Commentaria in Exodum
“And thou shalt sanctify both the consecrated breast, and the shoulder which thou hast separated of the ram.” A general law is here laid down concerning the peace-offering, not because it is offered here for the consecration of the priests, but concerning all that they were henceforth to offer: let them give both to the priests, as the priests themselves in this their sacrifice gave both to God. “Thou shalt sanctify,” therefore, that is, set apart and dedicate to me and my ministers the breast of the victim, and therefore it shall be holy, and sanctified by this offering made to the priests. In Hebrew it is: thou shalt sanctify, or consecrate to me, the breast of the tenuphah, and the shoulder of the terumah, which was waved, and which was lifted on high for Aaron and his sons.
Do the rites of terumah and tenuphah differ?
Where note: the offering or victim of tenuphah is that which was lifted up to God with a certain rite by a waving of the hands toward all the quarters of the world, as I said the Hebrews relate, verse 24. The offering of terumah, however, is distinguished from tenuphah by some in this way, that terumah is an offering moving from above downward and waved; but tenuphah is an offering toward the four quarters of the world. But St. Jerome does not distinguish these two, and always renders terumah as separation, whereby, namely, the victim was separated from profane uses and offered to God. So also the Septuagint render terumah by a word meaning a setting apart, and the Chaldee aphrascutha, that is, separation, from the root parash, that is, he separated, although the word terumah literally is the same as lifting up, from the root rum, that is, he lifted up; for hence it is called terumah, as if you said an offering, or something to be lifted, which is lifted, taken up, and offered to God. The sense, therefore, is: the breast of the lifting up, and the shoulder of the lifting up, which thou hast lifted up and offered to me with solemn rite, the same (not in number, but in kind) thou shalt receive from the children of Israel, when they themselves offer their own peace-offerings to me.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, part 2 of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 3: The priest receives from the people the breast and the right shoulder, he says, that he may remember that he owes to God his breast, that he may think nothing but what is right; and the right arm, that, despising most bravely all things prosperous and adverse, he may generously perform what belongs to God, that in him may be true that saying of Julius Caesar in Sallust’s Catiline: “In the highest fortune, there is the least licence.”
So did, among others, St. Charles Borromeo, who spared no labour, no austerity, no danger, to promote the glory of God and the salvation of his people; and so much did he wish to die in such labours, counting such a death a gain. Whence he replied thus to the Archbishop of Valencia, who warned him to spare himself and not to waste his life by excessive labours and penances: “But if, while work is done for the Church, for which Christ endured a most bitter death, there be a loss of strength, which must in any case be weakened, and of life, which must in any case perish, this is to be reckoned as the greatest gain and profit. It is the part of too delicate a man, not to say of a bishop, to be held back from the administration and care of his office, than which there is none greater, none more excellent, either by concern for his health or deterred by the fear of death.” The author of his Life is witness, book 8, chapter 21.
St. Silverius, Pontiff and Martyr, driven by Belisarius from Augusta Eutychiana to the island of Pontia, writes thus to Bishop Amator: “I am sustained by the bread of tribulation and the water of distress, yet I have not abandoned, nor do I abandon, my office.” Whence in the same place, a council being gathered, he condemned Eutyches, and, worn out by hardships, died a martyr.
St. John Chrysostom, driven into exile for the freedom with which he censured vices, when he suffered both the discomforts of the journey by night and the ambushes of the Isaurians, and a violent fever, vomiting, headaches, loathing of food, and other most grievous things, wrote thus, epistle 130: “I am not cast down or disturbed by siege, nor by the incursions of robbers, nor by the solitude of the place, nor by the crowd of six hundred adverse chances, but I enjoy great security and peace.”
Again, the layman ought to offer to the priest, the inferior to his superior, the breast, that is, a will full of humility and obedience; and the shoulder or arm, most ready to bear the burdens imposed by him. Obedience therefore owes both the breast and the arm, nor does one suffice without the other, because neither the will alone, nor the execution of the work enjoined alone, but both must be offered, namely a ready will running and leaping to the work commanded.
“Because they are the firstfruits and the beginnings of their peace-offerings, which they offer to the Lord,” as if to say: From the peace-offering the breast and right shoulder shall fall in the first place to the priest, because these are the first parts, which at the beginning are separated from the peace-offering for God, and in God’s name are offered to the priest, and therefore these parts are the noblest. For the greatest nobility and dignity of them is that they are first set apart for God, and in God’s stead offered to the priest; then, second, he who from the people offers the peace-offering receives the remaining portion of it.
Verse 29. “And the holy vesture, which Aaron useth, his sons shall have after him, that they may be anointed in it, and their hands consecrated,” as if to say: The vestments of the high priest, assigned to holy uses, when the father high priest is dead, the elder son who will succeed his father in the pontificate shall receive, that clothed in them he may be anointed and consecrated high priest, lest anyone think that the high priest, when he dies, is to be buried in his pontifical vestments, and that new pontifical vestments are to be made for the successor son. So Eleazar his son, Aaron being dead, was clothed in the vestments of Aaron, Numbers 20:26.
Note: this anointing and consecration of the new high priest, after the death of Moses, was done by one of the lesser priests; for there was no greater one who could consecrate him. So among us the Roman pontiff is consecrated by the Bishop of Ostia. So Abulensis.
Verse 30. “Seven days shall he use it (the sacred vestment), who shall be appointed high priest in his stead.”
By the number seven, as a full number, the consecration of the priest was completed; for during those seven days daily anointings were made, and likewise offerings and expiations of the altar, as a ceremony of consecration, as is plain from verse 35 and following; nor could the priest to be consecrated depart from the tabernacle during those seven days, Leviticus 8:33. All these things were done in order that the authority and sanctity of the priesthood might be the more illustrious.
Verses 31 and 32. “But thou shalt take the ram of consecration, and boil the flesh thereof in the holy place: and Aaron and his sons shall eat it,” as if to say: the remaining flesh of this peace-offering, namely of the ram offered in the consecration of the priests (for its shoulder was burned to God, and the breast God had commanded to be given to Moses as consecrator), “thou shalt boil in the holy place,” not on the altar, but beside it in the holy court, which was before the tabernacle, where the flesh of the peace-offering was wont to be boiled with fire taken from the altar. So Cajetan.
32. And the priests shall eat the loaves that are in the basket, and the cakes that remain in the basket; for the wafers with the loaves and cakes laid upon the hands of the priests had already been burnt, verse 25. Therefore not all the loaves that were in the basket were laid upon the hands of the priests, but a portion remained in it for the offerers, which is now ordered to be eaten by the same.
33. THAT IT MAY BE A PLACABLE SACRIFICE.—The Hebrew has: “by which,” namely by the loaves, “atonement was made,” that is, by which Aaron was expiated and the divinity appeased. Our version looked to the end of the sacrifice, which is understood in the Hebrew: for the new priests, who here are the offerers, are commanded to eat the peace-offering flesh by which atonement was made, that the sacrifice may be placable, or that God may show Himself appeased by this sacrifice, since He admits them so kindly to His table, that is, to His victims, as invited guests.
AND THAT THE HANDS OF THE OFFERERS MAY BE SANCTIFIED.—That is, that by the touch of this holy food, and by this ceremony and holy banquet, their hands may in a manner be the more consecrated and sanctified.