Leviticus 19:5

"And when ye offer a sacrifice of peace-offerings unto Jehovah, ye shall offer it that ye may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day ye offer it, and on the morrow: and if aught remain until the third day, it shall be burnt with fire. And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is an abomination; it shall not be accepted: but every one that eateth it shall bear his iniquity, because he hath profaned the holy thing of Jehovah: and that soul shall be cut off from his people. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am Jehovah your God."

d. Concern for the poor.

This is one paragraph, not two, because the whole thing relates to sharing one's possessions with the poor, the unfortunate, and the sojourner. The connection with the peace-offering is this: Since those who offered such offerings were privileged to eat them, it was a constant temptation for the offerers to restrict the participants to close friends and family, thus extending their banquet a day or two beyond the allotted time; whereas, they were supposed to invite the poor and others in need to share the feast and finish it on the first day (preferably), but certainly no longer than two days later. In exactly the same spirit, the owners of orchards and vineyards and grainfields were forbidden to squeeze the last ounce of produce from their possessions, but were commanded to leave some for the poor, the sojourner and the needy. There was no need then (nor is there now) for men to exhibit the type of stinginess that was forbidden here.

"Ye shall offer it that it may be accepted ..." (Leviticus 19:5). Orlinsky stated that the true rendition of this place is: "Offer it so that it may be accepted."[9] This makes the whole passage clear. It means that when one offered a peace-offering to God, then he should not try to eat all of it himself! If one did that, he was offering it so that it would not be accepted.

In view of the basic benevolence and humanity which lie behind this paragraph, how distressing it is that some expositors, who never can find Jesus Christ anywhere in the O.T., find all kinds of demons and pagan gods and goddesses almost anywhere they look. Lofthouse, for example, wrote of the "spirits of vegetation" and the "corn spirits" that people sought to feed and appease by not stripping their fields![10] Clements wrote of the "spirits of the fields and of the vineyards."[11] The sacred commandments here have no connection with such things, but they relate to God's concern for the poor and needy. Compare Deuteronomy 24:19-21, where olives are included in the instructions.