“I made peace offerings.” The Hebrew is highly idiomatic. The Hebrew sentence has no verb, and simply reads, “Peace offerings before me,” which meant she was for some reason obligated to offer a peace offering. The woman had offered her peace offering that day, so she had fresh meat at home for a feast. When a person offered a peace offering, they got to eat part of the meat, which was a blessing. The great majority of people did not eat much meat in the biblical culture. Most of the people were poor and did not have herds or flocks that were big enough to allow people to regularly kill and eat an animal. Also, there was no reliable way to preserve the meat in that hot and often humid climate, so any animal that was killed had to be eaten quickly.

Also, when an animal was killed for food for the family, it was usually an older animal that could no longer bear young, give milk, or support the herd and family in other ways, so the meat was often not the best quality. In contrast, the meat from sacrifices offered to God was choice meat, because God required young and unblemished animals to be sacrificed to Him. This ungodly woman was using the good, fresh meat that she had at home as extra leverage to get the man into her house.

[For information on the Peace Offering (called the “Fellowship Offering” in some versions), see Leviticus 3 and 7:11-34, but especially Lev. 7:15-16.]