Leviticus 3 specifies the third of the five offering-types: the zevach shelamim , the peace offering. Unlike the olah (entirely burned) and the minchah (memorial portion burned, rest to priests), the shelamim is the shared-meal sacrifice — portions for God (the fat), portions for the priest (the breast and right thigh, per Leviticus 7:31–34↗), and portions for the offerer’s family (the remainder, eaten as a communal meal before the LORD).
The peace offering from the herd, flock, and goats (3:1-16). The chapter’s structure parallels Lev 1: herd (3:1-5), lambs (3:6-11), goats (3:12-16). For each: male or female (the gender-flexibility is distinctive — the olah of Lev 1 required males), without blemish, hand laid on the head, killed at the door of the tent, blood sprinkled on the altar. The chapter specifies precisely what is burned on the altar — not the whole animal but specific portions: “the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver.” The burned portion is called “the food of the offering made by fire… a sweet savour” (3:5, 11, 16) — the LORD’s portion of the shared meal.
The fat-and-blood prohibition (3:17). The chapter’s closing verse installs the OT’s most universal dietary prohibition: “It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.” The fat belongs to the LORD; the blood is “the life of the flesh” — a principle Leviticus 17:11↗ will articulate explicitly: the blood-life is what makes atonement, and so eating blood would consume what is reserved for atonement. The blood-prohibition is one of the OT’s most consequential single requirements; the Jerusalem Council’s letter at Acts 15:20↗ retains the blood-prohibition as one of the four requirements for Gentile converts.
Language & Translation Notes
The shelamim as the OT’s sacrifice of communion. Leviticus 3’s peace offering is unique among the sacrifices in that the offerer eats from it. Portions go three ways: to the LORD (the fat burned on the altar), to the priest (the breast and the right thigh, specified at Leviticus 7:31–34↗), and to the offerer’s family or community (the remainder, eaten as a meal before the LORD). The shared-meal structure makes the shelamim the OT’s deepest single image of cultic-relational wholeness — God, priest, and worshipper sharing portions of the same animal at the same time. Standard commentaries (Milgrom, Levine) note the shelamim as the OT’s most explicit sacrifice-of-fellowship. Paul invokes the same vocabulary at 1 Corinthians 10:18↗ (“Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”) in his discussion of the Lord’s table. The shared-meal logic the chapter installs is the OT taproot of the NT eucharistic / sacramental theology — the believer’s communion with Christ and with the body of Christ through the shared cup and bread.
The fat-and-blood prohibition and the NT continuation. Leviticus 3:17’s prohibition on eating fat or blood is the OT’s most universal single dietary restriction — “a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings.” The fat-prohibition (specifically the chelev / suet around the kidneys and liver) restricts what belongs to the LORD as His portion of the shared meal. The blood-prohibition is grounded in Leviticus 17:11↗‘s atonement-theology: the blood is the life of the flesh, and the life makes atonement; eating blood would consume what is reserved for atoning function. The blood-prohibition is one of the OT’s earliest commands (Genesis 9:4↗ — given to Noah before any specifically Mosaic legislation) and is one of the Jerusalem Council’s four retained requirements for Gentile converts (Acts 15:20↗, 29). The fat-prohibition does not transfer into NT practice; the blood-prohibition is one of the few specifically-Mosaic provisions the early church retained.