What Is in Its Name
In this article I continue my exposition of the law for the peace offering (or shelamim in the original Hebrew) that God legislated at Mount Sinai and recorded in Leviticus 3 and 7:11–36. Since the previous article was several months ago, let us refresh our memories about the main significance of this bloody offering in light of its name.
Peace offering is how most of the older English Bible versions have translated this Hebrew name, following the precedent of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. However, an exact rendering for shelamim is nearly impossible because of its rich meaning and plentiful connotations; consequently, it has been translated a number of different ways. Following the example of Josephus, Luther called it the thank offering. Modern English versions have called it the fellowship offering (NIV) or the sacrifice of well-being (NRSV). Various biblical scholars have also suggested names such as saving offering, restitution offering, payment offering, finishing offering, or offering of blessedness.1
Peace offering is a far preferable name than some of these translations. As we observed last time, this bloody sacrifice was principally the revelation of an unshakable state of peace between God and his church. The peace offering functioned as a means whereby God emphatically announced from heaven that he is immutably and eternally at peace with his church through the precious blood of his lamb.
In this connection let us also remember that the peace offering was inseparably related to the other three bloody sacrifices prescribed at Sinai, namely, the burnt, sin, and trespass offerings. The relationship between these four bloody sacrifices had its source in God’s decree concerning the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. By the lively power of this eternal and heavenly decree, God stamped these four bloody sacrifices into the earthly substance of the old dispensation as a single, fleeting pattern of what he would accomplish in the fullness of time at Calvary through his Son, Jesus Christ. More specifically, God formed these four sacrifices as visible representations of the holy and divine doctrine of vicarious satisfaction.
Vicarious satisfaction stands at the heart of the gospel’s glad tidings. Vicarious satisfaction speaks first about God—God who is faithful to himself, God who never relinquishes his just demand for men to love and serve him perfectly from the heart, and God who maintains his justice by punishing sinners with everlasting punishment in body and soul. Vicarious satisfaction also speaks about ungodly but elect sinners—sinners who enter this world bearing Adam’s guilt, since they willingly departed from God in Adam and became hostile against God; sinners who receive Adam’s punishment as they are shaped in their mothers’ wombs and are conceived in sin; sinners who can only daily increase their debts to God by every thought and word and deed; but sinners who were foreknown of God in love and predestinated unto salvation. And vicarious satisfaction brings to light how God justly and mercifully delivers these ungodly but elect sinners from their miserable state of enmity against him through the obedient suffering of a mediator that God eternally appointed as their new head, so that they are again received into God’s favor.
Since the peace offering was one of four bloody offerings that constituted this visible representation of vicarious satisfaction, it had a prominent place in the oratorio of Old Testament types and shadows that heralded God’s gospel. Whenever the peace offering delivered its own particular aria, what God’s ungodly but elect sinners heard was that vicarious satisfaction changed their judicial state from one of guilt to one of righteousness, so that they were not the proper objects of God’s wrath but of God’s favor. What God spoke to his church through the peace offering was this: “Because I have nothing against you—I charge you with no fault and declare that you have fulfilled all righteousness—your relationship with me is characterized by peace. I am not your enemy but your friend. I am not ashamed to call you my sons and daughters.” This divine word of the peace offering became that sublime chorus heard by shepherds in the field: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). This divine word of the peace offering finds ultimate fulfillment in the glorious ministry of reconciliation that God has committed to the apostolic church, which proclaims that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Cor. 5:19).
Indeed, peace offering is an excellent translation for shelamim.
Yet I can appreciate certain other English translations for shelamim, especially its rendering as the fellowship offering. Peace and fellowship are not only significant theological connotations of the Hebraic root for shelamim, but also the two are an inseparable pair in scripture. Fellowship always assumes peace, and peace always implies fellowship.
These two are an inseparable pair because of who God is. God is himself the God of peace absolutely. He is the God of peace as the living God. He is the God of peace as three divine and eternally distinct persons subsisting in one only simple and spiritual being of infinite perfection and goodness. He is the God of peace in the perfect harmony of thought, will, affection, and purpose that he shares within his covenant life. He is the God of peace as Father and Son dwelling together in the perfect consecration of the Holy Spirit. He is the God of peace as Son being in the bosom and sweet embrace of the Father. And when the God of all peace makes peace with men, then his purpose is to have fellowship with them.
The shelamim not only functioned as a means whereby God testified to ungodly but elect sinners that he was at peace with them, but it also further instructed Israel that God makes peace in order to bring his people into the holy fellowship of his covenant. We considered last time how this fellowship was brought to the foreground by the law’s requirement for a meal. The peace offering was the only bloody sacrifice where the Israelite was able to eat the flesh of the animal that he brought to God’s altar. In fact the law specifically required the Israelite to eat this meal in God’s presence, as if seated at the table of God’s house. The shelamim testified that fellowship with God is the telos of vicarious satisfaction. Covenant fellowship is vicarious satisfaction’s end and purpose.
Moreover, the meal of shelamim vividly illustrated God’s promise to bring his church into the highest degree of fellowship. When God makes peace with ungodly but elect sinners, he does not restore them simply to their original estate in Adam. He does not lead them back into Eden. Rather, when God makes peace with his people, then he brings them all the way to his sanctuary in heaven. And God accomplished this by the sending of his only-begotten Son, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. The wonder of grace is that God himself became the true peace offering. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). And since this Lord from glory joined himself personally and everlastingly to our human nature and made satisfaction of God’s justice in the body that God had prepared for him, his proper and natural body is the true meal of shelamim, and all who feast on his flesh are lifted up to have fellowship with God in heavenly places.
Indeed, fellowship offering unfolds more of shelamim’s richness. Whenever we read of the peace offering in our English Bible version, we must keep this idea of fellowship in mind.
I can also appreciate how shelamim has been rendered as the finishing offering, although I would prefer finished offering.
My interest in this translation, however, may be different than that of whoever suggested it. Perhaps finishing offering was originally suggested because it adheres more closely to the strict lexical meaning of the Hebraic root for shelamim than peace offering or fellowship offering. Indeed, the most basic semantic idea behind shelamim is to be complete. But anyone who insists that finishing offering is the most literal translation of shelamim must also admit that peace and fellowship are its most significant theological connotations. Perhaps finishing offering was originally suggested because the shelamim was always the last of the bloody sacrifices to be offered. When multiple kinds of sacrifices were offered upon God’s altar, then the shelamim with its meal finished the succession of bloody offerings.
Although these things are true, my interest in translating shelamim as the finished offering is that it positively underscores the perfect sufficiency of Christ’s satisfaction. By vicarious satisfaction God’s people are made to sit in heavenly places together with Jesus Christ. By vicarious satisfaction God’s people have fellowship with him, have eternal life before his face, and have every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Finished offering echoes that victorious cry heard at the cross of Calvary: “It is finished!” Finished offering embodies our Reformed confession that we do not “seek or invent any other means of being reconciled to God than this only sacrifice, once offered, by which believers are made perfect forever” (Belgic Confession 21, in Confessions and Church Order, 49). The shelamim functioned as a means whereby God testified to ungodly but elect sinners not only that he is at peace with them, that he makes peace in order to have holy fellowship with them, but also that peace and fellowship are complete in Christ.
Therefore, finished offering also negatively underscores that there is absolutely nothing man must do for peace and fellowship with God. Finished offering stands over against every corruption of vicarious satisfaction and all displacing of the perfect sufficiency of Christ’s satisfaction for salvation. The name finished offering testifies against the entire theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches. It testifies against her 2018 synodical formula for how a person enjoys peace and fellowship with God, which formula insists that the cross is not enough but that one must also be a good person who walks in the way of obedience. It testifies against her insistence that the forgiveness of sins was not accomplished at the cross and that an elect child of God can be unforgiven. It testifies against her bold avowal or weak allowance for the teaching that “if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.”
It is finished! By one offering God’s lamb made his people perfect forever. Whenever we read of the peace offering in our English Bible version, we must keep this idea in mind as well.
I can also appreciate how some have rendered shelamim as the offering of blessedness. For another important doctrine of the peace offering was how God’s relationship of peace with his church powerfully comprehends, permeates, and fills the church’s entire existence. The God of all peace is also omnipotent and sovereign, so that when he is at peace with you—having nothing against you, beholding you in his favor, and dwelling in a relationship of friendship toward you—then he also sovereignly and infallibly takes every last particle in creation and every last event in time and causes all things to serve your advantage and salvation. Upon this blessed reality I will devote this present article.
And where must I begin to show how God signified this blessed reality? In its name, shelamim!
A Mighty Word of Blessing
When God named the peace offering, he used the plural shelamim rather than the singular shelem. Since the names of the other Levitical sacrifices are singular, this plural form is yet another distinguishing peculiarity of the peace offering. What is the significance of this plural?
Does this plural form indicate simple numerical plurality? This is certainly possible. It is possible that God named this offering with a plural form because he legislated more than one kind of peace offering. The Israelites received from God three species of peace offering at Sinai—thanksgiving offering (Lev. 7:12) and vow and freewill offerings (v. 16)—that they were to bring on certain occasions. On what occasion the Israelite was required to bring any one of these kinds of peace offering is a matter we will consider shortly. What must be answered now is if these three species of peace offering explain the plural. It is also possible that God named this offering with a plural form because of the distinct fat portions that he required for his altar. Do the multiple fat portions that are specifically and repeatedly described in Leviticus 3 explain this plural form?
I do not believe that either of these suggestions are the answer. Rather, I am convinced that plurality is to be applied to the essential meaning of shelamim itself, so that the plural form conveys the fullness and blessedness of God’s peace as it powerfully comprehends, permeates, and fills his covenant and the church’s entire existence in his covenant.
In order to understand this, we must first note that the Hebrew plural can denote such an idea. Here is Gesenius’ Grammar on the various uses of the Hebrew plural:
The plural is by no means used in Hebrew solely to express a number of individuals or separate objects, but may also denote them collectively. This use of the plural expresses either (a) a combination of various external constituent parts (plurals of local extension), or (b) a more or less intensive focusing of the characteristics inherent in the idea of the stem (abstract plurals, usually rendered in English by forms in -hood, -ness, -ship). A variety of the plurals described under (b), in which the secondary idea of intensity or of an internal multiplication of the idea of the stem may be clearly seen, is (c) the pluralis excellentiae or pluralis maiestatis.2
In the words of Gesenius, the plural form of shelamim denotes “a more or less intensive focusing of the characteristics inherent in the idea of the stem,” especially that of “internal multiplication.” The plural expresses the fullness of peace and fellowship that vicarious satisfaction brings to God’s people. The plural expresses how God’s peace and fellowship affect the entire existence of God’s people. Or in the words of C. F. Keil, “The plural denotes the entire round of blessings and powers, by which the salvation or integrity of man in his relation to God is established and secured.”3
Yet what we must understand about shelamim is that it is not first of all the name of a Levitical sacrifice. Shelamim is revelatory of God’s living and eternal word that he speaks in his covenant to the elect. Shelamim is the divine benediction, “Peace be multiplied unto you.”
“Peace be multiplied unto you” contrasts with the natural state of man. Man outside of and apart from Jesus Christ has no peace between himself and the living God. When man in Adam rebelled against God, he became the enemy of God, and his relationship with God is enmity and hostility. And what is the living word of God that comes to man? “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked” (Isa. 48:22). “No peace!” is a terrible word. “No peace!” is the living word of God’s wrath. If you do not have peace with a man, then you can at least arm yourself when you go to war with him. But what can you do if you do not have peace with God? If you have war with God, this means that God in his whole infinite and almighty being stands against you. If you have war with God, then his word “no peace!” is a consuming fire that turns everything in your life and in all creation against you and brings you down into the pit of destruction. “No peace!” is the undying worm and the unquenchable fire of hell. “No peace!” is the punishment that Adam incurred upon the whole human race.
But what glad tidings did faith hear in the peace offering? The hearing of faith was this: “Shelamim! Peace be multiplied unto you.”
In the peace offering faith heard God speak. Faith heard God speak creatively. As the God of all peace, the peace of his covenant is entirely his creative work: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (Isa. 45:7). God is the Alpha and the Omega of the peace that he has with his church, so that he establishes that peace and assures of that peace and guards that peace and perfects that peace. “I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him” (Isa. 57:19). In the peace offering faith heard this living and true God speak “shelamim!”
In the peace offering faith also saw. Faith saw far beyond the earthly rituals and earthly sanctuary. Faith saw afar off what that creative word of blessing “shelamim!” would bring in the fullness of time. Faith saw “shelamim!” conceive a baby in the womb of a virgin. Faith saw Calvary, where “shelamim!” brought the cross into existence. Faith saw beyond Calvary and gazed upon an empty tomb. Faith saw the risen Lord, standing in the midst of his disciples on Sunday and blessing them with that triumphant benediction, “Peace be unto you. Shelamim!” Faith discerned that the word of God fulfilled all its own glad tidings and that God in Christ had reconciled the world unto himself. Faith perceived how God, who by no means acquits the guilty, forgives the iniquities and trespasses and sins of his ungodly but elect sinners.
And that faith received peace, so that when the priest said to the ungodly but elect Israelite, “Be reconciled!” faith responded, “I am! I am reconciled merely of grace and without any merit of mine. God has reconciled me to himself. He has made his lamb my peace!”
And being fully persuaded of peace, faith was also the profound and spiritual power by which a reconciled sinner heard that divine word “shelamim!” resound throughout all the heavens and all the earth and throughout every point in creation and throughout every moment of history. For faith also saw that risen Lord ascend far above all heavens that he might fill all things. Faith saw him justly endued with all power and authority to execute God’s counsel and to bring this earth out of the curse and to bring it into the peace of heaven. Faith saw that divine word operating upon angel and devil, sun and moon, famine and fatness, loss and gain, infirmity and strength, foe and friend, sword and plowshare, apostasy and reformation, things present and things to come, yea, even upon death and the grave. Faith saw that divine word powerfully bending every last thing to serve each elect as a living member of his promised seed. Faith saw that God’s word did not return to him void.
Shelamim! Peace be multiplied unto you! The peace of God’s covenant fellowship powerfully comprehends, permeates, and fills the church’s entire existence.
This grand reality of shelamim is what the Spirit expounds to us in Romans 8. Having already concluded from his doctrine of justification by faith alone that “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1), the apostle then puts forward this powerful question to the church: “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31–32). When God by his gospel announces that he has reconciled you to himself in Christ at the cross and when God causes that reality of the cross to dwell in your heart by the hearing of faith, then you must understand that all things—all things—are yours. All things work together for your good.
A Right Partaking of Creation
That God’s peace powerfully comprehends, permeates, and fills his covenant and the church’s entire existence in his covenant has important implications for how a reconciled sinner conducts himself in this sin-cursed world. One of these implications is how a reconciled sinner gratefully partakes of God’s creation according to this new relationship of friendship and fellowship with God. Thus the peace offering taught the Israelites to receive all things from God’s hand only through the blood of the peace offering, in order that they might recognize that not even the good things of this present creation could profit them apart from God’s blessing “shelamim!” The things of this earth must be enjoyed as gifts of mercy, granted at God’s table.
This truth was impressed upon Israel first through the extraordinary legislation of Leviticus 17:1–5:
1. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2. Speak unto Aaron, and unto his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them; This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, saying,
3. What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp,
4. And bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer an offering unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord; blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people:
5. To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest, and offer them for peace offerings unto the Lord.
During the wilderness sojourn, any slaughter of an ox, lamb, or goat—even if intended for domestic consumption—had to be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting and presented as a peace offering. This requirement was strictly enforced by inflicting the death sentence upon any transgressor, and God zealously taught his people that nothing in his covenant is common. Every meal of flesh had to be mediated through his altar.
What Israel was taught in the wilderness was essentially the instruction that we receive in Lord’s Day 50 regarding the fourth petition:
Q. 125. Which is the fourth petition?
A. Give us this day our daily bread; that is, be pleased to provide us with all things necessary for the body, that we may thereby acknowledge Thee to be the only fountain of all good, and that neither our care nor industry, nor even Thy gifts, can profit us without Thy blessing; and therefore that we may withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it alone in Thee. (Confessions and Church Order, 138)
Having accomplished its formative purpose, this particular requirement of the peace offering was abrogated when Israel entered Canaan, so that slaughter of domestic herd and flock animals was permitted at home (Deut. 12:15, 20–24). However, the truth that earthly sustenance must be enjoyed as a gift of mercy from God’s table remained in the ritual of waving and heaving.
I briefly mentioned last time that the law set aside the breast and right shoulder as portions of flesh for the priests to support their holy ministry in God’s sanctuary and that God required the priests to present the breast portion as a wave offering and the right shoulder as a heave offering prior to the eating of the peace offering’s flesh as a meal. Now we must consider how this waving and heaving stood in service of the peace offering’s testimony that God is at peace with his church. This requirement is mentioned in Leviticus 7:28–32:
28. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
29. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the Lord shall bring his oblation unto the Lord of the sacrifice of his peace offerings.
30. His own hands shall bring the offerings of the Lord made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.
31. And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but the breast shall be Aaron’s and his sons’.
32. And the right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings.
The first of these two kinetic gestures, the waving, was a swinging of horizontal movement like a saw or scythe. This waving occurred in other Levitical ceremonies besides the peace offering, most notably in the offering of the sheaf of firstfruits at the passover and also of the two large loaves at Pentecost. Thus its significance must be derived from the words “before the Lord” (Lev. 7:30) and harmonize with its other occurrences. The heaving was an upward movement to raise the portion of flesh on high, and its motion complemented the waving so that together the waving and heaving referred to God’s abode in the tabernacle amidst his people and in heaven above.
What is the truth that God signified by waving and heaving? George Ophoff has already answered this question, and since I agree with his interpretation, I will quote him at length:
[The flesh of the peace offering] was presented [to God] through the priest’s heaving, that is raising, not the whole of it but only one of its representative parts (the right shoulder) heavenward and in all probability also in a direction toward Jehovah’s throne that stood in the holiest place of the worldly sanctuary; and through this same priest’s waving, that is, moving to and fro, the other part. Now as the altar was the meeting-place between Jehovah and the worshipper, the clause “that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord” implies that this waving was done before the altar. So, what that rite under consideration plainly signified is that Israel’s food was the gift of its Redeemer-God that came from His altar, that thus what His people nourished their mortal frames with was the flesh of a victim that through its death had expiated (symbolically) their sins not only but had also rendered itself available as food to those whose sins had been expiated. If this flesh and the altar be regarded as one—and so they should be regarded—then it will be understood that the altar was Jehovah’s table, prepared by Him for His people through the death of a sacrifice which He Himself provided. Rightly considered, the truth set forth by the peace-offering, is that the people of Israel, as residents of Canaan, were always seated at Jehovah’s altar, and that whatever material gift He had bestowed was found upon this table and thus was and had to be received as a gift of mercy, as a gift that He prepared for His people through the death of His very own sacrifice. For with that right shoulder and with that breast is to be associated firstly, the rest of the carcass; secondly, all the first-born of the flocks, all the firstfruits, all the tithes of all the products of their fields and vineyards; and lastly, all that these firstfruits and tithes represented, namely, the entire yield of the soil and all their flocks and herds. That such is the right conception is evident from the following. The first-born of the herd and flocks had to be presented to Jehovah and, after having been properly sacrificed, shared with the dependent members of the community. Deut. 14:23–27. These first-born, as sacrificed, were thus peace-offerings. Further. All the first fruits and all the tithes brought by the people of Israel to the sanctuary, were placed by the officiating priest before Jehovah’s altar. And it was in the very presence of this altar that these gifts were partaken of. What else does this signify than that these offerings together with what they presented had to be regarded as gifts that the people of Israel received from Jehovah’s table.4
Thus the peace offering extended its instruction beyond a single sacrificial act: The entirety of Israel’s existence was to be received as a sanctified provision. In this light the apostolic teaching harmonizes perfectly: “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4–5). And as the apostle tells Timothy, to impose man-made prohibitions upon how one uses this earthly creation is a denial of reconciliation. Refusal to receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving betrays a lack of peace with him and manifests a bad conscience that is seared with a hot iron.
Yet we must also recognize that when the priest waved and heaved the breast and right shoulder as two representative parts of the whole peace offering, it was nothing less than the earthly pattern of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ—the true peace offering—consecrating himself unto God as the representative head of a new creation. He is the word shelamim made flesh. As both priest and sacrifice, he became obedient unto death; saved his people from their sins; arose as the firstborn from the dead; and being raised on high to the heavenly sanctuary, presented himself holy and acceptable unto God. In the power of the Spirit, he waved and heaved himself unto God, became heavenly, and received the promise of the Spirit, so that all fullness dwells in him. In him God reconciles the world unto himself, and only in him does one have the right to use creation. He is the word shelamim that sanctifies our daily bread.
Above all, he is the true meat of God’s table eternal in the heavens at which the redeemed are now and ever seated, eating his flesh and drinking his blood and so enjoying as the Father’s children the best things in his house.
Eating, they are satisfied.
And satisfied, they praise the Lord.
A Fitting Worship
That God’s peace powerfully comprehends, permeates, and fills his covenant and the church’s entire existence in his covenant has another important implication, namely, that the innumerable events and circumstances and relationships of this present life, though in itself is nothing but a valley of tears, must serve for the advantage of a reconciled sinner. When faith heard God speak in the peace offering, “Shelamim! Peace be multiplied unto you,” then faith responded,
38. I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38–39)
Such a confession is the worship that God reaps for himself when he speaks peace to ungodly but elect sinners and reconciles them to himself.
So greatly does God’s relationship of peace affect his church’s existence and so entirely does God’s relationship of peace govern the individual lives of the members of his church that not one but three kinds of peace offerings were instituted at Sinai, in order that Israel might rightly know God as the God of peace and sanctify, glorify, and praise him in all his works. These three kinds—or species—of peace offerings are mentioned in Leviticus 7:11–17:
11. And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the Lord.
12. If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried.
13. Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.
14. And of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for an heave offering unto the Lord, and it shall be the priest’s that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.
15. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall not leave any of it until the morning.
16. But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice: and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten:
17. But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.
This passage identifies the three kinds of peace offerings as the thanksgiving offering (v. 12) and the vow offering and voluntary offering (v. 16), but it does not tell us when or why an Israelite brought one kind over another. In order to answer this, we must take note of the names of the offerings and the contexts of when they are explicitly mentioned in scripture.
The thanksgiving offering is a translation of the Hebrew word todah and has the root idea of confessing, praising, and giving thanks to the name of God.5
Second Chronicles speaks twice of the thanksgiving offering, and both instances are in connection with God’s reform and restoration of true worship in Jerusalem. In chapter 19 we read of Hezekiah’s offering peace offerings after Ahaz had utterly decimated the worship. In chapter 33 we learn that after God had restored Manasseh in true repentance that Manasseh “repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel” (v. 16). This thanksgiving offering is also mentioned in Jeremiah 33:11 as the worship that God’s people will bring when God “will cause to return the captivity” to their native land.
The thanksgiving offering is frequently mentioned in the book of Psalms. What is especially noteworthy is that this kind of peace offering stands in the grammatical center and theological heart of Psalm 107. In the midst of the psalmist’s record about how God brings his fainting people into a city of habitation, breaks the bands off his miserable captives, delivers his wayward sinners from their miserable paths of destruction, calms the terrible seas that melt the hearts of his seagoers, and brings the wicked low and exalts the poor, the psalmist then declares,
21. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
22. And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
From these passages of scripture, we can see that the thanksgiving offering was associated with God’s gracious deliverances of his miserable people, especially as he brings them low and then lifts them up. The thanksgiving offering worshiped God as the one who brings ungodly but elect sinners to repentance and restores them unto himself because he has eternally willed that they be at peace with him.
In the book of Psalms, the thanksgiving offering also is often connected with the second species of peace offering, the neder, or vow, offering. God says in Psalm 50:14–15,
14. Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
15. And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
In Psalm 116 the psalmist acknowledges that God delivered his soul from the sorrows of death and pains of hell unto its rest and declares,
17. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
18. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. (vv. 17–18)
Vow offerings stand behind the oft-stated refrain in scripture: “Pay thy vows unto God,” which the parallelism of Proverbs 7:14 makes clear: “I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.” Vows were what ungodly sinners cried to God in the day of crisis, being fully persuaded that God, notwithstanding the sinner’s unworthiness, would hear and deliver the sinner for the sake of the promised peace offering. Vows were made with eyes fixed upon the truth of the peace offering. And when God delivered his people as he had promised, the vow offering became a public confession: “God has dealt with me in peace and faithfulness. All things come not by chance but by his fatherly hand.” This idea of a vow offering is vividly illustrated in Jonah 2, where the rebellious prophet prayed from the belly of the fish and said, “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord” (v. 9).
The last kind of peace offering was called nedabah, or voluntary offering. What explains its name is that the Israelite offered willingly according as God had blessed him. Proof of this is found in Deuteronomy 16, where God required the men of Israel to come to the temple for three annual feasts “with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee” (v. 10; see also vv. 16–17). Since God dispenses of his gifts as he wills, God made special provision for the poor to bring a voluntary offering of an animal that had “any thing superfluous or lacking in parts” (Lev. 22:23).
The voluntary offering was a humble and joyful acknowledging of God as the overflowing fountain of goodness who distributes of his own things to his people. This is what David confessed before the congregation of Israel after a voluntary offering was collected for the first temple:
11. Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.
12. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all.
13. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.
14. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. (1 Chron. 29:11–14)
In sum, these three kinds of peace offerings afforded Israel the same advantageous knowledge that we confess in Lord’s Day 10:
That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from His love; since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move. (Confessions and Church Order, 94)
Next time, the Lord willing, I will conclude my consideration of the peace offering by examining its antithetical nature.
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