i.e., the tithes, firstlings, and first-fruits. Moses felt it to be superfluous to enumerate these gifts one by one from the previous laws, and also to describe the mode of their application, or define how much belonged to the priests and how much to the Levites. However true it may be that the author assigns all these gifts to the Levites generally, the conclusion drawn from this, viz., that he was not acquainted with any distinction between priests and Levites, but placed the Levites entirely on a par with the priests, is quite a false one. For, apart from the evident distinction between the priests and Levites in Deu 18:1, where there would be no meaning in the clause, “all the tribe of Levi,” if the Levites were identical with the priests, the distinction is recognised and asserted as clearly as possible in what follows, when a portion of the slain-offerings is allotted to the priests in Deu 18:3-5, whilst in Deu 18:6-8 the Levite is allowed to join in eating the altar gifts, if he come to the place of the sanctuary and perform service there. The repetition in Deu 18:2 is an emphatic confirmation: “As He hath said unto them:” as in Deu 10:9.
verses 3-5
“This shall be the right of the priests on the part of the people, on the part of those who slaughter slain-offerings, whether ox or sheep; he (the offerer) shall give the priest the shoulder, the cheek, and the stomach.” הזּרע, the shoulder, i.e., the front leg; see Num 6:19. הקּבה, the rough stomach, τὸ ἤνιστρον (lxx), i.e., the fourth stomach of ruminant animals, in which the digestion of the food is completed; Lat. omasus or abomasus, though the Vulgate has ventriculus here. On the choice of these three pieces in particular, Münster and Fagius observe that “the sheep possesses three principal parts, the head, the feet, and the trunk; and of each of these some portion was to be given to the priest who officiated” “Of each of these three principal parts of the animal,” says Schultz, “some valuable piece was to be presented: the shoulder at least, and the stomach, which was regarded as particularly fat, are seen at once to have been especially good.” That this arrangement is not at variance with the command in Lev 7:32., to give the wave-breast and heave-leg of the peace-offerings to the Lord for the priests, but simply enjoins a further gift to the priests on the part of the people, in addition to those portions which were to be given to the Lord for His servants, is sufficiently evident from the context, since the heave-leg and wave-breast belonged to the firings of Jehovah mentioned in Deu 18:1, which the priests had received as an inheritance from the Lord, that is to say, to the tenuphoth of the children of Israel, which the priests might eat with their sons and
