Leviticus 7 Summary

Leviticus 7 concludes the priestly laws for the major offerings by detailing the trespass offering, the peace offering, and the portions belonging to the priests. The trespass offering is declared most holy; its fat is burned on the altar, its flesh is eaten by male priests in the holy place, and the officiating priest retains the skin of any burnt offering and the cooked portions of grain offerings. For peace offerings, the chapter distinguishes thanksgiving offerings—which must be eaten on the day they are presented—from vow or voluntary offerings, whose remaining flesh may be eaten on the second day but must be burned on the third; eating flesh on the third day renders it an abomination and brings guilt on the offerer. The chapter then delivers solemn prohibitions against eating fat or blood, either of which results in the offender being cut off from the people, and it prescribes the wave breast and heave shoulder of the peace offering as a perpetual statutory portion for Aaron and his sons, concluding with a colophon attributing all these laws to the LORD's commands given to Moses at Mount Sinai.