Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Leviticus 2:14
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
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 Scrip…
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