Fat

The peace offering is the one offering that a worshiper eats from. It is the offering of the marriage feast. But that’s not the thing that gets emphasized in chapter 3. What gets emphasized instead is the fat.

The word is used 12 times in the chapter. These are the first twelve times that the word is used in Leviticus (the word for “suet” in 1:9 is different). The repetition indicates emphasis, of course, but the twelvefold use is more than simply emphasis, but has a symbolic numerical value. The fat is somehow associated with Israel. Let’s see if we can make sense of this, with the conclusions concerning the ascension offering in mind.

First, we should try to specify what specifically is meant by “fat” here. In the first couple of uses, it describes a layer that “covers” (kasah) the inner parts (qereb), along with fat that is on the entrails and on the kidneys (Leviticus 3:

As the passage goes on, though, the word “fat” (cheleb) comes to refer to everything that is placed on the altar. That may be the case in verse 9: “Its fat” may be a summary category that is then broken down into “fat tail, tat on the entrails, fat on the entrails, kidneys and fat, and lobe of the liver” (9-10). Is that five or six portions? Possibly six, but seems more likely that it’s five. In verses 14-15, the same list is given – fat covering entrails, fat on entrails, kidneys with fat, liver. There is no reference to the fat tail (goat tails are not fat), and there is no general term “fat.” But this ends with a warning that “all the fat is Yahweh’s (v. 16). That seems to be an inclusive term covering all the parts that are covered with fat and that have fat on or in them.

That conclusion is borne out by later uses in Leviticus. In 4:8, the priest is to remove fat of the bull of the sin offering, and then that is listed out as the fat covering the entrails, the fat on the entrails, the liver and the kidneys. “Fat” becomes shorthand for the portions that have been placed on the altar in the hattat offering. By the end of the chapter, “fat” is being used as shorthand for all the altar-portions of the hattat (4:19, 26, 35).The portions turned to smoke as a Noahroma are called “fat.” That’s what the Lord consumes.

Now why would the Lord alone consume it? Several possibilities. First, fat is a covering, like the cloud covers Sinai (Exodus 24:16) and then the tent of meeting (40:34), like the linen breeches that hide the flesh of the priests (28:42). In Leviticus, the verb usually refers to the fat that covers the inner parts, but a few times of leprosy covering the body (13:12-13), once of incense that covers the mercy seat that the high priest may not die (16:13), and once of earth that covers blood of a slaughtered animal (17:13). 

Fat is a covering, a clothing, a heavy glory. The layer of fat “covers” the inner parts, and then there is fat that is “on” the inner parts. Fat is like a second layer of skin. After the skin has been stripped, the inner parts are still not visible because of the thick layer of fat. Perhaps the Lord consumed the fat because it is the heaviness, the glory, of the animal.

We might also note the direct link between ishsheh and fat in Leviticus 3:9. As I noted last week, this word arguably connotes bridal food, wedding food, and is associated with the bride herself, the ishshah who is brought Adam the ish. The fat is the bridal food of the peace offerings, also of the hattat and asham. And perhaps we can put these together: The woman is the glory of the man, and thus represented in the sacrificial system by the covering of fat and the inner organs associated with it. This is the glory of the animal, which is to be consumed only by Yahweh.