Christine Palmer
Introduction to
Overview
Leviticus is the central book of the Pentateuch and the midpoint of a single narrative that spans from the creation of the world (Gen. 1:1) to the threshold of the Promised Land (Num. 36:13). Leviticus addresses the ruptured divine-human relationship in Genesis by forging the way back into God’s presence through sacrifice. It realizes the mission of God’s redeemed people to be a holy nation (Ex. 19:6) by ordaining a priesthood and inaugurating worship at the tabernacle. It further looks beyond Sinai to the other side of the wilderness journeys recounted in Numbers to describe holy living in the land of Canaan that anticipates the covenant focus of Deuteronomy. At the heart of the Pentateuch’s redemptive narrative, Leviticus celebrates the gift of God’s presence in worship, where he is said to walk among his people once again, as he had with Adam in the garden sanctuary: “I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Lev. 26:12). God’s people are instructed in a life of holiness wherein they, together with the Lord, re-create another Eden in which to dwell in fellowship together.
Leviticus develops along five thematic movements. The first is an invitation to worship through sacrificial offerings (chs. 1–7). The Lord calls Israel into his presence by way of the sacrificial altar, instructing his people on offerings that they may bring in order to express wholehearted dedication, covenant loyalty, and thanksgiving, as well as expiatory offerings that are required for attaining forgiveness and cleansing from sin. Sacrifice is the way to relationship with God in all its facets, whether in penitence or praise, seeking his forgiveness or favor.
The second is the ordination and ministry of the priesthood (chs. 8–10). The tabernacle was designed as a re-created heaven on earth, adorned with gold and precious stones that were plentiful in Eden, a lampstand crafted as a stylized tree that recalled the tree of life, and cherubim woven into the embroidered veil that barred the way into the divine throne room (Gen. 2:9, 12; 3:24). In this setting the priesthood is consecrated to mediate the nation’s worship before the presence of a holy God.
The next thematic movement involves ritual purity and access to God (Leviticus 11–15). In order for the Lord to dwell among his people they will be required to “distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean” (10:10). An Israelite could become unclean through contact with animal carcasses, blood loss from childbirth, defiling skin disease, or bodily discharges. A state of ritual impurity is incompatible with God’s holiness and could defile the sanctuary (15:31). Worshipers must discern sources of impurity and cleanse themselves in order to approach the Lord.
The cleansing of all impurity—along with all sin—culminates on the Day of Atonement (ch. 16), the fourth movement. Only on this day does the high priest enter behind the veil into the divine throne room to cleanse the sanctuary from defilement and atone for sin through the sprinkling of sacrificial blood. The nation’s sins are placed on the head of an animal substitute that is driven away from God’s presence into the wilderness. Sacred space is renewed and relationship with a holy God restored. The Day of Atonement is the centerpiece of Leviticus, bringing to conclusion laws on sacrifice and ritual purity (chs. 1–15) and charting the course toward a life of holiness made possible by the Lord’s abiding presence (chs. 17–27).
Moral purity and holy community (chs. 17–27) highlight the final movement, in which the call to holiness extends outward from the courts of the tabernacle to the people as a whole. The land is viewed as a sanctuary and the covenant people as priests with agency to guard their inheritance from defilement and to nurture holiness in community. Holy living takes the shape of conforming to the Lord’s holiness through obedience to the covenant’s ethical demands of faithfulness, justice, and love. The final chapter on redeeming dedicated gifts brings the book full circle back to the tent of meeting, where the Lord dwells among his people to receive their worship.
Title
In keeping with the ancient tradition of naming a literary work after its first word the book’s title in Hebrew is wayyiqraʾ (“And [the Lord] called”). The Lord calls Moses to instruct the Israelites in worship in seamless continuity with the tabernacle’s construction in Exodus.1 The English title is inherited from the Latin Vulgate’s translation of the LXX title, Leuitikon (“relating to the Levites”), which understands the book as a manual for the Levitical priests. Similarly, later Hebrew tradition calls it the torat kohanim (“instructions for or by the priests”; Mishnah, Megillah 3:5). Most of the book, however, is addressed to the people of Israel, instructing them on how to approach the Lord in worship and live a life of purity and holiness that keeps them covenantally bound to his sanctifying presence.2
Author and Date
While all Scripture is God’s divinely inspired Word, no other book makes as strong of a claim to be the Lord’s direct speech as Leviticus does. About 85 percent of the book is introduced as divine speech, with the clause “The Lord said” at the head of almost every chapter. The Lord’s words are recorded as spoken to Moses, once to Aaron alone (10:8), and several times to both Moses and Aaron (11:1; 13:1; 14:33; 15:1). The Pentateuch identifies Moses as its author,3 a tradition that becomes well established by the time of the NT.4
Since the emergence of higher critical scholarship in the nineteenth century, authorship of the Pentateuch has been attributed to different sources or literary strands (JEDP), each reflecting a particular theological focus.5 Most germane to the study of Leviticus are the purported priestly source (P) and holiness code (H) that separate the book into two parts: chapters 1–16 (P) and chapters 17–27 (H). Proponents argue that the ritual material in 1–16 is authored by a different hand than the laws in 17–27 concerned with ethical holiness, a claim that a close reading of the book will reveal to be overstated. Ethical constraints can be seen to govern ritual practice, as, for example, in making provision for the poor to be equally cleansed and forgiven with an offering proportionate to their means (5:7, 11; 12:8) or in the humanitarian concern for a worshiper to select an animal that is not offered on the same day as its mother (22:27–28; Mal. 1:8). By the same token, ritual is interspersed throughout the ethical material that contains an entire chapter on the festival calendar (Leviticus 23) and regulations on sacrificial meat consumption next to caring for the poor (19:5–10). The commentary will address how holiness in worship (chs. 1–16) logically and theologically extends to the entire community (chs. 17–27).
Dating Leviticus cannot be done without reference to the exodus, since the tent of meeting from which the Lord speaks to his people is set up the year after Israel’s deliverance from Egypt (Ex. 40:17). Arriving at a date for the exodus is a complex question rife with presuppositions, leading to greatly divergent dates from as early as 1446 BC to the fifth century BC, with some even doubting the exodus as historical at all.6 Although the discussion is complex, two markers help establish limits to the chronology, one biblical and the other extrabiblical. First Kings 6:1 records that Solomon began construction on the temple “in the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt.” Taken literally, this situates the exodus at 1446 BC. Archaeology supplies the second marker: a monumental inscription known as the Merneptah Stele (1207 BC) that mentions Israel as an unsettled people group in the land of Canaan. Allowing for forty years in the wilderness and the initial stages of conquest, a date range of 1446–1250 BC honors the biblical and material evidence. Leviticus seems most at home in this chronological milieu, as reflected by its frequent mention of a wilderness setting and by rituals that bear similarity with ancient Near Eastern counterparts of that time period.
Occasion
Leviticus finds Israel encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai, rescued from Egypt and brought into covenant as Yahweh’s own people and treasured possession out of all the earth.7 The great exodus redemption ends with the construction of the tabernacle “in the first month in the second year” (Ex. 40:17). The narrative picks up again “in the second year, in the second month,” with the tabernacle dismantled and the people departing for the land of Canaan (Num. 10:11). In the intervening month the Lord who had descended from the summit of Sinai to inhabit the sacred tent speaks to his people in thirty-seven speeches that constitute Leviticus. The blueprint for the Lord’s divine dwelling was given from the mountaintop. Now at the foot of the mountain Israel receives the blueprint for life with her Sovereign. Leviticus is a stop in the journey and a pause in the plot wherein Israel receives the Word of God that shapes her identity as a worshiping people.
Genre and Literary Features
The majority of the book is divine instruction, with a relatively small portion of narrative (Lev. 8:1–10:20; 24:10–23). Viewed within the broader canonical landscape, the divine instruction of Leviticus inhabits the Sinai narrative (Exodus 19–Numbers 10). Following a dramatic rescue from Egypt, Israel is brought to Mount Sinai to be wed in covenant to the Lord and instructed on life together with him.
The Lord’s instruction is presented as legal material: “These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai” (Lev. 26:46). Ten occurrences of the word torah (“instruction, law”) are divided evenly between laws for offerings (6:9, 14, 25; 7:1, 11) and laws on purity (11:47; 12:7; 13:59; 14:2, 32, 54–57; 15:32). Ethical imperatives are found as both apodictic commands (“You shall not . . .”) and case laws that establish legal precedent (“If . . . then”). Compared to law collections of the ancient Near East, Israel’s statutes are undergirded by motive clauses that encourage obedience by teaching hearers “to understand how ethical practice is the outworking of underlying theological and covenantal commitments.”8 Intentional obedience is both invited and commanded.
Theology of Leviticus
Leviticus is a deeply theological book. Its theology, however, is not formulated as doctrinal statements. It is instead embedded in prescribed rituals and rhythms of daily living that are bodily enacted by the worshiping congregation.
Holiness
The theme of holiness pervades every aspect of the book. It resounds in the Lord’s declaration of his own holiness (11:44–45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:8), the call for Israel in turn to be holy (19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:6, 8), and in the ritual enactments and covenant living predicated upon the Lord’s sanctifying presence among his people.
Holiness is a divine quality. The Lord alone is inherently holy: holiness is the essence of his person in all his purity, excellence, and moral perfection. He is the source and measure of all holiness. The Lord chooses to magnify his holiness by sharing it with those whom he brings into special relationship with him. Holiness for God’s people, therefore, is personal, relational, and anchored in the Lord’s divine nature. It always begins with God’s work. The only way for Israel to be made holy is through covenantal union and communion with Yahweh: “I am the Lord who sanctifies you” (20:8).
Holiness for Israel is learned through lived experience of it. A worshiper appearing at the sanctuary would encounter God’s holiness in the built environment through increasing degrees of sanctity in space, objects, and priestly servants as the worshiper drew closer to the Lord’s presence. A lay Israelite may enter only the outer court to have his gift offered on the bronze altar of sacrifice. He is not permitted into the Lord’s dwelling of wool and linen textiles of vibrant purple, blue, and scarlet. Only priests had access to the Holy Place inside the sanctuary that housed furnishings of gold—a table and altar overlaid with pure gold and a lampstand of hammered gold. The Most Holy Place is the Lord’s throne room and hidden from the sight of all. Restricted access impresses upon Israelites the Lord’s transcendence and otherness. Ritual objects crafted of increasingly precious material in proximity to God’s presence teach them of the Lord’s kingship and worth.
The Israelites’ experience at the tabernacle should also remind the Israelites that they are the Lord’s holy possession, redeemed from the world, brought near as his precious treasure, and called to be holy in all aspects of life. Worshipers who offer their unblemished sacrifices by the hands of unblemished priests see for themselves that those who stand in God’s presence are made whole. Again, holiness always begins with the work of God, who not only cleanses his people from their sin and pollution so he can remain among them (chs. 4; 16) but also provides for them the means necessary to live holy lives. For example his righteous commands form his character within them so they can remain planted in the land (18:30). Moreover, Israel is invited into holy time to appear before the Lord and offer him worship in the weekly and monthly rhythms of Sabbaths and appointed festivals (23:3–4; Ex. 31:13). Holiness for Israel is the consecrated life. The Lord provides the holy institutions that will keep Israel abiding in him and him with Israel. The command to be holy is meant to be not an impossibility for the people to attain but an invitation into his presence and ways so that he can form them increasingly into his image—for his glory, their good, and the world’s blessing.
Sacrificial Worship
Israel is called to the priestly vocation of worshiping the Lord as the firstfruits of the praise of the whole earth (Pss. 22:27; 86:9–10). Worship is addressed in every single chapter in Leviticus.9 It is Israel’s orienting center.
The Lord invites his people to commune with him through sacrifice and be restored to his presence. Sacrifice is the means to restoring relationship ruptured by the fall. Israelites approach as individuals to express exclusive devotion and covenant loyalty and to fulfill vows that culminate in a joyful fellowship meal. They seek the Lord’s forgiveness and cleansing from sin and make offerings that repair relationship with God and neighbor. Sacrificial gifts are offered in an act of dedication that represents the surrender of oneself and anticipates the surrendered life of the beloved Son. God’s people gather as a worshiping community in feasts that celebrate their historic exodus deliverance, trust the Lord for the forgiveness of sin, and demonstrate dependence on him to sustain life in the land of Canaan. Their encounter of the Lord in worship reveals his character as a merciful savior, faithful provider, and forgiver of sin.
The altar is the centerpiece of worship, the place where the Lord appeared visibly in theophany and is tacitly present in every subsequent act of worship to receive offerings and grant favorable acceptance to the offerer (Lev. 1:4; 9:24). Priests are called and consecrated to serve at the altar on the worshiper’s behalf by arranging the sacrificial animal and applying its blood. They alone are qualified to handle the blood that has power to cleanse the sinner, purify the sanctuary, and accomplish atonement. They pronounce forgiveness and blessing issuing from the Lord as divine gifts of grace. The tabernacle’s service is centered around substitutionary sacrifice and the ministry of the anointed high priest, who bridges the worlds of heaven and earth in a ministry of reconciliation. These point to the coming of a greater High Priest, who will serve at the altar with his own blood and reconcile us to God (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18).
Priestly People in Holy Community
Since the Lord dwells among his people, all of life is to be lived with reference to his sanctifying presence. The ethical vision of Leviticus has unfairly been separated from sacrificial worship, but in reality the one cannot exist apart from the other. The worship of God is the first ordering principle of life together. To worship rightly is to live rightly.
Holiness begins in the sanctuary and its objects, offerings, and officiants and from there extends into society to encompass all Israel in what may be envisioned as mapping the sanctuary onto the land and lending it its holiness. The people are the priesthood of the land-sanctuary. They were sprinkled with blood when set apart to the Lord by covenant (Ex. 24:8; Lev. 8:23–24). They wear a tassel of priestly blue on the edges of their garments to prompt obedience to the Lord’s commands (Ex. 28:33; Num. 15:38). They groom their hair and keep their bodies whole like priests (Lev. 19:27–28; 21:5). They each bear the divine name—as their high priestly representative does—to be marked as Yahweh’s very own (Num. 6:27; Ex. 28:36). They are invited to consecrate themselves by observing boundaries between holy/common and clean/unclean as these touch upon their daily lives (Lev. 10:10–11). They are tasked with guarding the land from defilement as the Levites guard the sanctuary (22:31–33). Their priest-likeness is lived out in obedience in everyday life that takes the shape of separation from impurity and of conformity to the ethical demands of the covenant (chs. 17–26). Ritual and ethical holiness are inseparable, as both body and soul are trained toward godliness.
Israel is invited to share in God’s holiness and be transformed into a holy people who reflect his image in the world. Holiness is to be attained not through lonely asceticism but only as a community in life together. Abiding by his laws, God’s people will build a holy community in which marriage and the family are protected (chs. 18; 20), the stranger is welcomed as a brother (ch. 19), debtors are forgiven as the people themselves have been forgiven (ch. 25), and every person loves his neighbor as himself, a command Jesus himself quotes as one of the greatest (Matt. 22:37–40).
Relationship to the Rest of the Bible and to Christ
Leviticus shapes Israel’s worldview in an all-encompassing manner. There is hardly a portion of Scripture that remains untouched by its theological vision. Prophetic voices seize on Leviticus’s teaching to indict Israel for failure to worship the Lord (Mal. 2:1–9). They condemn God’s people for not living up to the Lord’s call for justice and love for neighbor. They are especially trenchant against the priestly leaders, in whose power it is to guard the sanctity of worship and uphold righteousness: “Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them” (Ezek. 22:26). The punishment of exile is ultimately attributed to a corruption of worship and failure of the land to keep the Sabbath (2 Chron. 36:21).
If Leviticus provides the legal grounds for banishing the nation into exile, it also provides the road map for restoration. The prophetic ministry inspires hope by reprising the nation’s call to holiness (Isa. 61:6–7). God’s spokesmen envision a time of cleansing from all defilement that will be accomplished representatively through the person of the high priest (Zech. 3:1–7). They prophesy of a restoration phrased in the familiar idiom of purity but with a promised renewal and inner transformation that will never be undone (Ezek. 36:22–32; 43:7). The Lord will dwell among his people once more and make all things holy (Ezek. 48:35; Zech. 14:20–21). Upon Israel’s return from exile the programmatic vision for rebuilding the community looks to Leviticus to recover an identity as a priestly people. The book of Chronicles constructs a narrative of hope by placing the temple at the heart of the nation’s life and the Levites as guardians of Israel’s holy call to worship (1–2 Chronicles).
The NT authors live in continuity with the world shaped by the theology of Leviticus. Their cultural and religious practice revolve around theological categories that guide all human life to be experienced in the presence of a holy God—sacrifice and worship, atonement and forgiveness, observance of boundaries between holy and profane, and bodily states of clean and unclean. They record the historic events that fully realize Leviticus’s vision of worship in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
God’s Holy People in Priestly Service
By the first century a large body of rabbinic commentary known as the oral law had been added to the biblical teaching of Leviticus. Various sects of Judaism gave increased attention to the politics of ritual purity by adopting priestly requirements for themselves in their ordinary lives. Among them were the Pharisees, whom Jesus critiques for missing the heart of what ritual purity was indicating: the far deeper need for moral purity. Jesus moves quickly from a discussion of ritual impurity to locate the ultimate source of moral defilement within the human heart: “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:20–22). In other words cleansing oneself from ritual impurity is to be a reminder of the call to cleanse oneself from moral impurity and live in keeping with the Lord’s call to be his holy people (Leviticus 18; 19). To focus on the former (ritual purity) and not the latter (moral purity) is to miss the point. Indeed, contrary to much of the teaching in Jesus’ day, dealing properly with ritual impurity was not meant as an end in itself. It was rather for the sake of entering the Lord’s presence in transformative worship, where there was holy potential to be restored to God’s image and re-created after his likeness (Lev. 19:2). In keeping with this NT believers are exhorted, “Be imitators of God. . . . Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:1–2). When all is said and done, holiness is anchored in a person—to be holy is to be Christlike.
The NT authors continue to draw on the rich theology of Levitical worship to articulate Christian identity. In continuity with Israel’s call and vocation Paul frequently addresses believers in Christ as “saints” (“holy ones”). They have inherited Israel’s vocation as “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Pet. 2:9). The NT is not merely applying the same terminology to the new covenant community but invoking a sustained biblical image of those who are called into God’s presence. Priestly ministry shares a close affinity with our call to discipleship. Their daily service revolved around sacrifice at the altar as we are called to live a cruciform life defined by the altar (Gal. 2:20).
Paul articulates his own missionary labor among the Gentiles as priestly service to God. After nearly twenty-five years of preaching and teaching Paul embarks for Jerusalem with a freewill offering accompanied by seven men who represent the fruit of his mission (Acts 20:3–5). He acts with thoughtful intentionality to embody the unity of the new covenant community and to enact the eschatological pilgrimage of the nations (Isa. 2:1–4; 60:1–5). Out of a worldview shaped by Leviticus he describes the meaning of his actions as priestly service. He understands himself as a “minister [leitourgos, “priestly officiant”] of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:16). He sees his life poured out for Christ like a drink offering was poured on the primary sacrifice in temple worship (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6; cf. Ex. 29:40).
Jesus Christ: High Priest and Sacrifice
The most sustained treatment of Christ’s priesthood and sacrificial self-offering is found in the letter to the Hebrews. The same God who in the past had spoken from the tent of meeting now “has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:2). Priestly ministry foreshadowed the work of Christ until his service as both high priest and atoning sacrifice brought it to climactic fulfillment. Christ’s saving work is depicted as analogous to the high priest’s ministry on the Day of Atonement. Hebrews assumes familiarity with the sacred space, sacrificial service, and holy convocations of Leviticus but distinguishes Christ’s priesthood from that of the Levitical priests as unique in location, kind, and eternal consequence. Jesus was not of Levitical lineage and consequently did not serve in an earthly temple but instead officiated in heaven, the original and eternal divine dwelling after which the temple was patterned. As the high priest would enter God’s throne room to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, Christ enters “the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) . . . once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11–12). His offering is superior because the atoning blood he offers is his own—a sinless life that accomplishes perfect purification and secures eternal forgiveness. His priesthood is eternal because it is based not on human descent but on a holy and indestructible life (Heb. 7:16). Finally, his work is eternally efficacious. After entering the Most Holy Place “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3; cf. 8:1; 10:12). Christ is enthroned as God, taking his place upon heaven’s mercy seat to live and make intercession for his own (Heb. 7:24–25). He does what no priest of the old covenant could do by rending the veil and opening the way for believers to approach the throne of grace with boldness (Heb. 4:16; 10:19–22).
Christ’s sacrificial offering empowers his people to live out of the same self-giving that characterized Christ’s earthly life (Phil. 2:5–8). Paul makes an appeal in light of God’s great and merciful salvation that believers would offer their lives back to God as a sacrificial act: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). The surrender of oneself to the service of God is our proper worship, since we have been bought at a price and no longer belong to ourselves. We are not destined to be consumed on a physical altar, but our bodily lives are to be spent in dedicated service to the Lord (Heb. 10:5). Whereas the rest of the world experiences corruption and progressive degradation because of its failure to worship (Rom. 1:24–32), God’s people are re-created in Christ to recover the human vocation of priestly service to the Lord.
The Consummation of All Things
The final book of the Bible depicts the consummation of redemptive history in language and imagery drawn directly from the divine service inaugurated in Leviticus. Whereas the voice of God once called from the tent, it now calls as the voice of Jesus Christ from within the heavenly sanctuary (Rev. 1:10–11). Jesus appears as a priest standing among golden lampstands that locate him in the Holy Place. He is next seen seated on the throne of God, having entered the Most Holy Place to be acclaimed as worthy of worship on account of his sacrificial self-offering (Rev. 5:6).
Revelation is presented as a dynamic scene of congregational worship in response to the Lord’s saving actions. At the center the Lamb of God receives the adoration of all creation for his atoning sacrifice: “By your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God” (Rev. 5:9–10). As Leviticus teaches, the life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). Christ’s shed blood on the heavenly altar of God pays the ransom for our sin. His followers will themselves be martyred, and their blood, according to sacrificial practice, will be poured out at the base of the altar, from whence it will cry out to God (Rev. 6:9). In the end they will share in Christ’s victory over evil “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev. 12:11).
The holy city, new Jerusalem, is akin to Eden, using language that recalls the covenant promise of God’s dwelling with his people (Rev. 21:3; cf. Lev. 26:11–12). The city of God descends from heaven adorned with precious stones that fuse together images of Eden and the sanctuary. Its shape is in the dimensions of the Most Holy Place—multiplied by one thousand—and speaks to the dissolution of boundaries and barriers that separated man from God’s presence (Rev. 21:16; cf. 1 Kings 6:20). There is no separate sanctuary here, for the entire city is the sanctuary, and all has been made holy for the dwelling of God: “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21:27). The river of life flows out from God’s throne room to renew the earth in perpetual cleansing as anticipated by Leviticus’s purity laws and atonement rites (Rev. 22:1; cf. Ezek. 47:1–12). The identity of God’s people is fully realized—a re-created and redeemed humanity that, as a kingdom of priests, bears the Lord’s name and worships him face to face forever (Rev. 22:4).
Preaching from Leviticus
Preach with God at the center. God is at the center of Leviticus, his voice ringing out from the wilderness tent pitched in the middle of the camp. Faithful preaching will draw the listener to see and hear the Lord. In the same way that the Lord gave laws that revealed his character and re-created a people after his image, the preaching moment must provide an opportunity for a transformational encounter with the Lord. Leviticus reveals the Lord in his holiness—a Savior offering forgiveness through substitutionary sacrifice, a Redeemer restoring a fallen world for all to flourish. It is inconceivable that the Lord’s presence among his people would leave them unchanged. Making the Lord both the subject and the object of one’s preaching shapes the covenant community to reflect his character in the world.
Preach the person and work of Christ. Charles Spurgeon famously taught developing preachers, “From every text of Scripture there is a road to Christ. And my dear brother, your business is, when you get to a text, to say, now, what is the road to Christ?”10 There are a number of different roads through the biblical text to arrive to Christ. Sidney Greidanus offers helpful advice in charting a course.11 Most relevant for preaching Leviticus involve typology, analogy, NT Scripture references, and redemptive-historical approaches.
- Typology considers how OT types prefigure Christ. It is an effective way to preach the various sacrifices, the role of the high priest, as well as the festivals. Jesus brings the sacrificial system to its intended goal in himself: his is the perfect and sinless life that paid for our sins and pleased the Father for our acceptance. In Christ we have a perfect high priest consecrated for the unique ministry of reconciliation between a holy God and humanity through his service at the altar. His work on the cross is compared meaningfully with the Day of Atonement, on which sin is banished from God’s presence and the world is created anew. Christ inaugurates his ministry by alluding to the Year of Jubilee and proclaiming that release from spiritual bondage and restoration to our heavenly inheritance would be fulfilled in him (Luke 4:18–21). The fulfillment of these types in Christ augments, or magnifies, the original symbol.
- Analogies make careful comparisons between two situations understood to be similar and develop the capacity to apply insights from one domain to another. Analogical reasoning is found in Scripture as an important first-century hermeneutical principle known as the qal wakhomer (Hb. “the light and the heavy”). If the first proposition (qal, “light”) is true, then “how much more” is the second (khomer, “heavy”) certainly true. This method models an assurance of the consistency of God’s person, character, and redemptive purposes. An example of a clear qal wakhomer comes from the author of Hebrews: “If the blood of goats and bulls . . . how much more will the blood of Christ . . . purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9:13–14). If a preacher can help his congregation to see the work of God in Leviticus, how much more clearly will the people behold it in the person and work of Christ!
- Another way to preach Leviticus is to make explicit reference to the many direct NT quotations of and allusions to the book. There are 283 OT quotations in the NT, including 19 that come from Leviticus. Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” as one of two passages that summarize the law of God (Matt. 22:39). The apostles frequently cite Leviticus to describe the life of faith characterized by love (Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8). Peter admonishes all who have received God’s grace in Christ, “Be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:14–16, quoting Lev. 11:44). Added to these are various allusions to the book (many of which will be picked up on in the commentary).
- A redemptive-historical reading traces the unfolding plan of God through Scripture to locate the climax of redemptive activity in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Along the way there may be elements of discontinuity within the larger continuity of purpose and ultimate end goal. For example, when early church leadership met to resolve issues related to the inclusion of the Gentiles (Acts 15:19–20), it applied Leviticus’s prohibition against blood, idolatry, and sexual immorality (Leviticus 17–20), but also recognized that purity laws were now obsolete, having served their purpose in keeping Israel set apart until Christ’s coming. A new age of redemptive history had dawned, in which Jew and Gentile shared equal status in the body of Christ.
Allow Leviticus to provide a biblical vision of hope. Leviticus supplies a theological concreteness to the shape of redemptive hope. Those who came to worship at the sacred tent entered a world in which Yahweh was sovereign, sin was being defeated by the shed blood of sacrifice, and worshipers were cleansed and made whole. The world of Leviticus is one wherein to be human is to be restored to God’s presence. Preachers need to represent faithfully this world that reclaims the imagination and suffuses it with heavenly hope. They must resist always resorting to a biblical metanarrative of failure. Scripture is transparently honest about human failure (ch. 10), yet that is not its only message. Eschatological hope has broken into the present age to work its way into all aspects of human living until the Lord has reclaimed and redeemed all things. Portions of the book call us to embrace radical self-giving. Others call us to work toward a vision of justice in all things, while still others inspire transformative worship that looks forward to the worship of an eternal heavenly kingdom: “Worthy are you . . . for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God” (Rev. 5:9–10).
Interpretive Challenges
Misperception of the Nature of the Book
The first interpretive challenge of Leviticus is the widespread misperception of the nature and content of the book. Many Christian readers view the book as a set of obscure laws no longer applicable to the life of discipleship. But Leviticus must be read instead within the relational context of covenant, not as an impersonal legal code. The Lord who dwells in visible holiness among his redeemed people reveals his personal will to shape their lives. His speech is written down and transmitted as the text of Scripture, which is “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Embracing this portion of Scripture as the beautiful center of the Pentateuch that guides us toward worship puts us in a posture of hearing Leviticus as the sanctifying Word of God with relevance for our own lives.
Ritual-Theological Worldview
Another great challenge is the specialized vocabulary and ritual concepts that are difficult to translate into the experience of modern readers. Leviticus calls upon a rich vocabulary of worship in order to relate all aspects of life, even the most personal, to the Lord’s sanctifying presence in Israel’s midst. It is important to understand such language because it creates the theological categories with which the Lord relates to his people. Concepts such as sin, sacrifice, atonement, holiness, defilement, clean and unclean, all inform the work of Christ and the world of the NT.
Leviticus’s theological categories divide the world along lines of that which has been brought into the Lord’s use versus whatever remains as part of the ordinary world (holy/common), as well as in terms of fitness to appear before him at the sanctuary (clean/unclean). The starting point of persons and objects in their natural state is common and clean. From that position they can be defiled and become ritually unclean or be acted upon by God to be made holy. While a status or condition can be degraded unintentionally, an elevation of status always requires ritual action.
Holy/Common (Status)
Objects and persons that have been withdrawn from common use and brought into the Lord’s sphere in close proximity to him are holy. In addition space (sanctuary) and time (Sabbath, holy convocations, Year of Jubilee) may be designated as holy because they serve as vehicles through which the Lord meets with his people. Gifts dedicated to the sanctuary become the Lord’s holy possession and may not go back into common use. Priests are holy because they have been consecrated to the Lord’s service. They are able to move between the worlds of holy and common to share in them both, connecting them and mediating the relationship between the two. To treat something holy as though it were common is to profane (desecrate) it. The high priest is not permitted to come near a dead body lest he profane his consecration and the sanctuary itself (21:11–12). God’s people are warned not to profane the Lord’s holy name by bringing their impurities into contact with the sanctuary (15:31) or by engaging in immoral practices, such as idolatry (20:3).
Clean/Unclean (Condition)
A person can be either clean (pure) or unclean (impure). Purity has to do with how the body relates to the sanctuary and other holy objects (such as a sacrificial meal). Impurity (uncleanness) is contracted through natural and unavoidable processes such as childbirth and bodily discharges, skin disease, and contact with corpses or animal carcasses (chs. 11–15). It is first and foremost not a moral category but a ritual one, making a person ritually unfit for God’s presence. Those who are unclean must normally separate themselves from appearing at the sanctuary (unless coming there as part of a purification ceremony; cf. ch. 12) and from partaking of holy foods. Impurity is impermanent, allowing for the worshiper to be restored to the worshiping community through the ritual process of purification, which at its simplest involves washing and the passage of time or, at its most complex, washing, laundering, and the offering of sacrifice.
Ritual/Moral Impurity
The sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder result in moral impurity (chs. 18–20). Whereas ritual impurity is an impermanent bodily condition, moral impurity is a serious moral condition that cannot be washed away. It pollutes the sinner (20:3), the sanctuary, and the land itself (18:24–25). No individual sacrifices are prescribed for these acts. Instead those who commit them are typically “cut off” (exiled or executed), thus ridding the community and land of their defiling influence, though it may be noted that we see instances in which a mediator can achieve atonement on behalf of God’s people for such sins (Exodus 32–34; Numbers 25).12 This anticipates the atonement that Jesus will make available as our final mediator, whose sacrifice is great enough to cleanse even our deepest moral impurities.
Reading Ritual Texts for Meaning
For an exposition on the general topic of relating the law to the Christian the reader is referred to other works.13 The interest of this section is to provide some reflection on reading ritual (ceremonial law) in the book of Leviticus.
The laws on sacrifice were given to a people already familiar with making offerings (Genesis 22). Every man had already acted as the priest of his household by slaughtering the Passover lamb that paved the way for Israel’s redemption from Egypt. For this reason not every detail about the actual sacrificial procedure needed to be explained. Reading chapters 1–7 is like reading a theater script that notes the most essential stage instructions, an experience that is not nearly as satisfying—or understandable—as watching the performance. Faith is meant to be enacted, and the drama of worship is meant to be experienced. If aspects of ritual performance are beyond our understanding, it is because we are separated in time and culture from practices familiar in the ancient world.
As outsiders, we tend to characterize ritual as a thoughtless performance of obligatory acts. It would be more accurate to think of it as enacting belief. Ritual has been defined as a “way of construing, actualizing, realizing, and bringing into being a world of meaning and ordered existence. Ritual is, thus, seen as a means of enacting one’s theology.”14 Its efficacy depends not on the performance of the act itself but on the Lord who commands it. Gane makes the point that the physical act of slaughtering a goat on the Day of Atonement and applying its blood in the sanctuary does not achieve cleansing. Instead it produces a mess of “bloodstains, smoke, and ashes.” Cleansing of the sanctuary from impurity and sin is accomplished by the Lord who prescribes the ceremony. Gane writes, “While the activities themselves do not produce this goal through physical cause and effect, as they would be expected to in ordinary life, they serve as a vehicle for transformation that takes place on the level of symbolic meaning.”15
Finally, ritual is polyvalent, that is, it communicates a surplus of meaning. It may be likened to the celebration of communion in the worshiping life of Christian community. The Lord’s Supper is invested with a surplus of meaning: it is an act of faithful remembrance, participation in the covenant community, a proclamation of Christ’s death and coming again, and an invitation to deeper faith. Participating in the Lord’s Supper is enacted theology that preaches the gospel of Christ’s sacrificial offering and puts on display the redeemed people of God. As a ritual act, its regular celebration becomes more meaningful over time and forms the worshiper as well as the worshiping community. The best way to approach ritual in Leviticus is to understand it as practical theology.
Outline
I. Sacrificial Worship (1:1–7:38)
A. Burnt Offering (1:1–17)
1. Invitation to Worship (1:1–2)
2. The Burnt Offering (1:3–17)
a. From the Herd (1:3–9)
b. From the Flock (1:10–13)
c. From the Birds (1:14–17)
B. Grain Offering (2:1–16)
1. Offering the Sacrifice of Uncooked Grain (2:1–3)
2. Offering the Sacrifice of Cooked Grain (2:4–10)
3. Further Rules Regarding Leavening and Salt (2:11–13)
4. Offering the Firstfruits (2:14–16)
C. Peace Offering (3:1–17)
1. Sacrificing a Peace Offering from the Herd (3:1–5)
2. Sacrificing a Peace Offering from the Flock (3:6–16)
a. Sheep (3:6–11)
b. Goat (3:12–16)
3. Giving to the Lord What Is His Alone (3:17)
D. Sin Offering (4:1–5:13)
1. Introduction to Unintentional Sin (4:1–2)
2. The High Priest’s Sin Offering (4:3–12)
3. The Congregation’s Sin Offering (4:13–21)
4. A Tribal Leader’s Sin Offering (4:22–26)
5. An Individual’s Sin Offering (4:27–35)
6. Sins of Omission Requiring a Sin Offering (5:1–4)
a. Failure to Testify (5:1)
b. Prolonged Impurity from an Animal Source (5:2)
c. Prolonged Impurity from a Human Source (5:3)
d. Failure to Fulfill an Oath (5:4)
7. Sacrificial Procedure (5:5–13)
a. Confession and Offering (5:5–6)
b. Alternate Offerings (5:7–13)
E. Guilt Offering (5:14–6:7)
1. Introduction to the Guilt Offering (5:14)
2. Case of Sacrilege (5:15–16)
3. Case of Suspected Sacrilege (5:17–19)
4. Case of Sacrilege in Swearing Falsely (6:1–7)
F. Instructions for Priests (6:8–7:38)
1. Law of the Daily Burnt Offering (6:8–13)
2. Law of the Daily Grain Offering (6:14–23)
a. Congregational Grain Offering (6:14–18)
b. High Priestly Grain Offering (6:19–23)
3. Law of the Sin Offering (6:24–30)
4. Law of the Guilt Offering (7:1–7)
5. Summary of Priestly Portions (7:8–10)
6. Law of the Peace Offering (7:11–36)
a. Peace Offering (7:11–21)
b. Sacrificial Portions (7:22–36)
7. Concluding Summary (7:37–38)
II. Inauguration of Public Worship (8:1–10:20)
A. Ordination of the Priesthood (8:1–36)
1. Preparation for Ordination Ceremony (8:1–5)
2. Consecration of Tabernacle and Priesthood (8:6–13)
3. Sacrificial Service of Ordination (8:14–30)
4. Completing the Ordination (8:31–36)
B. The First Worship Service (9:1–24)
1. The Call to Worship (9:1–5)
2. Inaugural Worship at the Altar (9:6–22)
a. Introduction (9:6–7)
b. Sacrifices for the Priests (9:8–14)
c. Sacrifices for the People (9:15–21)
d. Priestly Blessing (9:22)
3. The Appearance of the Lord (9:23–24)
C. The Priesthood’s Costly Lesson on Holiness (10:1–20)
1. The Unholy Death of Nadab and Abihu (10:1–7)
2. The Lord’s Direct Address to Aaron on Making Distinctions (10:8–11)
3. Ministry That Respects God’s Holiness (10:12–20)
III. Ritual Impurity (11:1–15:33)
A. Clean and Unclean Animals (11:1–47)
1. Introduction (11:1–2a)
2. Clean and Unclean Animals (11:2b–23)
a. Land Animals (11:2b–8)
b. Aquatic Animals (11:9–12)
c. Flying Animals (11:13–19)
d. Flying Insects (11:20–23)
3. Carcass Impurity (11:24–40)
4. Swarming Creatures (11:41–45)
5. Summary (11:46–47)
B. Purification after Childbirth (12:1–8)
1. Introduction (12:1–2a)
2. Time Required for Purification If the Child Is Male (12:2b–4)
3. Time Required for Purification If the Child Is Female (12:5)
4. Sacrifice Required for Purification (12:6–7)
5. Provision for a Woman of Lower Economic Status (12:8)
C. Diagnosing Skin Disease (13:1–59)
1. Introduction (13:1)
2. Diagnosis of Diseased Persons (13:2–44)
3. Consequence: Removal from the Camp (13:45–46)
4. Diagnosis of Diseased Garments (13:47–51)
5. Consequence: Burning, Washing (13:52–58)
6. Concluding Summary (13:59)
D. Purification from Skin Disease (14:1–14:57)
1. Introduction to the Purification Rite (14:1–3)
2. First Stage: Restoration to the Camp (14:4–8)
3. Second Stage: Restoration to the Sanctuary (14:9)
4. Third Stage: Restoration to the Worshiping Community (14:10–20)
5. Provision for the Poor (14:21–32)
6. Purification of Houses (14:33–53)
7. Concluding Summary (14:54–57)
E. Bodily Impurities (15:1–33)
1. Introduction (15:1–2)
2. Abnormal Male Discharge (15:3–15)
3. Normal Male Discharge (15:16–17)
4. Marital Intercourse (15:18)
5. Normal Female Discharge (15:19–24)
6. Abnormal Female Discharge (15:25–30)
7. Reason for These Laws (15:31–33)
IV. Day of Atonement (16:1–34)
A. Introduction (16:1–2)
B. Ritual Preparation for the Rites of Atonement (16:3–10)
C. Day of Atonement Rites (16:11–28)
1. Purification of the Sanctuary (16:11–19)
2. Atonement for the People (16:20–22)
3. Worship Restored (16:23–28)
D. The People’s Participation (16:29–31)
E. Conclusion (16:32–34)
V. Life Is in the Blood (17:1–16)
A. Introduction (17:1–2)
B. Slaughter of Domestic Animals (17:3–7)
C. Slaughter of Sacrificial Animals (17:8–9)
D. Eating Blood Is Forbidden (17:10–12)
E. Disposal of Blood from Game (17:13–14)
F. Purification Contingencies (17:15–16)
VI. Moral Holiness (18:1–20:27)
A. Sexual Ethics for a Holy People (18:1–30)
1. Exhortation: Holy Living Leads to Life (18:1–5)
2. Laws of Incest (18:6–18)
3. Forbidden Sexual Practices and Worship (18:19–23)
4. Unholy Living Leads to Death (18:24–30)
B. A Community of Holy Love (19:1–37)
1. Call to Holiness (19:1–2)
2. Holiness in Worship (19:3–8)
3. Holiness in Community (19:9–18)
4. Holiness in All of Life (19:19–36a)
5. Final Charge (19:36b–37)
C. Penalties for Sexual Offenses (20:1–27)
1. Introduction (20:1–2a)
2. Idolatry and Divination (20:2b–6)
3. Exhortation to Holiness (20:7–8)
4. Dishonoring Parents, Sexual Sins (20:9–21)
5. Exhortation to Holiness (20:22–26)
6. Divination (20:27)
VII. Holy Institutions (21:1–27:34)
A. Priesthood (21:1–24)
1. Holiness in Mourning and Marriage: Regular Priests (21:1–9)
2. Holiness in Mourning and Marriage: High Priest (21:10–15)
3. Blemishes That Disqualify Service at the Altar (21:16–23)
4. Moses’ Obedience to Relay the Instructions (21:24)
B. Sacrifices (22:1–33)
1. Introduction (22:1–2)
2. Eating in Holiness (22:3–9)
3. Rights to Priestly Portions (22:10–16)
4. Disqualifying Animal Blemishes (22:17–25)
5. Additional Sacrificial Laws (22:26–30)
6. Exhortation to Holiness (22:31–33)
C. Calendar (23:1–44)
1. Introduction to Holy Times (23:1–2)
2. Sabbath (23:3)
3. Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread (23:4–8)
4. Feast of Firstfruits (23:9–14)
5. Feast of Weeks (23:15–22)
6. Feast of Trumpets (23:23–25)
7. Day of Atonement (23:26–32)
8. Feast of Booths (23:33–43)
9. Conclusion (23:44)
D. Tent of Meeting (24:1–23)
1. Kindling the Lamps of the Lampstand (24:1–4)
2. Setting Out the Bread of the Presence (24:5–9)
3. The Crime of Blaspheming the Name (24:10–23)
E. Covenanted Land (25:1–55)
1. Sabbatical Year (25:1–7)
2. Jubilee Year (25:8–17)
3. The Lord’s Promise to Sustain (25:18–22)
4. Jubilee Redemption Laws (25:23–55)
a. Theology of Land (25:23–24)
b. Sale of Landholdings (25:25–34)
c. Provision of Interest-Free Loans (25:35–38)
d. Entering Indentured Servitude (25:39–55)
F. Covenant Blessings and Curses (26:1–46)
1. Worship as the Basis of the Covenant (26:1–2)
2. Blessings of the Covenant (26:3–13)
a. Introduction (26:3)
b. First Blessing: Rains in Season (26:4–5)
c. Second Blessing: Peace (26:6)
d. Third Blessing: Victory over Enemies (26:7–8)
e. Fourth Blessing: Prosperity (26:9–10)
f. Fifth Blessing: Yahweh’s Personal Presence (26:11–12)
g. Conclusion (26:13)
3. Curses of the Covenant (26:14–39)
a. Introduction (26:14–15)
b. First Discipline: Panic (26:16–17)
c. Second Discipline: Drought (26:18–20)
d. Third Discipline: Wild Beasts (26:21–22)
e. Fourth Discipline: War (26:23–26)
f. Fifth Discipline: Military Defeat (26:27–39)
4. Yahweh Is Faithful to Restore His Wayward People (26:40–45)
5. Conclusion (26:46)
G. Dedicated Gifts (27:1–34)
1. Introduction (27:1–2a)
2. Voluntary Votive Offerings (27:2b–25)
a. Pledges of Persons (27:2b–8)
b. Animal Pledges (27:9–13)
c. Property and Land Pledges (27:14–25)
3. Nonredeemable Offerings (27:26–33)
a. Firstborn (27:26–27)
b. Devoted Things (27:28–29)
c. Tithes (27:30–33)
4. Conclusion (27:34)