Leviticus 23 English Standard Version Feasts of the Lord23 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts. The Sabbath 3 “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places. The Passover 4 “These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. 5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the Lord's Passover. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. 8 But you shall present a food offering to the Lord for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.” The Feast of Firstfruits 9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) 15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord. 17 You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord. 18 And you shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one bull from the herd and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 19 And you shall offer one male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21 And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations. 22 “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” The Feast of Trumpets 23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. 25 You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord.” The Day of Atonement 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord. 28 And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. 29 For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. 30 And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 31 You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. 32 It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.” The Feast of Booths 33 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 34 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the Lord. 35 On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. 36 For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work. 37 “These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord food offerings, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day, 38 besides the Lord's Sabbaths and besides your gifts and besides all your vow offerings and besides all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord. 39 “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. 40 And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. 41 You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, 43 that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” 44 Thus Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed feasts of the Lord. Instead of just talking about these days a Sabbaths or Feasts or Festivals, I decided to stick with the theme of Leviticus for my title and call these "holy days" (which is what the idea of a Sabbath day is, though a Sabbath day is even more specific than that). In fact, we get our modern word "holiday" from mashing together the words "holy "and "day" meaning that our holidays should be set apart for a special purpose and should be uncommon and not like any ordinary day. While these days here are ordained by God for the Jewish people, Paul seems to tell the Christians in the book of Colossians that these are not the most important issues and should not be seen as something that "disqualifies" someone from being a Christian or their eternal inheritance that is secure in Christ as He is the fulfillment of all these Feasts and Festivals. They all have different meaning for us as Christians now, and they still give us cause to remember and celebrate, though in a slightly different way now as we see how these days represent what God has done, what He is doing, and what He will continue to do. While this may not be a "salvation issue," I still think these days are there for our benefit and to help mark us as the people of God. How we choose to stop and reflect on who God is and what He has done is an important part of our testimony that puts our "talk" and our "walk" into harmony for those around us and is a reminder to us (we all need the reminders), a teaching opportunity for future generations and something that helps promote unity as we have these things in common with all believers. We've already talked about many of these holy days as we studied the book of Exodus and I believe I went in depth for all of them. All of these days mentioned here are what we could the "high holy days" or "holy holidays" as they are set apart from even the "ordinary" holy days. These are not simply civil holidays like how we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th in the United States--that's an important day for us as citizens of the United States of America, but that's not something we have in common with all those who are citizens of our heavenly kingdom for which we are ambassadors. It will be my goal in this blog not to tell you the history of each of these holidays or its meaning to the people at that time, because I think we've covered that well in Exodus and here and the passage is clear here in Leviticus, and we'll see the people observe (or fail to observe) these holidays in Numbers and God will talk about them again to the new generation before entering the promised land in the book of Deuteronomy. We have had and will have plenty of opportunity to hear from God on why the people of that time and their children should remember these events, but we see later in the Old Testament that part of what lead to the degradation of society is that the people neither knew God nor knew of His works because they forgot to celebrate these holy days and failed to understand their meaning. For instance, if the Feast of Thanksgiving in the United States just becomes a time for "food, family and football" as most Americans like to say, we have missed it completely as it is supposed to be a day of celebration of God's provision for bringing us through the year (as many died that first year as colonists), remembering the kindness of the Indians who shared their crops with our people so that they did not die, and a time for us offer our "firstfruits" of our harvest to God in a special way that gives thanks for all that we trust that He's going to provide and know that even when it's hard God will provide for all of our needs. However, we're not here to talk about US holidays today--I'm just using some of them to draw a comparison--especially since several of them have their roots in one or more of these holidays that we're going to study. Today's blog will try to focus on the application of these holidays to the Church today and how these holidays were used as prophetic instruments to tell us something of the person and ministry of Christ. I'm probably only going to dedicate a couple of sentences to each holy day here as there are many of them and because we've spent a lot of time on most of these previously. The Sabbath This celebration was to happen on a weekly basis and served the purpose of remembering God as Creator who made heaven and earth and all that is in them in six literal days of creation and then rested on the seventh day. He made that day special and different by resting on that day and He called that day "holy" as a day of rest for man and a day to remember and honor Him. The way in which the people gathered together and worshiped on that day and treated this day different from every other day in the week was one of the key ways that God chose to identify His people to the nations around them and remind His people of who they were. The same can be said for us today as Christians as we gather weekly to remember God as not only the Creator of Genesis 1, but the one who makes us a "new creation" in 2 Corinthians 5:17, and the one who is creating a place for us in heaven and will make a New Heaven and New Earth for us that we see in Revelation 21 and 22--the ultimate fulfillment of our Sabbath rest as we see in Hebrews 3 and 4 as the author to the Hebrews tells these Christians that Jesus offers a "better rest" and a "better Sabbath" than Moses (the Law) did. The rest of the days here have been well-explained in another blog post that I found. I'll post a link here, but then will also copy/paste the post into this blog post for preservation in case that link over dies. https://www.wycliffe.org/feast/7-feasts-that-point-to-christ. Everything below the "separator" line here is copied from Wycliffe's blog and was authored by Jessie Blackman and Susha Roberts. 7 FEASTS THAT POINT TO CHRISTDiscover the clues that God left for Israel and for people today to find his son! By Jessie Blackman and Susha Roberts When I was a kid, the white-washed walls of a doctor’s waiting room pointed to only one thing: checking out the “Where’s Waldo?” book. Forget “Home and Garden” or “People” magazines — my eyes eagerly searched for the familiar time-waster of trying to find Waldo in the midst of the messy crowd.
Sorting through prophecies and symbolisms of the Old Testament can feel similar, like an intricate game of “Where’s Jesus?” But the richness of God’s Word is that it often reveals a deeper truth if you know where to look. Jesus often pointed to the “beginning” (Genesis), the Law of Moses (first five books) and the prophets (Jeremiah through Malachi) to reveal God’s plan for mankind and clues to recognize the Savior. For the Jews of his time, understanding the Old Testament was key to discovering that Jesus is their promised Messiah. And if you have heard the Good News from the New Testament and received Jesus as your Savior, Old Testament prophecies and symbolism provide further proof and assurance that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. 1. Passover — Leviticus 23:4-8This feast remembers the last plague in Egypt, when the angel of death “passed over” the children of Israel who applied the blood of the lamb to their doors. The Israelites took a bundle of hyssop and dipped it into the blood in the basin at the threshold. Going up, they put it up on the lintel, then touched the two sides of the frame (Exodus 12). Can you see the imagery? Bottom to top, side to side: the motion formed a cross. When John the Baptist said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NLT), he understood the Old Testament reference. And in the New Testament we see that Jesus — born in a stable, visited by shepherds and led to the slaughter — is that lamb sent for us. His death allows the judgement we deserve to pass over us. When we accept Christ, we accept the loving gift of a second chance — because of his death on the cross, we have a clean slate! 2. Unleavened Bread — Leviticus 23:6This seven-day feast begins on the day following the start of Passover. In the haste of the Israelites to leave Egypt, there was no time to add leaven (yeast) to their bread. During this time, remembering the hardships in Egypt and how God freed them from captivity, the Jews eat nothing leavened. Leaven often represents sin and decay in the Bible. Once incorporated, yeast becomes an inseparable part of the bread; the same is true for sin’s effect on our lives. The Jews were constantly sacrificing unblemished animals to temporarily atone for sin. Only the Messiah, the perfect sinless sacrifice, could offer a permanent solution. The unleavened bread represents Jesus’ sinless life; he is the only perfect sacrifice for our sins. In John 6:35, Jesus boldly states that he is the bread of life. Not only does he remove our sins, he nourishes our souls! 3. First Fruits — Leviticus 23:10The Feast of First Fruits is one of three Jewish harvest feasts to thank and honor God for all he provided. Although they didn’t know it at the time, the children of Israel were celebrating what would become a very important day. The priests sacrificed Passover lambs on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, and the first day of Passover was the 15th. The Feast of First Fruits was celebrated the third day, the 16th of Nisan. This “third day” celebration was the same day that Jesus resurrected from the dead. In 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul refers to Jesus as the first fruits of the dead. He represents the first of the great harvest of souls — including you — that will resurrect to eternal life because of the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20). 4. Feast of Weeks or Pentecost — Leviticus 23:16This feast is the second of the three harvest feasts. It occurs exactly seven weeks after the Feast of First Fruits, so it’s also called Pentecost which means “50 days.” Traditionally, people were expected to bring the first harvest of grain to the Lord including two leavened loaves of bread. God’s plan to save souls included more than the Jews. Through Jesus, this plan was revealed. In Matthew 9:37 Jesus tells his disciples that “the harvest is great, but the workers are few.” Then he put the plan into place: In Acts 1:4 he tells them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. That arrival was the day the Church was born — Pentecost — and the harvest began with 3,000 souls. The message spread to both Jews and Gentiles (the two leavened loaves of bread), extending the harvest to us! 5. Feast of Trumpets — Leviticus 23:24In a beautiful declaration God commands his people to rest. During this time all regular work is prohibited, and men and women present a food offering to God. In Leviticus 23:24 God commands his people to gather and to commemorate the decree with trumpet blasts. On the same front, the sound of a trumpet is also associated with the rapture, or the time Jesus will return for his bride (1 Corinthians 15:52). Once he returns, there will be a wedding feast of celebration. Revelation 19:9 says, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb” (NLT). He’s preparing us to celebrate! 6. Day of Atonement — Leviticus 16, 23:26-32To make “atonement” is to make restitution for wrongs committed. As a day of humility and repentance to God, it was a time for the Jews to get their hearts, consciences and lives right before him. The observance involved the sacrifice of animals as the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies. What the High Priest did there couldn’t offer more than an annual payment for their sins. However, hiding in plain sight was the promise of one who could atone for their sins permanently (Hebrews 9:12). Where is Jesus in these sacrificed animals? The bull and one of the goats was an offering of thanks, but the “scapegoat” took on their sins (Leviticus 16:10). The scapegoat was to be burdened with all the sins of Israel and sent into the wilderness. The Jewish leaders condemned Jesus, and he — burdened with the sins of all mankind — was led out of the city to be crucified: “He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins — and not only our sins but the sins of the world” (1 John 2:2, NLT). The necessity of the Day of Atonement was rendered void by Jesus’ death on the cross — our debt has been paid! 7. Feast of Tabernacles or Booths — Leviticus 23:34Celebration always follows the Day of Atonement. The Feast of Tabernacles celebrates God’s provision and protection for the people of Israel during their 40 years wandering in the wilderness; for the seven days of the feast, people live in temporary structures like they did in the wilderness. The Lord himself was with the Israelites in the desert, in a tented temple called the tabernacle, so the feast also celebrates his presence as he tabernacles (dwells) with us. Jesus is called Emmanuel, meaning “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23, NLT). He put on a temporary tabernacle — a human body — to dwell on this earth and offer himself as a sacrifice. This feast also points to the promise that God will return and rally with his people — in the person of Jesus. And when he does, he has promised that there will be no more death and suffering, that he himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4). His return is the final answer to the hope we’ve carried our entire lives. What a day that will be! Unlike searching for Waldo in a messy world, we can pray for God’s wisdom as we read his Word. Even with this small glimpse into these feasts, we see his intentional love for humanity has endured centuries, and he has left us clues that foreshadow the beauty that is to come. The Old Testament has many hidden truths that, in light of the New Testament, bring a richer understanding to your life in Jesus Christ.
0 Comments
Leviticus 22:17-33 English Standard Version Acceptable Offerings 17 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 18 “Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of the house of Israel or of the sojourners in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering, for any of their vows or freewill offerings that they offer to the Lord, 19 if it is to be accepted for you it shall be a male without blemish, of the bulls or the sheep or the goats. 20 You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you. 21 And when anyone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it. 22 Animals blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs you shall not offer to the Lord or give them to the Lord as a food offering on the altar. 23 You may present a bull or a lamb that has a part too long or too short for a freewill offering, but for a vow offering it cannot be accepted. 24 Any animal that has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut you shall not offer to the Lord; you shall not do it within your land, 25 neither shall you offer as the bread of your God any such animals gotten from a foreigner. Since there is a blemish in them, because of their mutilation, they will not be accepted for you.” 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “When an ox or sheep or goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as a food offering to the Lord. 28 But you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day. 29 And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. 30 It shall be eaten on the same day; you shall leave none of it until morning: I am the Lord. 31 “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord. 32 And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, 33 who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord.” I actually referenced these requirements yesterday as the ideas are closely connected for the qualification as serving as priests (those who are to be "living sacrifices" as we are told in the New Testament) and the requirements for the sacrifices that would be made on the altar for the atonement of the people of God. No matter the reason for the offering, the requirements were the same--perfection without spot or blemish!
Any animal that is blind, disabled, mutilated or unclean because of a discharge or an itch or scabs could not be offered to the LORD and would not be an acceptable sacrifice for any of the offerings in which a portion was saved as food for the priests. God does allow for lambs and bulls with one leg longer than the others to be given as a "freewill" offering, but not as an offering for a vow. Any animal with bruised, crushed, torn or cut testicles could not be offered as a sacrifice to the LORD. We saw a similar requirement for the priests. In fact, I think you can see that so far all the requirements have been identical with the exception that freewill offerings were allowed to have limbs of different lengths, and we don't see any requirements for animals on marriage for obvious reasons. All of the animals that they were to offer must come from their own herds and flocks. They were not to offer any animal that was obtained form a foreigner. My guess here is that these animals were branded with something that scarred the animal and therefore these animals were no longer acceptable sacrifices because they were not without blemish. For oxen and sheep, God commanded that none of their young be offered as a sacrifices until after the eighth day, after they had been weaned from their mother. God forbid that the mother and its offspring be both offered as sacrifices the same day. God reminds them that when they offer one of these animals as a sacrifice of thanksgiving that they are to eat their potion of the sacrifice on the same day and leave none of it until morning. We wrap up this section with reminders that these requirements and all the Laws so far are reflections of who the Lord is and His righteous requirements are there to satisfy His holiness. These commands and decrees will make His name great among the nations and will keep His name holy among His people. They are to remember that He is the one who makes them holy and the LORD who redeemed them and saved them when He led them out of Egypt. It is similar for us, though our salvation and redemption was from our slavery to sin. We too have been bought with a price--the blood of our Passover Lamb. Leviticus 21:1-22:16 English Standard Version Holiness and the Priests 21 And the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, 2 except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, 3 or his virgin sister (who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may make himself unclean). 4 He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself. 5 They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy. 7 They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. 8 You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy. 9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire. 10 “The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. 11 He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. 12 He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the Lord. 13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, 15 that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.” 16 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, 19 or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, 20 or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. 21 No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. 22 He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, 23 but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” 24 So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel. 22 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons so that they abstain from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name: I am the Lord. 3 Say to them, ‘If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. 4 None of the offspring of Aaron who has a leprous disease or a discharge may eat of the holy things until he is clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead or a man who has had an emission of semen, 5 and whoever touches a swarming thing by which he may be made unclean or a person from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever his uncleanness may be-- 6 the person who touches such a thing shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. 7 When the sun goes down he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because they are his food. 8 He shall not eat what dies of itself or is torn by beasts, and so make himself unclean by it: I am the Lord.’ 9 They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the Lord who sanctifies them. 10 “A lay person shall not eat of a holy thing; no foreign guest of the priest or hired worker shall eat of a holy thing, 11 but if a priest buys a slave as his property for money, the slave may eat of it, and anyone born in his house may eat of his food. 12 If a priest's daughter marries a layman, she shall not eat of the contribution of the holy things. 13 But if a priest's daughter is widowed or divorced and has no child and returns to her father's house, as in her youth, she may eat of her father's food; yet no lay person shall eat of it. 14 And if anyone eats of a holy thing unintentionally, he shall add the fifth of its value to it and give the holy thing to the priest. 15 They shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they contribute to the Lord, 16 and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt, by eating their holy things: for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” We just finished a little section about what the priests are supposed to teach the people about holiness among the people and the laws they are supposed to enforce regarding cleanliness and holiness (not just regarding hygiene and health, but also moral purity to abstain from becoming "unclean" by worshiping other gods, practicing necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft, or fortune telling, and to be sexually pure which falls into both the "heath" and "moral" categories of being clean.
Now we are going to turn our attention back to the priests, the sons of Aaron, to make sure they do their jobs correctly so that they can continue to represent the people before God and represent God to the people. They belong to the LORD and cannot conduct themselves any way in which they want. For example, they are not to mourn the loss of anyone in the community other than a close family member--they should not even mourn for their sister if she has been married and no longer lives with them. When they do mourn, they are not to shave their heads or cut off their beards or cut themselves as part of their grieving or as a means of trying to communicate with the dead or influence their path in the afterlife like the pagans did. There is no sacrifice or action that be taken on the part of the living to affect the destiny of those that are dead--"It is appointed to man once to die, and after that, the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27) That means you must make your choice that will determine your eternal destiny. After death, the dead cannot change their destiny, nor can the dead return to speak to the living (see Luke 16:19-31 where the rich man begs God to go back and warn his family and God refuses), nor can the living do anything for the dead--in fact, they are specifically prohibited from doing so in this passage and others. The priests are allowed to marry, but may not marry a prostitute, a woman who has been defiled (probably referring to rape) or anyone who has been divorced. The woman must be a virgin so that the priest will not be defiled (most likely here this command is to prevent the priests from being infected with sexually transmitted diseases and infections--if you only ever have relations with one woman and you were both virgins before getting married, and you both remain faithful to each other, then it should be impossible in the days before blood transfusions and the like to catch or spread STD's or STI's). Even the daughter of a priest who commits sexual sin by becoming a prostitute makes her father unclean, and the daughter is to be burned with fire--while this is a unique punishment I think it again has something to do with God knowing that this was the best way they had to deal with any issues for sexually transmitted diseases and infections. The high priest is not even allowed to mourn for his close relatives by letting his hear down or tearing his clothes that were common signs of mourning among the people (it appears that he'd also be forbidden from wearing sackcloth or putting ashes on his head because he could not do that while at his post and such outward signs of mourning were forbidden while a priest was serving in the Tabernacle). He can get no bereavement period--he must always serve before the LORD, making atonement for the people. We saw this already when two of Aaron's sons died and God instructed Aaron not to leave his post and to let the nation mourn for him and his family, but that he must not leave his station and must continue to make atonement for the people. God makes the command a little stronger for who the chief priest can marry by also forbidding marriage by the high priest to any widow (not forbidden for the regular priests) and my making doubly-sure they understood it was commanded that he marry a virgin--this is said twice so there is no missing it. Man son of Aaron who has a deformity or disability of any kind was fit to serve as a priest. This included anyone with a blemish (possibly a birthmark, though maybe even something as small as a scar), no one who is lame, no one who is blind, and not even the person who has a mutilated face or limbs of different size (maybe referring to an amputee, but there are also conditions where one leg is significantly than the other and makes the person gimpy). Like the sacrifices that they offered, those that served as priests were to be spotless, pure, and without imperfection or blemish as well as being free from deformity and disease, for they were to represent the one that was go come to be the better Priest, our Great High Priest, who would offer Himself as a sacrifice for His people as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The list continues of diseases and conditions that would disqualify one of Aaron's suns from serving as a priest--an injured foot or hand, a hunchback, a dwarf, any defect in his sight (maybe something as small as being colorblind, but I'm sure referring to blurry vision, double-vision, being nearsighted, farsighted, losing peripheral vision in one or both eyes, losing straight-forward vision in one or both eyes, cataracts, etc.), nor can anyone serve who has a rash (itching disease), scabs, or crushed testicles (probably referring to someone who has been castrated or sexually impotent my mutilation or birth defect). All of these things would be disqualifying in the same way that these issues would disqualify an animal from being brought before the LORD for sacrifice. God then tells Aaron and his sons and other family members to take special care to abstain from touching the things that are dedicated to the LORD's service--the holy things--when they are unclean. Such a priest who approaches these holy things while he is unclean will be cut off from the Lord (unable to serve before Him). The priests were forbidden from eating in the sacrifices or the Showbread, or other other holy food that was meant for them if they were unclean with leprosy or any bodily discharge, but they may eat of them again once they are clean. The same prohibition is in place for any priest who becomes unclean by touching someone or something else that is unclean--touching a dead person or animal, an unclean animal, a discharge of semen (or other body fluids as described in the Law before). He must wait until evening and bathe and wash his clothes as required by the laws we talked about earlier and be pronounced "clean" before he could partake in eating of any of the holy things of the Lord. The priests are only to eat of the sacrifices that are made on the altar of animals that are pure and without blemish. They are not to eat of animals that have died of natural causes or have been killed by other animals. These animals are not fit for consumption by the priests--they may only eat of the portion of the holy sacrifices brought before the LORD's altar. Any priest who disobeys these commands and thereby profanes the name of God risks God striking him dead when his uncleanliness comes in contact with God's holiness, for sin and impurity cannot coexist with the holiness of God. God's holiness will win every time and will eliminate the threat His purity. This is why the wages of sin is death. No one other than the priests (no "lay person") should be allowed to eat of the holy sacrifices or from the Table of Showbread. We will see later in the Bible that David breaks this command when he and his men are starving and they go to the Tabernacle and ask the priests to give them the break from the Table of Showbread that they may eat and not die. Jesus will later reference this in HIs "Lord of the Sabbath" argument in Mark 2:23-28 to defend his disciples plucking and eating grain that was along the roadside when they were hungry on the Sabbath day. We'll get to both of those stories later as we study the Old Testament and the New Testament more fully. Any member of the priests household, including a slave the priest has purchased, may eat of these holy things, but if the daughter of a priest marries a layman, she is no longer considered a member of the priest's household. She is now part of the household of her husband and is no longer allowed to eat of the food that is for the priests and their households. However, if that daughter becomes widowed or divorced and returns to her father's house to be taken care of as she was in the days of her youth (she becomes his dependent once again), then she will once again be permitted to eat the holy things that are meant for the priests and their households. If anyone unintentionally eats of the holy things (I'm not quite sure how this would happen, but God makes provision for it), they are to give back the holy thing to the priests and add one-fifth (20%) to it to give to the priests. The things of God are to be treated with reverence and honor, not only because of the nature and character of God and wanting to keep His name from being profaned (that's a big part of it), but also because it was by these things that God provided the means for atonement and sanctification for His people. Look at Leviticus 22:15-16, "15 They shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they contribute to the Lord, 16 and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt, by eating their holy things: for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” God's concern through most of the passage has been about not profaning His holy name, but here God says that if the people profane His holy things, they risk bearing their own iniquity and guilt because these are things by which God sanctifies the people (makes them holy and clean). Yes, the laws were there to protect God's name and reputation, but they were also there to protect the people. As you look forward to how Christ fulfilled the roles of the priesthood, the sacrifice, and was the true Israel, how do you see Him fulfilling the righteous requirements of these laws? Leviticus 20:22-27 English Standard Version You Shall Be Holy 22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. 24 But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. 25 You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. 26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. 27 “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.” Here we see the covenant renewed again. God tells the people that the covenant of the land is conditional on their obedience to the Law and their cultivation of God's "culture" and them not taking on the culture of the pagan, idolatrous, wicked nations that would surround them. Otherwise that land will not be fruitful for them and it may even "vomit them out" so that they will once again be a people in exile and enslaved to godless kings and cultures like during the time of the Exile where the northern 10 tribes and all the people who lived among them were taken into captivity by the Assyrians and the southern two tribes and all those who lived among them were taken into captivity by the Babylonians. The Levites were not included in the count of 10 tribes and 2 tribes because they had no land of their own other than the cities of refuge (we'll get there later), but it is assume that the faithful Levites stayed in the southern kingdom to care for the Temple, though some of the unfaithful Levites became apostate and would join with the kings and people of the northern kingdom in worshiping the gods of the Canaanites and offering sacrifices to them in the "high places."
God said that the people should be holy and "clean" before Him and should be separate from any unclean or detestable thing, including the unclean animals. Since they are not to eat to them or sacrifice them or even touch them, there was no reason for them to raise these animals whatsoever, so it is unlikely that the Jews kept dogs or cats as pets for themselves (for instance) The people of God are to be different in all their ways and be holy and called out with a special name and a special purpose from among all the nations. They are to reflect the nature and character of God as they received the Word of God, lived it out, told it to the rest of the world, and ministered as a nation of royal priests before Him and the world. Last, but not least, we see the prohibition against engaging in fortune telling, sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy, and anything else along these lines forbidden as well as the command that anyone engaging in such practices is to be put to death. We'll see that God has good reason to keep repeating this command as we go throughout the Old Testament, and it is one of the things that we see returning in the end times with the rise of the cultural and religious system that will be known as Babylon in the end times. We also need to be careful to not be caught up in these things in our times as the end times are approaching as these prohibitions were not just for the people of that time but are still good boundaries for us today as the people of God living as a "holy nation" and a kingdom of "royal priests" as exiles and sojourners in a foreign land (see the epistle of 1st Peter if you have any doubt that these commands to be holy and live a life different from the "Gentile" nations around us isn't still in full effect for the Church). Leviticus 20:10-21 English Standard Version Punishments for Sexual Immorality 10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. 13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 14 If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. 15 If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. 16 If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 17 “If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity. 18 If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people. 19 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister, for that is to make naked one's relative; they shall bear their iniquity. 20 If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 If a man takes his brother's wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless. Now we're really getting into the part of Leviticus that people today don't like to talk about, but all these prohibitions are repeated by Jesus and/or the writers of the New Testament epistles. These are not just laws for the Jews, but for the Church as well.
Marriage and sexuality and big deals to God. God created us male and female to have a sexual identity that is determined by genetic--not a sexual orientation or a sexual preference or any of the other word games that people play today. The purpose of the difference between the sexes is obvious from nature--procreation, the closest that we get to displaying God's creative nature and abilities. But there is something different between the relationship between man and woman than there is between the male and female of any other sexual creatures that were made. We have an intimacy that is beyond physical and is spiritual, and it is a relationship that is meant to display the kind of love that God has for us that goes beyond the physical, but an unconditional and sacrificial love that we see ultimately fulfilled at the cross of Christ. If we mess this up, then we ruin one of the great pictures God gave us to show the world who He is and how He loves us. For this reason, sins concerning sexual identity and sexual relationships are "high crimes" in God's law as they are openly rebelling against God and His authority and the order He has created in nature and the identity He has given us and the boundaries He has set for us. These are not simply "trespasses" where you accidently crossed a boundary line that you didn't know was there--these are "transgressions" and "iniquity" where we are living in open rebellion. I've met so many that try to be "Christian" and live in these sins, and I tell all of them that they will eventually reach a point where they will be honest and they will choose their sin or they will choose God, but they cannot claim to be a child of God and live in open rebellion to God's law. In every case that I can think of, the person has chosen their sin because this is a very strong attraction and passion (as most of us know). It is not something to play around with, just like you don't play around with a loaded gun--firearms have their good purposes when pointed in a safe direction and handled safely, but the issue here is not about "safe sex" as our culture tries to define it. All sex that happens outside of the confines of marriage is sin and makes us "unclean" according to the Law, and those who have been in those situations usually describe themselves as feeling "dirty" when engaging in such behavior, which is exactly what our hearts feel like when we are "unclean" and the Spirit of God convicts us directly or uses or consciences to do so. The man who commits adultery and the one whom willingly commits adultery with him are both to be put to death. The same goes for anyone who commits incest or engages in any of the other forbidden relationships that we discussed in Leviticus 18. This includes the death penalty for same-sex relationships (remember that only male-to-male homosexuality happened at that time, but if female-to-female homosexuality existed at that time, it too would have been forbidden here, but it is clearly forbidden in the New Testament). Only homosexuality is called an abomination, but the penalty is sure and certain for all of these sins. The people committing them must die according to the Law. As we said before, the death penalty--they are all sexual sins that are open rebellion against God, but homosexuality is also rebellion "against nature" as Romans 1 tells us. If a man takes both a woman and her mother both as wives (has sexual relations with them whether of not they actually get married), this is depravity and all of them are to be burned. This is the first time here in the list that the means by which the person is to die is specified. We typically see the punishment for rebellion being stoning and then being hung up on a tree because "accursed is any man who hangs upon a tree," but God sees this particular sin differently. If a man or woman has relations with an animal, then the person committing beastiality and the animal are to be killed. Again, in almost all these cases, the death penalty was executed by stoning and we will see the New Testament where we see a woman that was caught in adultery who was brought before Jesus to be stoned--interesting in this case that they were watching the woman and caught her in the act, but they did nothing to apprehend the man and bring him to be stoned even though the punishment is the same for both the man and woman in adultery. These laws have nothing to do with if a woman gets raped--that will be covered later as God will provide a way to determine if the relations were consensual or if the woman was attacked and it was non-consensual. The punishments for uncovering the nakedness of a close relative or for taking a close relative as a wife go from "he will bear his iniquity" (meaning that there is no sacrifice that can be made for such rebellion) to becoming barren (not able to bear children) or excommunication from among the people. All of these close relationship still appear to be forbidden as does even looking on the nakedness of a close relative (lusting after them sexually, even if you do not actually have sex with them). These were the acts of the wicked Canaanites that only saw their daughters and sisters and mothers as sexual objects and it has no place amongst God's people. This profanes the holy name of God that His people bear and slanders His good name and assassinates His good character. This is why these sins that are "high-handed" sins of rebellion are such a big deal to God. You don't "accidently" stumble into adultery or beastiality or homosexuality. You also don't accidently look at your close relatives as sexual objects or have sexual relationships with them. These are unclean passions that are given time and space to take root before they produce fruit. While a person's passions are strong, they are not something that "just happens." People put themselves into the situation where they invite it to happen (with the exception of the people that are attacked like we talked about before--that will be covered later). Leviticus 20:1-9 English Standard Version Punishment for Child Sacrifice 20 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. 6 “If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. 7 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 8 Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 9 For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. We're still in the section of Leviticus where God is calling His people to be holy and separate from the Canaanites in the land they are about to enter. As mentioned last time, one of the things the Canaanites were known for was their worship of the god Molech and their offering of their children and making them "pass through the fire" and we also get phrases like "a fire in my belly" (something you are passionate about) from the idols of Molech that had a fire in the belly of the statue where the infants and young children were sacrificed. God calls out this as an especially heinous sin against those who were innocent and unable to defend themselves and as I said before, I don't think of abortion as any different--just the means of the "fire" now is usually chemical instead of combustion.
Anyone who made child sacrifices to Molech, even if they were strangers or sojourners who did not know the Law of the LORD, was to be put to death for this crime. They were to be stones. God seems to indicate that He will not have mercy on such a person, and something strange is said there--God promises that such a person will be cut off from His sanctuary and from the people of God. Why does that matter if the person is stoned to death? Wouldn't he already not be able to worship God in the Tabernacle or be around the people of God? I think this is telling us something more about how we see in Ezekiel and in Revelation that the real temple that everything here was modeled after is in heaven and that such a person is going to be cut off eternally from the presence of God and the presence of God's people and will be cast out of God's kingdom. Now, we know from the New Testament that our identity and status before God can change once we are saved, but this should tell us that anyone who is genuinely "in Christ" and a genuine "child of God" should have nothing to do with child sacrifice, infanticide or abortion of any kind. Period. Full Stop. God than says that he will not hold the community guiltless for allowing such an abomination to happen in their midst, and that God will do His part to punish the offender even if the congregating does not do its part in executing the death penalty. God will get justice for these innocent children and anyone who whores (His words) after Molech. God then again repeats the prohibition of whoring after mediums and necromancers. This is the third time God has spoken to this topic in just a few verses--the first being a prohibition of seeking after fortune tellers and divination from those with "wisdom" from the spirit realm, then a prohibition against the occult and the mediums and necromancers that try to harness the power of the spiritual forces of Satan and his demons to perform spells, curses, and hexes or otherwise alter the laws of probability either in your favor or against your adversary. God now puts this in the same camp as whoring after idols and false gods because it's all one in the same--they are looking for answers or power from another source and giving worship to these other spirits. These people too are deserving of being stoned and cut off from the presence of God and the people of God forever, and no one that calls themselves a "child of God" can accidently get mixed up in any of this--this is a choice to reject God and His ways. Do not get near it, do not dabble in it, do not meddle with it, and do not even become curious about it. STAY AWAY FROM IT as we said before! There is no such thing as an "acceptable" or "good" amount of black magic, fortune telling, astrology, consorting with mediums or the occult. The last category that we'll talk about next time is sexual sin which was also usually closely associated with worship of the false gods of the Canaanites, but it is also another high-handed sin and is reason to be cast out of the covenant community if someone who claims to be a child of God gets involved in such things--and we'll see that's exactly what happened in 1 Corinthians when Paul heard about someone in the church at Corinth having an affair with his step-mother and Paul said that even the wicked Gentiles don't stoop to that level. God appears to deal with us a little differently now as we are part of a kingdom that is not of this world and the punishment was one of excommunication and not stoning to death, and we do see that the man eventually repented and was able to once again join the church again (we'll see that in 2nd Corinthians when we go back and study that (that might be the next thing after Leviticus). So some of you may want to ask then if God required the death penalty at this time and didn't seem to require it later, what changed and does that mean that God no longer approves of the death penalty? We'll probably talk about that a bit more when we get to book of Romans, specifically chapter 13 where Paul talks about the kings (civil government) being given the authority to use the death penalty to compel the people to be moral and punish those who are either immoral or rebellious against the king and his authority. It seems that there is now some "separation of Church and State" in the New Testament that the role of the Church is not specifically to be in charge of civil law and order, but that people would be transformed through the gospel and the preaching of the Word and that their behavior would come into conformity with God's Law by an internal change instead of means of an external threat of punishment or death for non-compliance. That does not speak to the issue of if God still wants or allows certain crimes to be punished by death--He just may have changed who His agents of justice on earth are now, and while it seems strange to say so, God uses the wicked kings and governments of this world to accomplish His purposes, many times without their knowledge that they are doing God's work. That may be a weird place to end up, but I know some churches and some individual Christians that have problems with this portion of Leviticus because they are against the death penalty. Remember to do your best to set any agenda you have aside and not set your views above the authority of the text. It is a fair question to ask though if this was only for those people at that time, or if it is for all people at all time, and to ask "What is the same?" and "What is different?" now. We should also be willing to analyze if what is different is good and obedient to Scripture or is a difference because our culture has become more ungodly and more lawless (more rebellious) and we've become okay with that. Avoid building a me-centric theology based off of if you feel good about what God says or if you think or feel that's the kind of thing God calls you to do--you are then setting yourself up as the arbiter of truth and putting your own opinions above those of God. The same goes for glorifying the opinions of any man--even really smart theologians. Academics love to be worshiped with worship that only goes to God--they want you to buy their books, give money to their organizations and make their name famous. There is only one Author of one Book that I'm concerned about and He owns all the resources He has put into my temporary custody and He is the only one worthy of praise. Don't get mixed up in the Western form of idolatry where we worship celebrities (even celebrity pastors, podcasters, or Christian authors). Leviticus 19:19-36 English Standard Version You Shall Keep My Statutes 19 “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material. 20 “If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave, assigned to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free; 21 but he shall bring his compensation to the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. 22 And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed. 23 “When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 24 And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Lord your God. 26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord. 29 “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity. 30 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. 31 “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God. 32 “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. 33 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. 35 “You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. 36 You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. We have more assorted laws here that may not seem to be connected to anything other than our primary focus here that God is calling us to be holy because He is holy and He has ordained through His covenant to make a people that is a holy priesthood unto himself. If we are all priests in this holy priesthood, then the book of Leviticus that was instructions to the priests on how to be priests should be important to all of us, not just those who are Jewish and of the tribe of Levi--specifically the ones who are descendants of Aaron the High Priest.
The first laws here are straightforward and while they have some applications to them, there seems to be very little that would be "moral" about these first few laws to not allow animals of different kinds to mate, to not plant multiple types of crops in the same field and to not wear clothes that are made out of two different kinds of fabric (probably what we could polyester blends today). We'll see a consistent them in many of these laws about not "mixing" and I think it's a cultural reference as much as anything else that all these rules were there to help them remember that they were called to be pure and not to be intermixed or hybridized or amalgamated with the other cultures, especially the Canaanites, that they were about to encounter--nor were they to bring the culture of the Egyptians with them either. I don't pretend to understand the next law other than to say that it is still wrong. In no way is God saying that it is right for the woman who is a slave to be forced into a sexual encounter or even that it's right for her to have sex with anyone other than the one she is married to--this passaged doesn't say that. It clearly calls the act here sin and requires a sacrifice and atonement to be made, but the man does not pay for this sin with his life like he would if it was a man caught in adultery or fornication with a free woman. Again, I can't explain why this was other than there clearly was a difference culturally between free men and slaves that was and is different than how we regard the word "slave" today, but it doesn't mean that there weren't distinctions in the law. Next God tells the Israelites that when they plant fruit trees in the new land that they should let them grow for three years before harvesting any fruit to eat from them. This allows the tree time to mature and for its fruit to be allowed to feed the animals and let the seeds be used to be reproductive, but it also probably is a way to make sure that if the ground was polluted in any way that it was given some time to work itself out before they ate of the fruit that might also be polluted if they ate too early. In the fourth year the entire harvest of fruit belongs to the LORD (probably meaning that a portion of it was given on the altar, but that nearly all of it was given to the priests and their families). After that, the tree could be eaten of, but they would still be required to offer their offerings of firstfruits every year. God even says here that his reasoning it to increase the yield (how fruitful) of their harvest from these trees. We know some of this fruitfulness is probably basic horticulture that God understands, but God directly blesses the people with fruitful harvests in proportion to their obedience--it's something we will continue to see throughout the Old Testament. When the people are obedient, the land bears much fruit and the people get to keep it (though they are usually generous with it if they are being obedient to God). When they start to become disobedient and worship the fertility gods and goddesses of the Canaanites, God brings famine and drought to show them that the blessing does not come from these false gods or He allows invaders to come into the land and steal or burn their crops and maybe even to take away their land and God makes the land be less fruitful. God repeats the prohibition to eat anything with blood in it. This has been a command to all the nations since the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9, specifically Genesis 9:4. God also prohibits the use of mediums and fortune tellers among His people. Mediums and fortune tellers claim special knowledge from the spirit realm that God says does not come from Him--it is from the demons that pretend to be gods and the voices of people from beyond the grave. God speaks directly to HIs people through His prophets, through the high priest (who would cast lots as necessary to discern the will of the LORD), and in modern times through the Word of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirt so that we no longer need to try to divine the will of the LORD any more because we have all that we need for life and godliness in His Word and the Spirit guides our steps each and every day. Don't ask me why, but God even tells the people the right way to cut their hair and trim their beards. My only idea here is that this again is to keep them from trying to copy the fads of the culture around them. His people are to have their own "look" and culture that is distinctive and holy, even if it is "square" and "old-school" and "outdated" or whatever else people may call it. God made sure there were some ways for the people of God to be identified on sight, both so that they could identify each other and so that they could be easily identified by the world. Christians should also be able to recognize each other and be recognized by the world though maybe we are not called to have a "dress code" quite like this. I'm not saying dress codes are bad or outdated, just simply that in most cases what we choose to wear and how we choose to cut or style our hair is amoral unless we are specifically doing something to be rebellious of be promiscuous or to associate ourselves with the world in some way. Ask yourself this--is the way your dress and look showing people that you are "In the world, but not of the world?" God also gives a prohibition against cutting oneself. This was usually associated with idol worship of the gods and goddesses of the Canaanites, but also had something to do with "marking yourself for the dead" that had to do with other occult practices. Whether this is complete prohibition on any kind of tattooing has been hotly contested over the years, but know that if you have a tattoo that does not prohibit you from becoming saved. I am more against tattoos than for them as in general tattoos are a very permanent way of marking yourself with something that may feel permanent but is not and associating yourself with some kind of identity that people have to see on the outside that shouldn't be necessary because everyone should know that you belong to Christ by the way that you act--"By their fruits you will know them." There shouldn't be a need for any other kind of "tell" or "mark" for a Christian--we shouldn't need a cross or a crown of thorns or an ichthus fish or anything else, but we also shouldn't be trying to do anything of these things to connect with the sprit realm which I think is consistent with the prohibitions here, nor should we be mutilating ourselves in ways that are consistent with those who we see in the Bible that are demonized or worshiping false gods. While that may not be the reason today that most people feel like they are cutting themselves, I think it is still often the work of demons playing with people's minds through various forms of depression, anxiety, and the like. If you know someone who is cutting themselves, or you are cutting yourself, it is not a good thing. That person needs to not only seek help from medical professionals and seek counseling, but probably also needs to hear the truth of God's Word about who He is, who they are and what He says about them--depending on if they are saved or not saved (don't be the kind of person that superimposes God's promises for his children over every human, even those who are in rebellion against Him), and then come to a place where they believe and receive His promises and His identity that He has for that person in and through Christ. As we see here, a lot of these commands have to do with where an how the person is establishing and how they are communicating their identity and who or what they are identifying with. Prostitution is also prohibited here for women--specifically the exploitation of children by their parents to use them as sexual objects for money or other such favors as it is a command to the fathers to not prostitute their daughters. This is the kind of wickedness that the Canaanites were involved in as they saw their children as something to be exploited and even sacrificed to their gods (we'll talk about that in the next blog). Next God orders the people to keep His Sabbaths (we've talked about this already that this is all of the holy days, not just the weekly Sabbath on the seventh day, though it doesn't exclude those either). God also commands the people to revere and treat His sanctuary (the Tabernacle or Temple) as holy for His sake because He is the Lord. Today, it is our bodies as Christians that are tabernacles or temples of the Holy Spirit and we are to treat our bodies with a special regard at this time not because they are special in any other way other than that they are containers for the Holy Spirit and that which is indwelt by the Holy Spirit is holy. So in some of the same ways that we've been talking about here, we should look different and act different because we are different. Everything about us on the inside and the outside should be different. As if once wasn't enough, God again prohibits the people from seeking out mediums and necromancers. This is probably a slightly different prohibition than before. Where the last prohibition was more about divination and fortune telling, this one probably has to do with those who would call themselves witches, warlocks, sorcerers, and so on that claim to be able to cast hexes and spells. They claim to not just connect and get information from the spiritual realm, but to have some power over it and to use it to curse or bless as they see fit and to bend it to their will. The people of God are to have nothing to do with such people that study the "dark arts" and such people will be commanded to be put to death as will be anyone who consults with them. There is no place for the occult among God's people. Not even something like tarot cards or Ouija boards that you think are innocent. Don't buy the repackaged "Christianized" versions of these things either. Tarot cards are still tarot cards even if people call them "angel cards" and Ouija boards are still Ouija boards even if people call them "angel boards" or something similar. The only angles that are going to try to speak to you this way are the fall angels known as demons. Hopefully you never experience something where an angel of God needs to speak with you to get your attention, but if it happens, the angel is always going to speak clearly without any need for spells, tools or divination and will speak in a way that is clear that he is a messenger of God and that God is to be feared and worshiped and He alone gets the glory. However, there is now little need for this at this time at we said before, because the Word of God contains all that we need for life and godliness. We should only be expecting those without the Word of God (or some who are rebellious and are refusing the read the Word of God) to continue to need to hear directly from angels or from the voice of God Himself in these supernatural ways--if we're listening to the words that He's given us through the prophets, Jesus and the apostles, then why are we seeking a "new word" and a new revelation when that is expressly forbidden in both the Old Testament and the New Testament? Get far away from those who claim to have a "new word" or a "new prophecy" or a "new revelation" or a "new teaching" that they have learned. There is nothing new about these teaching usually--they are usually very old lies from the devil that have been around from the Tower of Babel and before--some as early as the Fall and the first temptation to impart special wisdom and knowledge and make us like gods. Do not be tricked by this--God will give you all the knowledge that you need through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If anyone lacks wisdom, He is to pray to God directly who gives it in great abundance. James 1:5-8 English Standard Version5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. God commands the younger people to show honor and respect to those who are older. Stand up when they enter the room and look them in the eye when they speak to you. Listen to what they have to say and speak to them and about them in a way that is respectful--this goes beyond the fifth commandment of children honoring parents. However, this does not mean that someone younger is forced to take the advice of someone older or that the older person can boss them around and expect them to obey. God has given that special commandment for children to obey their parents, and God shows us throughout the Bible that while it is more common for young men to be foolish and older men to be wise, it is quite possible for some men in their old age to be foolish--especially if those men have turned away from God or never knew Him to begin with. There are still ways to be kind and honoring to such a person without feeling that you have to obey them when they want to teach you something in opposition to what God's Word says. You may even honor them in some way by reading the Word of God to them so that they can be exposed to God's truth and get their wisdom from the true source of all wisdom who is God alone. God tells His people to take care of and not to mistreat the people that sojourning (migrating, traveling through, making a pilgrimage, or maybe are "between homes," etc) that are not "permanent residents." They have no citizenship and they don't know anyone, so it would be easy to take advantage of them, and that's exactly the way that the Canaanites would treat such people. God says they should remember that they too were sojourners at a time when Abraham sojourned in Canaan and then also when the people sojourned among the Egyptians for over 400 years, and even now the people are sojourning through the wilderness as they head back to the land of Canaan to finally take possession of it. God tells them to treat all these people as they would want to be treated. Treat them fair and impartially and give them all the same protections as any citizen, but God also requires even the sojourners travelling through the land to keep at least certain laws--such as keeping the Sabbath and observing the holy days. We'll see that God's people were very hospitable people in general and Christians are also told to be hospitable and that we never know when we may be "entertaining angels" like when Abraham and Sarah did when they were told of the birth of Isaac right before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah--in fact, they even entertained God (probably God the Son since we see that all of the travelers in that story appeared to be men) there. God tells His people to use fair weights and measures and to be honest in all of their dealings in the marketplace and in measuring out their sacrifices that they are to bring to the LORD. They should not be trying to cheat each other or cheat God. This would be a consistent problem with the people throughout history, but we'll see it mentioned over and over again that they would use dishonest scales or would mix in bad product with good product on purpose and sell it for the price of the good product or would shave a little off before taking their offering to the LORD, or would try and mix in some of the old harvest that wasn't as good with their offerings for firstfruits (we'll see a specific command about this later). We should not to be deceptive nor should we lack integrity or honesty in anything. If we are the people of God, we should reflect the nature of the one who is Just and Righteous and True in all that He is and does. |
Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
January 2025
Categories
All
|