20 The priest shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering before Yahweh, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to Yahweh for the priest.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
When living creatures were "waved" Leviticus 7:30 before Yahweh, it is said that they were led to and fro before the tabernacle according to an established form.
And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits [for] a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD for the (i) priest.
(i) That is, offered to the Lord, and the rest should be for the priest.
And the priests shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits,.... The two loaves called the two wave loaves, Leviticus 23:17; with which were waved the two lambs of the peace offerings; and these alive, as Jarchi and Ben Gersom intimate. The Jewish doctors (z) dispute, whether, in waving, the lambs were put above the bread, or the bread above the lambs; which some reconcile by observing, that the bread was put by the side of the lambs:
for a wave offering before the Lord; being waved this way and that way, upwards and downwards, and towards the several quarters of the world, showing that the fruits of the earth were owing to the providential goodness of God everywhere:
with the two lambs; not that all the above sacrifices were waved, or any part of them, along with the lambs, but the wave loaves, and they were waved together, as one wave offering to the Lord:
they shall be holy to the Lord for the priests; both the loaves and the lambs, these were separated and devoted wholly to the Lord, and to be eaten by his priests; the peace offerings of a single person were light holy things, as Jarchi says; but the peace offerings of the congregation, as these were, are the most holy things, and so to be eaten only by the priests, and by the males only, in the court of the tabernacle.
(z) In Torat Cohenim, apud Yalkut in loc.
"The priest shall wave them (the two lambs of the peace-offerings), together with the loaves of the first-fruits, as a wave-offering before Jehovah; with the two lambs (the two just mentioned), they (the loaves) shall be holy to Jehovah for the priest." In the case of the peace-offerings of private individuals, the flesh belonged for the most part to the offerer; but here, in the case of a thank-offering presented by the congregation, it was set apart for the priest. The circumstance, that not only was a much more bountiful burnt-offering prescribed than in the offerings of the dedicatory sheaf at the commencement of harvest (Leviticus 23:12), but a sin-offering and peace-offering also, is to be attributed to the meaning of the festival itself, as a feast of thanksgiving for the rich blessing of God that had just been gathered in. The sin-offering was to excite the feeling and consciousness of sin on the part of the congregation of Israel, that whilst eating their daily leavened bread they might not serve the leaven of their old nature, but seek and implore from the Lord their God the forgiveness and cleansing away of their sin. Through the increased burnt-offering they were to give practical expression to their gratitude for the blessing of harvest, by a strengthened consecration and sanctification of all the members of the whole man to the service of the Lord; whilst through the peace-offering they entered into that fellowship of peace with the Lord to which they were called, and which they were eventually to enjoy through His blessing in their promised inheritance. In this way the whole of the year's harvest was placed under the gracious blessing of the Lord by the sanctification of its commencement and its close; and the enjoyment of their daily food was also sanctified thereby. For the sake of this inward connection, the laws concerning the wave-sheaf and wave-loaves are bound together into one whole; and by this connection, which was established by reckoning the time for the feast of Weeks from the day of the dedication of the sheaf, the two feasts were linked together into an internal unity. The Jews recognised this unity from the very earliest times, and called the feast of Pentecost Azqereth (Greek, Ἀσαρθά), because it was the close of the seven weeks (see at Leviticus 23:36; Josephus, Ant. iii. 10).
(Note: A connection between the feast of Pentecost and the giving of the law, which Maimonides (a.d. † 1205) was the first to discover, is not only foreign to the Mosaic law, but to the whole of the Jewish antiquity; and even Abarbanel expressly denies it.)
Wave them - Some part of them in the name of the whole; and so for the two lambs, otherwise they had been too big and too heavy, to be waved. For the priests - Who had to themselves not only the breast and shoulder as in others, which belonged to the priest, but also the rest which belonged to the offerer; because the whole congregation being the offerer here, it could neither be distributed to them all, nor given to some without offence to the rest.
*More commentary available at chapter level.