Leviticus 2:14 Kommentar

In this chapter we have the law concerning the meat-offering. I. The matter of it; whether of raw flour with oil and incense (Lev 2:1), or baked in the oven (Lev 2:4), or upon a plate (Lev 2:5, Lev 2:6), or in a frying pan (Lev 2:7). II. The management of it, of the flour (Lev 2:2, Lev 2:3), of the cakes (Lev 2:8-10). III. Some particular rules concerning it, That leaven and honey must never be admitted (Lev 2:11, Lev 2:12), and salt never omitted in the meat-offering (Lev 2:13). IV. The law concerning the offering of firstfruits in the ear (Lev 2:14, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 2 This chapter contains the law of the meat offering, and gives an account of what it was made of, fine flour, with oil poured, and frankincense put upon it, Lev 2:1 what was done with it; part of it burnt upon the altar, and the rest was the property of the priests, Lev 2:2 how it was to be when baked in an oven, or in a pan, or fried in a frying pan, Lev 2:4 what was prohibited in it, leaven and honey, Lev 2:11 what was to be used in it, salt, Lev 2:13 and what was to be the oblation and meat offering of the first fruits, and what to be done with it, Lev 2:12.

And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord,.... This, according to Aben Ezra, was not any of the offerings of the firstfruits, which they were obliged to, as at the passover or pentecost, or feast of tabernacles, but a free will offering; but Jarchi thinks it is to be understood of the meat offering of the Omer, Lev 23:13 and so Gersom, which was offered up on the sixteenth of Nisan; and this is the general sense of the Jewish writers (b): thou shalt bring for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire; these were ears of barley, which began to be ripe in the month Abib, which month had its name from hence, and is the word here used; these were dried by the fire, being green and moist, or otherwise they could not have been ground; for, according to Gersom, these were afterwards ground into fine flour: even corn beaten out of full ears; and so made the finest flour: the firstfruits were a type of Christ, who is so called, Co1 15:23 the beating of the ears of corn, and drying of them by the fire, and the grinding of them, denoted the sufferings of Christ. (b) Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Menachot, c. 10. sect. 4.

There are indeed four types of sacrifices that were commended. Whether they were new of new things, or roasted, or divided, or continuous. The new of new things were in the first time of the year, which were valued for their appearance in the firstfruits: but now it has been revealed that they signify those who are renewed through the sacraments of baptism. For this is truly the primitive sacrifice, when each person offers themselves as a victim, and begins with themselves, so that they may later be able to offer their own gift.

The meat-offering of flour with oil and incense, Lev 2:1-3. The oblation of the meat-offering baked in the oven and in the pan, Lev 2:4-6. The meat-offering baked in the frying-pan, Lev 2:7-10. No leaven nor honey to be offered with the meat-offering, Lev 2:11. The oblation of the first-fruits, Lev 2:12. Salt to be offered with the meat offering, Lev 2:13. Green ears dried by the fire, and corn to be beaten out of full ears, with oil and frankincense, to be offered as a meat-offering of first-fruits, Lev 2:14-16.

Green ears of corn dried by the fire - Green or half-ripe ears of wheat parched with fire is a species of food in use among the poor people of Palestine and Egypt to the present day. As God is represented as keeping a table among his people, (for the tabernacle was his house, where he had the golden table, shewbread, etc)., so he represents himself as partaking with them of all the aliments that were in use, and even sitting down with the poor to a repast on parched corn! We have already seen that these green ears were presented as a sort of eucharistical offering for the blessings of seed time, and the prospect of a plentiful harvest. See Clarke's note on Lev 2:1; several other examples might be added here, but they are not necessary. The command to offer salt with every oblation, and which was punctually observed by the Jews, will afford the pious reader some profitable reflections. It is well known that salt has two grand properties. 1. It seasons and renders palatable the principal ailments used for the support of life. 2. It prevents putrefaction and decay. The covenant of God, that is, his agreement with his people, is called a covenant of salt, to denote as we have seen above, its stable undecaying nature, as well as to point out its importance and utility in the preservation of the life of the soul. The grace of God by Christ Jesus is represented under the emblem of salt, (see Mar 9:49; Eph 4:29; Col 4:6), because of its relishing, nourishing, and preserving quality. Without it no offering, no sacrifice, no religious service, no work even of charity and mercy, can be acceptable in the sight of God. In all things we must come unto the Father Through Him. And from none of our sacrifices or services must this salt of the covenant of our God be lacking.

THE MEAT OFFERINGS. (Lev. 2:1-16) when any will offer a meat offering--or gift--distinguishing a bloodless from a bloody sacrifice. The word "meat," however, is improper, as its meaning as now used is different from that attached at the date of our English translation. It was then applied not to "flesh," but "food," generally, and here it is applied to the flour of wheat. The meat offerings were intended as a thankful acknowledgment for the bounty of Providence; and hence, although meat offerings accompanied some of the appointed sacrifices, those here described being voluntary oblations, were offered alone. pour oil upon it--Oil was used as butter is with us; symbolically it meant the influences of the Spirit, of which oil was the emblem, as incense was of prayer.

a meat offering of thy first-fruits--From the mention of "green ears," this seems to have been a voluntary offering before the harvest--the ears being prepared in the favorite way of Eastern people, by parching them at the fire, and then beating them out for use. It was designed to be an early tribute of pious thankfulness for the earth's increase, and it was offered according to the usual directions. Next: Leviticus Chapter 3

The first kind consisted of soleth, probably from סלה = סלל to swing, swung flour, like πάλη from πάλλω, i.e., fine flour; and for this no doubt wheaten flour was always used, even when חטּים is not added, as in Exo 29:2, to distinguish it from קמח, or ordinary meal (σεμίδαλις: Kg1 5:2). The suffix in קרבּנו (his offering) refers to נפשׁ, which is frequently construed as both masculine and feminine (Lev 4:2, Lev 4:27-28, Lev 2:1, etc.), or as masculine only (Num 31:28) in the sense of person, any one. "And let him pour oil upon it, and put incense thereon (or add incense to it)." This was not spread upon the flour, on which oil had been poured, but added in such a way, that it could be lifted from the minchah and burned upon the altar (Lev 2:2). The priest was then to take a handful of the gift that had been presented, and cause the azcarah of it to evaporate above (together with) all the incense. קמצו מלא: the filling of his closed hand, i.e., as much as he could hold with his hand full, not merely with three fingers, as the Rabbins affirm. Azcarah (from זכר, formed like אשׁמרה from שׁמר) is only applied to Jehovah's portion, which was burned upon the altar in the case of the meat-offering (Lev 2:9, Lev 2:16, and Lev 6:8), the sin-offering of flour (Lev 5:11), and the jealousy-offering (Num 5:26), and to the incense added to the shew-bread (Lev 24:7). It does not mean the prize portion, i.e., the portion offered for the glory of God, as De Dieu and Rosenmller maintain, still less the fragrance-offering (Ewald), but the memorial, or remembrance-portion, μνημόσυνον or ἀνάμνησις (Lev 24:7, lxx), memoriale (Vulg.), inasmuch as that part of the minchah which was placed upon the altar ascended in the smoke of the fire "on behalf of the giver, as a practical mememto ('remember me') to Jehovah:" though there is no necessity that we should trace the word to the Hiphil in consequence. The rest of the minchah was to belong to Aaron and his sons, i.e., to the priesthood, as a most holy thing of the firings of Jehovah. The term "most holy" is applied to all the sacrificial gifts that were consecrated to Jehovah, in this sense, that such portions as were not burned upon the altar were to be eaten by the priests alone in a holy place; the laity, and even such of the Levites as were not priests, being prohibited from partaking of them (see at Exo 26:33 and Exo 30:10). Thus the independent meat-offerings, which were not entirely consumed upon the altar (Lev 2:3, Lev 2:10, Lev 6:10; Lev 10:12), the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, the flesh of which was not burned outside the camp (Lev 6:18, Lev 6:22; Lev 7:1, Lev 7:6; Lev 10:17; Lev 14:13; Num 18:9), the shew-bread (Lev 24:9), and even objects put under the ban and devoted to the Lord, whether men, cattle, or property of other kinds (Lev 27:28), as well as the holy incense (Exo 30:36), - in fact, all the holy sacrificial gifts, in which there was any fear lest a portion should be perverted to other objects, - were called most holy; whereas the burnt-offerings, the priestly meat-offerings (Lev 6:12-16) and other sacrifices, which were quite as holy, were not called most holy, because the command to burn them entirely precluded the possibility of their being devoted to any of the ordinary purposes of life.

The third kind was the meat-offering of first-fruits, i.e., of the first ripening corn. This was to be offered in the form of "ears parched or roasted by the fire; in other words, to be made from ears which had been roasted at the fire. To this is added the further definition כּרמל גּרשׂ "rubbed out of field-fruit." גּרשׂ, from גּרשׂ = גּרס, to rub to pieces, that which is rubbed to pieces; it only occurs here and in Lev 2:14 and Lev 2:16. כּרמל is applied generally to a corn-field, in Isa 29:17 and Isa 32:16 to cultivated ground, as distinguished from desert; here, and in Lev 23:14 and Kg2 4:42, it is used metonymically for field-fruit, and denotes early or the first-ripe corn. Corn roasted by the fire, particularly grains of wheat, is still a very favourite food in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt. The ears are either burnt along with the stalks before they are quite ripe, and then rubbed out in a sieve; or stalks of wheat are bound up in small bundles and roasted at a bright fire, and then the grains are eaten (Seetzen, i. p. 94, iii. p. 221; Robinson, Biblical Researches, p. 393). Corn roasted in this manner is not so agreeable as when (as is frequently the case in harvest, Rut 2:14) the grains of wheat are taken before they are quite dry and hard, and parched in a pan or upon an iron plate, and then eaten either along with or in the place of bread (Robinson, Pal. ii. 394). The minchah mentioned here was prepared in the first way, viz., of roasted ears of corn, which were afterwards rubbed to obtain the grains: it consisted, therefore, not of crushed corn or groats, but only of toasted grains. In the place of קלוּי אביב we find קלי (Lev 23:14), or קלוּי (Jos 5:11), afterwards employed. Oil and incense were to be added, and the same course adopted with the offering as in the case of the offering of flour (Lev 2:2, Lev 2:3). If therefore, all the meat-offerings consisted either of flour and oil-the most important ingredients in the vegetable food of the Israelites, - or of food already prepared for eating, there can be no doubt that in them the Israelite offered his daily bread to the Lord, though in a manner which made an essential difference between them and the merely dedicatory offerings of the first-fruits of corn and bread. For whilst the loaves of first-fruits were leavened, and, as in the case of the sheaf of first-fruits, no part of them was burnt upon the altar (Lev 23:10-11; 17, 20), every independent meat-offering was to be prepared without leaven, and a portion given to the Lord as fire-food, for a savour of satisfaction upon the altar; and the rest was to be scrupulously kept from being used by the offerer, as a most holy thing, and to be eaten at the holy place by the sanctified priests alone, as the servants of Jehovah, and the mediators between Him and the nation. On account of this peculiarity, the meat-offerings cannot have denoted merely the sanctification of earthly food, but were symbols of the spiritual food prepared and enjoyed by the congregation of the Lord. If even the earthly life is not sustained and nourished merely by the daily bread which a man procures and enjoys, but by the power of divine grace, which strengthens and blesses the food as means of preserving life; much less can the spiritual life be nourished by earthly food, but only by the spiritual food which a man prepares and partakes of, by the power of the Spirit of God, from the true bread of life, or the word of God. Now, as oil in the Scriptures is invariably a symbol of the Spirit of God as the principle of all spiritual vis vitae, so bread-flour and bread, procured from the seed of the field, are symbols of the word of God (Deu 8:3; Luk 8:11). As God gives man corn and oil to feed and nourish his bodily life, so He gives His people His word and Spirit, that they may draw food from these for the spiritual life of the inner man. The work of sanctification consists in the operation of this spiritual food, through the right use of the means of grace for growth in pious conversation and good works (Mat 5:16; Pe1 2:12). The enjoyment of this food fills the inner man with peace, joy, and blessedness in God. This fruit of the spiritual life is shadowed forth in the meat-offerings. They were to be kept free, therefore, both from the leaven of hypocrisy (Luk 12:1) and of malice and wickedness (Co1 5:8), and also from the honey of the deliciae carnis, because both are destructive of spiritual life; whilst, on the other hand, the salt of the covenant of God (i.e., the purifying, strengthening, and quickening power of the covenant, by which moral corruption was averted) and the incense of prayer were both to be added, in order that the fruits of the spiritual life might become well-pleasing to the Lord. It was upon this signification that the most holy character of the meat-offerings was founded.