Leviticus 10:15

The heave shoulder and the wave breast shall they bring with the offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering before the LORD; and it shall be thine, and thy sons' with thee, by a statute for ever; as the LORD hath commanded.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) The heave shoulder and the wave breast shall they bring.—That is, the offerers who devoted these portions of the peace offering to the Lord, are to bring them to the officiating priests. (See Leviticus 7:29-30.)

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

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The heave shoulder and wave breast shall they bring,.... Not the priests, but the owners to the priests, Leviticus 7:29,

with the offerings made by fire of the fat: upon the inwards, kidneys, and caul of the liver, which was all burnt:

to wave it for a wave offering before the Lord, the shoulder was lifted up, and the breast waved to and fro before the Lord of the whole earth, and towards the several parts of it, to show and own his right to all they had, and then they were given to the priests as a token of it:

and it shall be thine, and thy sons with thee; both the shoulder and the breast:

by a statute for ever, to be observed as long as the ceremonial law and Levitical priesthood lasted, even to the end of the Jewish age and economy, and the coming of the Messiah:

as the Lord hath commanded; Leviticus 7:33.

Geneva Study Bible

The heave shoulder and the wave breast shall they bring with the offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering before the LORD; and it shall be thine, and thy sons' with thee, by a statute for ever; as the LORD hath commanded.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Leviticus 10:15

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.)