Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

The presentation of the minchah "made of these things," i.e., of the different kinds of pastry mentioned in Lev 2:4-7, resembled in the main that described in Lev 2:1-3. The מן הרים in Lev 2:9 corresponds to the מן קמץ in Lev 2:2, and does not denote any special ceremony of heaving, as is supposed by the Rabbins and many archaeological writers, who understand by it a solemn movement up and down. This will be evident from a comparison of Lev 3:3 with Lev 4:8, Lev 4:31, Lev 4:35, and Lev 7:3. In the place of ממּנּוּ ירים in Lev 4:8 we find מזּבח הקריב in Lev 4:10, חלב חוּסר כּאשׁר חוּ in Lev 4:31 and Lev 4:35; so that מן הרים evidently denotes simply the lifting off or removal of those parts which were to be burned upon the altar from the rest of the sacrifice (cf. Bhr, ii. 357, and my Archologie i. p. 244-5). - In Lev 2:11-13 there follow two laws which were applicable to all the meat-offerings: viz., to offer nothing leavened (Lev 2:11), and to salt every meat-offering, and in fact every sacrifice, with salt (Lev 2:13). Every minchah was to be prepared without leaven: "for all leaven, and all honey, ye shall not burn a firing of it for Jehovah. As an offering of first-fruits ye may offer them (leaven and honey, i.e., pastry made with them) to Jehovah, but they shall not come upon the altar." Leaven and honey are mentioned together as things which produce fermentation. Honey has also an acidifying or fermenting quality, and was even used for the preparation of vinegar (Plin. h. n. 11, 15; 21, 14). In rabbinical writings, therefore, הדבישׁ signifies not only dulcedinem admittere, but corrumpsi, fermentari, fermentescere (vid., Buxtorf, lex. chald. talm. et rabb. p. 500). By "honey" we are to understand not grape-honey, the dibs of the Arabs, as Rashi and Bhr do, but the honey of bees; for, according to Ch2 31:5, this alone was offered as an offering of first-fruits along with corn, new wine, and oil; and in fact, as a rule, this was the only honey used by the ancients in sacrifice (see Bochart, Hieroz. iii. pp. 393ff.). The loaves of first-fruits at the feast of Weeks were leavened; but they were assigned to the priests, and not burned upon the altar (Lev 23:17, Lev 23:20). So also were the cakes offered with the vow-offerings, which were applied to the sacrificial meal (Lev 7:13); but not the shew-bread, as Knobel maintains (see at Lev 24:5.). Whilst leaven and honey were forbidden to be used with any kind of minchah, because of their producing fermentation and corruption, salt on the other hand was not to be omitted from any sacrificial offering. "Thou shalt not let the salt of the covenant of thy God cease from thy meat-offering," i.e., thou shalt never offer a meat-offering without salt. The meaning which the salt, with its power to strengthen food and preserve it from putrefaction and corruption, imparted to the sacrifice, was the unbending truthfulness of that self-surrender to the Lord embodied in the sacrifice, by which all impurity and hypocrisy were repelled. The salt of the sacrifice is called the salt of the covenant, because in common life salt was the symbol of covenant; treaties being concluded and rendered firm and inviolable, according to a well-known custom of the ancient Greeks (see Eustathius ad Iliad. i. 449) which is still retained among the Arabs, by the parties to an alliance eating bread and salt together, as a sign of the treaty which they had made. As a covenant of this kind was called a "covenant of salt," equivalent to an indissoluble covenant (Num 18:19; Ch2 13:5), so here the salt added to the sacrifice is designated as salt of the covenant of God, because of its imparting strength and purity to the sacrifice, by which Israel was strengthened and fortified in covenant fellowship with Jehovah. The following clause, "upon (with) every sacrificial gift of thine shalt thou offer salt," is not to be restricted to the meat-offering, as Knobel supposes, nor to be understood as meaning that the salt was only to be added to the sacrifice externally, to be offered with or beside it; in which case the strewing of salt upon the different portions of the sacrifice (Eze 43:24; Mar 9:49) would have been a departure from the ancient law. For korban without any further definition denotes the sacrificial offerings generally, the bleeding quite as much as the bloodless, and the closer definition of על הקריב (offer upon) is contained in the first clause of the verse, "season with salt." The words contain a supplementary rule which was applicable to every sacrifice (bleeding and bloodless), and was so understood from time immemorial by the Jews themselves (cf. Josephus, Ant. iii. 9, 1). (Note: The Greeks and Romans also regarded salt as indispensable to a sacrifice. Maxime in sacris intelligitur auctoritas salis, quando nulla conficiuntur sine mola salsa. Plin. h. n. 31, 7, (cf. 41).)