leviticus 10:14

And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee: for they be thy due, and thy sons' due, which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) And the wave breast and heave shoulder.—That is, of the peace offering which was offered by the nation. (See Leviticus 9:18-21.) As they were given to the priests for the maintenance of their families (see Leviticus 7:34), these portions might be eaten anywhere within the camp, provided the place was not defiled by ceremonial uncleanness.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:12-20 Afflictions should rather quicken us to our duty, than take us from it. But our unfitness for duty, when it is natural and not sinful, will have great allowances made for it; God will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Let us profit by the solemn warning this history conveys. When professing worshippers come with zeal without knowledge, carnal affections, earthly, light, vain, trifling thoughts, the devices of will-worship, instead of the offering of soul and spirit; then the incense is kindled by a flame which never came down from heaven, which the Spirit of a holy God never sent within their hearts.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Wave breast and heave shoulder - See Leviticus 7:30 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12-15. Moses spake unto Aaron, &c.—This was a timely and considerate rehearsal of the laws that regulated the conduct of the priests. Amid the distractions of their family bereavement, Aaron and his surviving sons might have forgotten or overlooked some of their duties.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

In a clean place; in any of your dwellings, or any place in the camp, which he supposeth to be kept clean from all ceremonial defilement, as they ought to be; whence the lepers were put out of the camp. See Numbers 5:1-3. In any place where the women as well as the men might come, for the daughters of the priests might eat these as well as their sons, as it here follows.

And thy daughters, to wit, if they were maids, or widows, or divorced, Leviticus 22:11-13.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place,.... The breast of the peace offerings that was waved, and the shoulder of them that was heaved before the Lord; these were given by him to the priests, towards the maintenance of their families, Leviticus 7:34 and they might be eaten anywhere, provided the place was clean from all ceremonial pollution, and in which there were no polluted persons, as leprous ones; they were to be eaten within the camp, as Jarchi observes, where lepers came not: for, as he adds, the light holy things, such as these were, might be eaten in every city; and so it it is said in the Misnah (t), and by the commentators on it:

thou and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee; these were not restrained to him and his sons only, as the meat offerings, and the flesh of the sin offerings were, but were common to the whole family:

for they be thy due, and thy sons' due; for their service of the sanctuary, and by the appointment and direction of the Lord:

which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel: of which see Leviticus 7:1 these are said to be "given out" of them, for the whole was not given, only the breast and shoulder; and after the fat was burnt, the rest belonged to the owners, with which they kept a feast of joy and thankfulness.

(t) Zebachim: c. 5. sect. 6. & Bartenora in ib.

Geneva Study Bible

And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy {e} daughters with thee: for they be thy due, and thy sons' due, which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel.

(e) For the breast and shoulders of the peace offerings might be brought to their families, so that their daughters might eat of them, as also of the offerings of first fruits, the first born, and the Easter lamb, Le 22:12,13.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. For the ‘wave breast’ and the ‘heave thigh’ see Appendix IV, pp. 183 ff.

(6) Aaron’s excuse for not eating the Sin-Offering (16–20)

The Sin-Offering is that of Leviticus 9:15 which was offered as the first, i.e. as Aaron’s, Sin-Offering, and burnt without the camp (Leviticus 9:11). This burning (as opposed to eating by the priests) should only have taken place, if (as was not done in this case) the blood had been brought into the ‘tent of meeting.’ Moses is angry with Aaron’s sons, but they acted under direction, and Aaron acknowledges his responsibility by replying.

Leviticus 10:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After the directions occasioned by this judgment of God, Moses reminded Aaron and his sons of the general laws concerning the consumption of the priests' portions of the sacrifices, and their relation to the existing circumstances: first of all (Leviticus 10:12, Leviticus 10:13), of the law relating to the eating of the meat-offering, which belonged to the priests after the azcarah had been lifted off (Leviticus 2:3; Leviticus 6:9-11), and then (Leviticus 10:14, Leviticus 10:15) of that relating to the wave-breast and heave-leg (Leviticus 7:32-34). By the minchah in Leviticus 10:12 we are to understand the meal and oil, which were offered with the burnt-offering of the nation (Leviticus 9:4 and Leviticus 9:7); and by the אשּׁים in Leviticus 10:12 and Leviticus 10:15, those portions of the burnt-offering, meat-offering, and peace-offering of the nation which were burned upon the altar (Leviticus 9:13, Leviticus 9:17, and Leviticus 9:20). He then looked for "the he-goat of the sin-offering," - i.e., the flesh of the goat which had been brought for a sin-offering (Leviticus 9:15), and which was to have been eaten by the priests in the holy place along with the sin-offerings, whose blood was not taken into the sanctuary (Leviticus 6:19, Leviticus 6:22); - "and, behold, it was burned" (שׂרף, 3 perf. Pual). Moses was angry at this, and reproved Eleazar and Ithamar, who had attended to the burning: "Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin-offering in a holy place?" he said; "for it is most holy, and He (Jehovah) hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for it before Jehovah," as its blood had not been brought into the holy place (הוּבא construed as a passive with an accusative, as in Genesis 4:18, etc.). "To bear the iniquity" does not signify here, as in Leviticus 5:1, to bear and atone for the sin in its consequences, but, as in Exodus 28:38, to take the sin of another upon one's self, for the purpose of cancelling it, to make expiation for it. As, according to Exodus 28:38, the high priest was to appear before the Lord with the diadem upon his forehead, as the symbol of the holiness of his office, to cancel, as the mediator of the nation and by virtue of his official holiness, the sin which adhered to the holy gifts of the nation (see the note on this passage), so here it is stated with regard to the official eating of the most holy flesh of the sin-offering, which had been enjoined upon the priests, that they were thereby to bear the sin of the congregation, to make atonement for it. This effect or signification could only be ascribed to the eating, by its being regarded as an incorporation of the victim laden with sin, whereby the priests actually took away the sin by virtue of the holiness and sanctifying power belonging to their office, and not merely declared it removed, as Oehler explains the words (Herzog's Cycl. x. p. 649). Exodus 28:38 is decisive in opposition to the declaratory view, which does not embrace the meaning of the words, and is not applicable to the passage at all. "Incorporabant quasi peccatum populique reatum in se recipiebant" (Deyling observv. ss. i. 45, 2).

(Note: C. a Lapide has given this correct interpretation of the passage: "ut scilicet cum hostiis populi pro peccato simul etiam populi peccata in vos quasi recipiatis, ut illa expietis." There is no foundation for the objection offered by Oehler, that the actual removal of guilt and the atonement itself were effected by the offering of the blood. For it by no means follows from Leviticus 17:11, that the blood, as the soul of the sacrificial animal, covered or expiated the soul of the sinner, and that the removal and extinction of the sin had already taken place with the covering of the soul before the holy God, which involved the forgiveness of the sin and the reception of the sinner to mercy.)