No grain offering, which you shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for you shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Without leaven or honey. No leaven or honey was to be used in the sacrifice offered to God: to signify that we are to exclude from the pure worship of the gospel, all double-dealing and affection to carnal pleasures. (Challoner)
The prohibition of leaven regarded these sacrifices. It was offered with the first-fruits, (chap. xxiii. 17,) and perhaps also in peace-offerings, chap. vii. 13. Honey is here rejected, as incompatible with the other ingredients, to admonish us to lead a penitential life, and to keep at a greater distance from the customs of the pagans, who generally accompanied their oblations with honey, Ezechiel xvi. 18. Herodotus (B. ii.) says, the Egyptians used honey in sacrifice. (Calmet)
By unleavened bread, the Hebrews were reminded of their flight out of Egypt; and by refraining from honey, they were taught to act like men. (Menochius)
Under no circumstances is there an offering of honey. “Whatever happens,” it says, “will be impure.” Honey is a sign of pleasure and sweetness, and believe me, sensual pleasure always brings death; sensuality as such is never pleasing to God.
They quote the passage which says that “the lips of a strange woman drop as honeycomb,” which is sweet indeed in the eater’s mouth but is afterward found more bitter than gall. This, they argue, is the reason that neither honey nor wax is offered in the sacrifices of the Lord, and that oil, the product of the bitter olive, is burned in his temple.
Without leaven: No leaven nor honey was to be used in the sacrifice offered to God; to signify that we are to exclude from the pure worship of the gospel, all double dealing and affection to carnal pleasures.
