Leviticus 7:11 opens with an explicit resumptive formula — "this is the law (tôrâ, H8451) of the peace offering (šəlāmîm, H8002)" — reaching back to the ritual prescribed in Leviticus 3, where the fat portions are burned as "an offering made by fire, a pleasing aroma to the LORD" (rêaḥ nîḥôaḥ, H7381 + H5207). One correction is needed before the connection can be stated honestly: Leviticus 7:11-15 does not itself contain the phrase rêaḥ nîḥôaḥ. Verified at the Reference Bible shelf, the aroma formula belongs to Leviticus 3:5; Leviticus 7 supplies something different — the tôdâ, the thanksgiving offering (H8426), with its unleavened cakes, its wafers, and its one strange, binding rule: "the meat of the sacrifice of his peace offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day he offers it; none of it may be left until morning" (7:15). That rule is the point. The peace offering is the only sacrifice the worshipper eats, and the thanksgiving version of it cannot be rationed. A whole animal, no refrigeration, and a single day — which means the offerer physically cannot consume it alone. Gratitude in Israel was engineered so that it had to be spent, immediately, on a table full of other people. The aroma of Leviticus 3 ascends to God; the meat of Leviticus 7 goes horizontal, into a crowd, before sundown. This is what the two chapters together establish and what the rest of the canon carries forward: thanks that God accepts is thanks that cannot be hoarded. The Psalms make the tôdâ the offering God actually wants (Psalm 50:14, 23; 116:17); Hebrews makes it the church's continual liturgy — "a sacrifice of praise" joined in the same breath to the charge "to do good and to share with others" (Hebrews 13:15-16), which is Leviticus 7:15 restated. And it lands where the Supper stands: a meal that is thanksgiving, that is fellowship, that cannot be eaten by yourself, and whose whole content is a Peace Offering already given. The fat went up so that the feast could go round; joy in God has always been the sort of thing that spills.
