Hebrew blood
Hebrew as its uncircumcision
An ephah was about 3/5 bushel or 22 liters; a hin was about 4 quarts or 3.5 liters
19:1–2 The call to holiness opens the Lord’s address. Israel is to model a holiness of character linked to his, to live and to love in the ways that she herself has seen and experienced from her faithful kinsman-redeemer and covenant King. The Lord alone is holy and shares his holiness with Israel to display his perfection to the world. As Sklar observes, “Holiness is not accomplished by withdrawing from the world, but by engaging actively in it, living out the Lord’s righteous character in every sphere of life.”
Israel is addressed as a “congregation,” showing that holiness must be pursued within community and cannot be arrived at alone. It is within the community of the redeemed that every person is called to live out the ethic of love that characterizes the people of God.
19:3–4 The command to “revere” (Hb. yareʾ, “fear, honor”) one’s mother and father is expressed by a verb normally reserved for fearing the Lord (v. 14). The mother is listed before the father, in reverse order from the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:12). Honoring one’s parents is the Decalogue’s pivot from covenant obligation toward the Lord to covenant obligation toward others. Leviticus reverses the order to begin with an emphasis on community: honoring parents (5th commandment), observing the Sabbath (4th commandment), and prohibiting idolatry (2nd commandment). This is fitting for an exposition on a community characterized by holy love.
The most regular act of worship for the Israelite family is Sabbath observance in imitation of the Lord who rested at the conclusion of his work (Ex. 20:11). His people join him in that rest, just like the family and its attached servants and animals rest at the householder’s command (Ex. 20:10). Worship is lived out in the home. To disrespect parental authority is to break the living link between one’s home and the household of God.
19:5–8 The peace offering is the most communal of the offerings. The worshiper’s extended household gathers to feast on the offering’s sacrificial meat. Leviticus 7 already introduced different reasons for bringing a peace offering, and these verses seem to have especially in mind those brought to fulfill a vow or as voluntary expressions of praise (cf. comment on 7:16–18). It is an occasion to testify of the Lord’s faithfulness in prayer and deliverance in the context of the community of faith. The time restriction for consuming sacrificial meat encourages a spirit of generosity. It prompts Israelites to invite others to the table beyond their own household. A spirit of openness and generosity around the table contributes to a culture that is open to receiving the “other” among them.
19:9–10 The following verses are grouped as couplets that each conclude with the declaration “I am the Lord,” motivating an obedience that will shape every person’s life according to God’s character and transform the people collectively into a holy nation.
Israelites are to harvest the land in a way that acknowledges the Lord’s ownership of it (25:23). They are to welcome the poor and resident alien to glean in their fields with dignity and be sustained by the Lord’s generosity (Ruth 2:2). Hospitality is extended beyond the kinship group to those in need. There can be no life together if there is no sharing of life-sustaining resources with those in need. God’s ways value people over profit and challenge the hearer not to guard his margins but to give them away.
19:11–12 Acts of defrauding one’s neighbor are typically covered up by deception and lies that involve taking the Lord’s name in a false oath (cf. Lev. 6:2–3). Laws in Leviticus are especially concerned with guarding the divine name (18:21; 20:3; 21:6; 22:2, 32). As a priestly people, Israel is privileged to bless the Lord’s name in her worship and call upon it in prayer (Pss. 105:1–3; 106:47; 113:1–3; 116:4). Yahweh is the saving God among Israel who sanctified her by his name (Lev. 21:6; 22:32). Treating the Lord’s name with disrespect endangers not only the individual (24:11) but the entire congregation, which is made holy by his abiding presence.
19:13–14 Hired workers and day laborers depend on daily wages to feed their families. Withholding their pay exploits the most vulnerable and is equal to robbery. Elsewhere God’s law instructs employers to return a garment taken in pledge so the laborer will not suffer cold (Deut. 24:12–13). When Israelites see their hired workers as people and show concern over whether they go hungry or cold, they begin to image the Lord, who is the defender of the needy, helper of the weak, and advocate for the vulnerable (Ex. 22:26–27).
In a similar vein the Lord warns against wielding power over the helpless cruelly, to ridicule or oppress them. As legislation protecting the disabled, this is unique in the ancient Near East. The Lord sees and hears on behalf of the blind and deaf to avenge them and reserves a day when they will be a sign of the restoration of his kingdom (Isa. 35:4–5; Matt. 11:5–6). The admonition not to curse the disabled but to fear the Lord links this verse to obligation to one’s parents: to fear (Lev. 19:3) and not curse them (20:9). Holy living obliges us toward those who are in authority over us and those over whom we have authority.
19:15–16 The clarion call to justice is to conform to the Lord’s judgments enshrined in his law. Land-owning male citizens are involved in their local village law courts, whether as elders who judge cases at the city gate or as witnesses who can influence the outcome. They are warned not to be swayed by anyone’s status and position in society but to pursue justice with impartiality. Slander is connected to the courts: an attack on a fellow kinsman’s reputation judges him in advance and subverts true justice (James 4:11–12). Maligning and defaming one’s neighbor is likened to standing over his life, that is, becoming a direct agent of harm who profits from another’s victimization.
19:17–18 Conflict in the covenant community must be addressed without delay. Harboring hatred in one’s heart is the concealed version of slander’s public animosity. The Lord condemns them both. An open rebuke staves off resentment that might lead to taking revenge (cf. Eph. 4:15; Heb. 12:14–15). Love is commanded instead, countering a negative prohibition with a positive command.
Each of the previous verses refers to a fellow Israelite with varying degrees of relational closeness in expressions that tease the boundaries of kinship ties—fellow Israelite, close friend, kinsman, neighbor, brother. The circle of kinship obligation extends from blood brother to fellow citizen and radiates out to include the resident alien (Lev. 19:34). The obligation to love encompasses every member of the community and most especially the vulnerable—the destitute gleaner, day laborer, disabled, and wrongly accused. Its generous inclusiveness calls for embracing the other as closest kin because all are of the household of God. The implications of this kind of love in holy community unfold further in chapter 25.
The command to love “as yourself” cannot mean that self-love is the measure for the love we are to show to others. This command is situated among laws that elevate the welfare of others above one’s own. God’s people are to love as he loves, emulating the loyalty, justice, and compassion they themselves have received from him who loved them first (1 John 4:19–21). It is a love that embraces the one with whom they have conflict as their own brother or sister. It is a love that can be commanded as a covenant obligation because it is not merely emotional attachment but action that seeks the welfare of the other (Rom. 13:8).
19:19 A holy people must maintain the boundaries the Lord drew at creation by keeping species distinct in animal breeding, crop cultivation, and weaving, specifically in ways that might produce a hybrid. Some suggest these prohibitions might serve as a metaphor to forbid mingling with the nations in intermarriage, a topic the Pentateuch speaks to clearly elsewhere (Deut. 7:1–3).
Upon closer look, such mixtures are found only in the sanctuary. Should a farmer sow two different types of seed, his crop becomes sacrosanct and must be dedicated to the sanctuary (Deut. 22:9). Blended fabrics of dyed wool interwoven with twined linen make up the sacral textiles of the tabernacle and priestly dress (Ex. 26:31; 28:6, 15). The Most Holy Place houses the throne of God, guarded by cherubim, creatures that elsewhere appear as part ox, eagle, and lion with a human face (Ezek. 1:5–11). Israel is prohibited from bringing sacred mixtures into secular life because they are relegated to holy space.
19:20–22 If a man sleeps with a female slave who has been assigned to marry another man, neither one is put to death because she has not yet been given her freedom (perhaps suggesting no betrothal has yet taken place). Had she been free, this same act would carry the death penalty (Deut. 22:23–24). The law is meant to protect a slave girl whose lower status creates an unequal power dynamic that makes it difficult to thwart unwanted advances from her master. It also condemns the act as morally wrong by requiring the man to bring a costly guilt offering for the sin he has committed.
19:23–25 Holy living reclaims the human vocation of care for God’s creation in Israel’s cultivation of the land. The people may not eat the fruit of newly planted fruit trees for the first three years because it is “forbidden” (lit., “uncircumcised”). The immature trees have not yet come of age in order for their harvest to be dedicated to the Lord. In the same way animals may be offered only after the eighth day, the same time frame as circumcision for Israelite boys (Gen. 17:12; Ex. 22:30). They must allow their orchards of olives, dates, figs, pomegranates, and almond trees to mature and become fully established. In the fourth year the Lord receives their praise (as firstfruits; Lev. 23:10–14), and only in the fifth year can their caretakers enjoy their yield. The circumcision imagery calls upon the Lord’s blessing and covenant promise of fruitfulness in all areas of life (Gen. 1:22; 17:2, 6).
19:26 To remain in right standing with the Lord, under no circumstances may the covenant people eat meat with its blood, for to do so could lead to idolatry (Lev. 17:7, 10). In pagan rites the blood of a slain animal was manipulated to conjure spirits of the underworld. Israelites are forbidden from engaging in the occult and seeking omens, as is customarily done among their neighbors through reading the stars, inspecting an animal’s internal organs, observing the movement of birds, and the like (2 Kings 17:17; 21:6). The Lord expressly forbids ascribing power to false gods and impersonal forces that feign to foretell things to come. He alone knows the end from the beginning because he directs all human history to accomplish his will (Isa. 45:20–22).
19:27–28 Shaving the head and gashing the body are mourning rites that degraded the body (cf. Deut. 14:1). God’s people are holy, a theological identity worn on their bodies through wholeness and ritual purity. They are to leave the edges (Hb. peʾah) of their beards untrimmed, just as they leave the edges (peʾah) of their fields ungleaned (Lev. 19:9–10).
Tattooing is included with the mourning prohibitions because it disfigures the body. There is no evidence that tattooing was practiced as part of mourning rites in the ancient Near East. Rather, it was identified with slave markings. Slaves in Mesopotamia were branded or tattooed on the forehead and hand; captives in Egypt were marked as belonging to the priesthood or state. The Lord has redeemed his people from slavery in Egypt to make them walk with their heads held high (26:13). He alone reserves the right to mark them, which he does with his name as a sign of his holy ownership (Num. 6:27).
19:29–30 A woman’s sexuality is intended only for her future husband. It is furthermore to be guarded by her family (cf. Leviticus 18; Song 8:8–9). A father must not give his daughter into prostitution or exploit her for economic gain. She is a person under his care, not property. Prostitution is frequently connected with idolatrous shrines. A woman known as a qedeshah, “holy one,” sold her body (Deut. 23:17; Hos. 4:14), as Judah mistakenly assumed of Tamar (Gen. 38:21). In condemning such prostitution the Bible’s strong message is that sexual relations are holy only in the context of marriage. Prostitution instead “profanes” a woman and defiles the land. That which sanctifies Israel is the Sabbath, on which Israel meets with the Lord in holy time, and the sanctuary (lit., “holy place”), where he receives his people’s worship (Lev. 26:2).
19:31 The Lord condemns mediums who summon ancestral spirits, asking, “Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isa. 8:19). Saul resorts to necromancy because the Lord no longer reveals his will through the priestly Urim and Thummim, dreams, or the prophetic word (1 Sam. 28:6). It is futile to conjure spirits of the dead for help and knowledge of the future. They are not omniscient or holy but instead pollute and defile. The Israelites have the living God among them, guiding their lives with his life-giving words (Lev. 18:5; Deut. 4:7–8).
19:32 Respect for elders recalls the command to revere one’s parents (Lev. 19:3) and extends it out into the larger community. God’s people are to show deference to the elders, who uphold the rights of the community through their judicial decisions (Ruth 4:1–2). By way of contrast to summoning the spirits of deceased ancestors (Lev. 19:31) the people are enjoined to respect their elders’ wisdom and life experience and seek out their blessing (Job 12:12).
19:33–34 The resident alien is a non-Canaanite foreigner living within the boundaries of Israel’s inheritance. At the time of the giving of these laws the foreigner may be among the “mixed multitude” (Ex. 12:38) that has come out of Egypt. After Israel’s settlement in the land resident aliens come as laborers, craftsmen, merchants, and mercenaries. They are to be protected and, although not part of the family of God, invited into the community of faith through circumcision (Ex. 12:19, 48–49). They can seek sanctuary in a city of refuge since they have taken refuge with the Lord (Num. 35:15).
The command to love reaches beyond the kinship of ethnic Israel to bridge the gap with the foreigner, anticipating that a community fully formed in the image of God will mature into a people through whom “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). To see the other as one’s self is the transformative power of love. The command comes with an appeal for sympathy based on Israel’s own experience as foreigners in the land of Egypt.
19:35–36a Honest weights and balances ensure a just society. The word “just” appears four times, driving home the point that they are to be a people just and righteous. Picking up the theme of business dealings for self gain (Lev. 19:11, 13), these laws are included near the ones governing the resident alien perhaps because they are most vulnerable to exploitation.
19:36b–37 The weighty words that began the Lord’s speech to the congregation (“I am the Lord”; v. 3) now find their resolution (“who brought you out of the land of Egypt”; v. 36; cf. Ex. 20:2). The resounding conclusion on how Israel will live as a holy community is found in the teaching between these two phrases. Israel’s path to holiness is to live individually and collectively in imitation of the God of Sinai, who rescued his people from Egypt to shape their character according to his.