And if his oblation a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer of the herd; whether a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
1. And if his oblation ]This clause introducing the Peace-Offering corresponds to Lev 1:3 which stands at the beginning of the regulations for the Burnt-Offering.
The Peace-Offering may be either male or female, ( a) of the herd (Lev 3:1-5) or of the flock either ( b) to lamb (Lev 3:7-11), or ( c) to goat (Lev 3:12-16). The age is not specified. The procedure should be carefully compared with that for the Burnt-Offering in ch. 1. There is nothing corresponding to the last clauses of Lev 1:3-4 referring to acceptance and atonement.
Source: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The peace-offering (like the burnt-offering, Lev 1:3and the Minchah, Lev 2:1) is here spoken of as if it was familiarly known before the giving of the Law. Peace-offering seems preferable to thank-offering, which occurs in several places in the margin of our Bible. thank-offering appears to be the right name for a subordinate class of peace-offering.
Source: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lev 3:1-17
A sacrifice of peace-offering.
The peace-offering
The word peace in the language of the Scriptures, has a shade of meaning not commonly attached to it in ordinary use. With most persons it signifies a cessation of hostilities, harmonious agreement, tranquillity, the absence of disturbance. But in the Scriptures it means more. Its predominant matter there is, prosperity, welfare, joy, happiness. The original Hebrew word includes both these meanings. The old Greek version renders it by terms which mean a sacrificial feast of salvation. We may, therefore, confidently take the peace-offering as a joyous festival, a solemn sacrificial banqueting, illustrative of the peace and joy which flows to believers from the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our sanctification through His blood and Spirit de the. Religion is not a thing of gloom, but of gladness.
YO. The peace-offering was a bloody offering. Everything in Christian life, justification and sanctification, the forgiveness of our sins, and the acceptableness of our services, our hopes, and our spiritual festivities, run back into Christs vicarious sufferings, as their fountain and foundation. This is the center from which all Christian doctrine, and all Christian experience, radiates, and into which it ultimately resolves itself. Without this, Christianity dwindles down into a cold and powerless morality, with no warming mysteries, no animating sublimities, no melting affections, no transforming potencies. Without this, the soul languishes like a plant excluded from the sunshine, or flourishes only in its own disgrace. If we would have a feast of fat things, the provision must come from the altar of immolation.
II. The peace-offering comes after the meat-offering. We must present the fine flour of our best affections, and the fresh first-fruits of uncorrupted obedience, before we can come to feast upon the rich provisions of the altar. We mast surrender ourselves to God, and give up to Him in a covenant of salt before we can taste of the peace-offering, or be happy in the Lord.
III. The peace-offering was so arranged that the most inward, the most tender, and the most marrowy part of the sacrifice became the Lords part. The inner fat of the animal, the kidneys, the caul of the liver, and, if a sheep, the great fatty outward appendage, were to be burned on the altar, a sweet savor unto the Lord. God must be remembered in all our joys. Especially when we come to praise and enjoy Him, and to appropriate to our hearts the glad provisions of His mercy from him, we must come offering to Him the inmost, tenderest, and richest of our souls attributes. It was thus that Jesus was made a peace-offering for us. And as He devoted every rich thought, every strong emotion, for us, we must now send back the same to Him without stint or tarnish. We may love our friends; but we must love Christ more. We may feel for those united to us in the bonds of domestic life; but we must feel still more for Jesus and His Church than him. We may be moved with earthly passions; but the profoundest and best of all our emotions must be given to the Lord. The fat, the kidneys, and the most tender and marrowy parts are His.
IV. The peace-offerings were sacrifices of gratitude and praise–a species of joyous, thankful banquetings. When the Jew came to make a peace-offering, it was with his heart moved and his thoughts filled with some distinguished mercy. The true Christian has been the subject of wonderful favours. He has had deliverance wrought for him, to which he may ever refer with joyful recollection. He considers the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of that love which thus interposed for his rescue from him –the mighty woes which the Lord endured for him–the secure ground upon which he now stands in Christ Jesus–and his soul it overflows with tremulous gladness. He is melted, and yet is full of delight. He is solemnly joyous. What to say or do he hardly knows. He weeps, and yet exults while he weeps. The whole thing to him becomes a feast of profoundly solemn joy, in which he would gladly have all the world to participate.
v. But the feasting of the peace-offering was on sacred food. The people might have feasts at home, and have other banquets; but they were not peace-offerings. And so the Christian may have feasts and viands apart from the sacred food furnished directly from Christ. There is much virtuous enjoyment in this world of a merely secular sort, from none of which does Christianity exclude us. But all these are mere home-feasts on common viands. The food that was eaten in the joyous feast of the peace-offering fell from the altar. It was holy. No defined person or stranger was allowed to touch it or to partake of it. And so, superadded to the common joys of ordinary life, the Christian has a feast with which the stranger dare not meddle–a feast of fat things, of which the pure only, can taste–a banquet of holy food proceeding directly from the altar at which His sacrifice was made. Let us briefly review some of the faithful Christians peculiar joys. Let us follow him a little into the sources of his consolation, and see of what sort his feast is.
1. First of all is the great and cheering conviction of his heart that there is a God; that the universe is not an orphan, but has a righteous, almighty, and loving Father, who sees all, and provides for all, and takes care of all.
two. The next is the joyous light that shines upon him from Gods revelation, relieving his native perplexities, comforting his heart, filling him with pleasant wisdom, and kindling radiance along all his path. Here the riddle of life is explained to him, his duty he made plain, and his conscience he put to rest.
3. Along with these are the gifts and graces of a present redemption.
Four. And beyond all present experiences, he is authorized to look forward to still higher and greater things in the future, (J.A. Seiss, D.D.)
The peace-offerings
Yo. Their nature. They were sacrifices of thanksgiving, whereby the godly testified their gratitude to God for the benefits received from Him.
II. The difference between them and other sacrifices.
1. Generally they were thus distinguished from other sacrifices, which are afterward prescribed (Lev 4:5), because these were voluntary, the other necessary and commanded; and the peace-offerings were never offered alone, but always joined with other sacrifices, showing that the godly should always begin with giving of thanks.
two. Herein it also differs from the holocaust, which might be of birds; but so were not the peace-offerings, because they were to be divided; so could not the holocaust of birds (Lev 1:17).
3. The holocausts, which were of beasts, were only of the males, but the peace-offerings might be either males or females, because this kind of sacrifice was not so perfect as the other.
III. Why the peace-offerings were confined to these three kinds–oxen, sheep, goats.
1. All these were a figure of Christ, who indeed was that Peace-offering whereby God is reconciled to us: the ox resembled His fortitude; the sheep His innocence of him; the goat, because He took our flesh, like unto sinful flesh.
two. Some apply them to the divers qualities of the offerers: the ox signifying the workers and keepers of the law; the sheep, the simple; the goats, the penitent.
3. But the true reason why these beasts are prescribed only for peace-offerings, not turtledoves or pigeons, as in the burnt-offerings, is because they could not rightly declare their gratitude to God in giving things of no value.
IV. What blemishes and other impediments were to be avoided. The impediments which made the beasts unfit for sacrifice were either general in respect of the kind, or particular in regard of the thing offered.
1. For thekind. Some were both unlawful for meat and sacrifice (chap. 11:3), others for sacrifice but not for meat (Deu 14:4).
two. The particular impediments were either intrinsical in the things themselves, or extrinsical without.
(1) The inward defects were such as made them altogether unfit for any kind of sacrifice, as if they were blind, broken, scabbed, &c.
(two) The external impediments were such as came by touching any unclean thing.
v. Why the fat, as of the belly, kidneys, and liver, was set apart for sacrifice.
1. Generally hereby it is signified that all our carnal desires are to be mortified by the fire of the Spirit.
two. More particularly by the fat which covereth the inward parts where the heart is, the seat of anger is insinuated, that we should temper our wrath; and by the kidneys and reins, wherein is the strength of lust, carnal concupiscence; and by the liver the fountain of heat, the gluttonous desire, may be understood all which must be sacrificed unto God. Hereto the significance of the Hebrew word here used agreeth; for Chelaioth, the kidneys, is derived from Calah, desire.
3. And further, because the fat is of its own nature, without sense, and so signifieth the hardness of the heart, which is the cause of unbelief: hereby they were admonished to remove and take away all hardness of heart.
SAW. Whether it were required generally in all sacrifices that blood should be sprinkled on the altar. AS there was difference in the end, use, and manner of sacrifices, for some were only for the honor of God, as the burnt-offerings; some for the benefit of the offerer, either for obtaining of some benefit, or giving thanks for some benefit received, as the peace-offerings, or for expiation of sin, so there was difference in the sprinkling and offering of the blood; yet because in all sacrifices there was some relation unto the expiation of some sin, there was an oblation of blood in all sacrifices, &c.; and so the apostle saith that in the law without effusion of blood, there was no remission, where of this reason is given because the life is in the blood, and therefore the Lord gave the blood for the expiation of their souls (Lev 17:11), that whereas they themselves had deserved to die for their sins.
VII. Of the manner and order of the peace-offerings.
1. The priest killed the beast, sprinkled the blood, flayed it, and took out the inwards.
two. Then he cut the flesh in pieces, and separated the breast and right shoulders with the inwards, and put them into the owners hands.
3. Then the priest put his hands under the owners, and waved all…