Hunger aplenty. Many of us who go day by day in hunger, and perhaps also in poverty. Those who have medical, physiological or other needs might choose not to eat, or prefer to fast, perhaps also for a range of additional personal, social, familiar or ideological reasons.
Food, shortage of it.
Leviticus 6:26: here, the words are part of a set of instructions specifically focusing on sin offering, and what the priest ought to do as food. The interpretation of the text implies that the priest and his immediate family take part in the eating of the slaughtered animal. Carrying our sacrificial duties is the wholesome responsibility of the priests; they would do nothing else, they might even have had barely energy or time for anything else, except to rest and gain back energy.
With regard to the food, it can be assumed that the amount is not little – since those offering sacrifice (and requiring to do so) were far more than the number of priests. We can say, in a very general sence, that the priests did not suffer from hunger.
This verse has a particular emphasis on food that reminds us that food, and all that we need, is from God. Only the priests (and their immediate) family were allowed to eat the meat, and must be done within the sanctuary area. This might give a sense the priests are in an “exclusive club”; however, their portion ought to be for them. And since the meat had been offered for sacrifice, going back to the general population will make the offering rather null and void, or, at least, without meaning. This might also be a point of contrast between their God and other gods during the time; where the meat following sacrifice shall remain in the holy sanctuary, and for the priests.
Today, our concern might be about ethical sources of food, where it is from, how it is produced, if it is animal – whether it suffered, how many calories, sell- or use-by date (to show or not to show), and so on. Some of us are probably so taken up by such issues as they adopt a meat-free or meat-reduced forms of diet. We might start our own planting of vegetables.
We have been distracted, haven’t we?
God provides all that we need.
What did God tell us in caring for the world?