Bible in 365 Days

Leviticus 19-21

Leviticus 19

The more positive habits of separation are insisted on by the repetition of laws already given, with one reiterated emphasis, namely, the fact that the God of this people is Jehovah. There was, first, a general call to holiness based upon the essential reason, "Ye shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy." This is the profoundest reason that can possibly be assigned. The holiness of Jehovah must be exemplified in His people. Every departure from the pathway of holiness is a profaning of the name of God, and in the case of a people thus called to realize and manifest the glory of His Kingship such departure is the most disastrous sin.

It is because of this that we find the almost monotonous repetition throughout this chapter of the solemn declaration, "I am Jehovah." No less than fourteen times does it occur. A people created and governed by God are intended to represent Him and the truth concerning Him to other people. When they fail to do so, His name is blasphemed by that failure. Therefore, in the midst of all the activities of life there must be the perpetual remembrance of whose they are and whom they serve. It will be remembered that in this very connection in his letter to the Romans, when the apostle was dealing with the specific nature of the sin of Israel, he summed everything up by saying, "For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Romans 2:24).

Leviticus 20

Once more we have a repetition of laws already enunciated with the same persistent thought of responsibility. In this section we find the death sentence associated with certain forms of disobedience, and thus the fact of responsibility is lifted into a yet more clearly defined importance and lays a new and startling emphasis on the absolute authority of God. All the words which had thus been uttered for conditioning life were definite and positive laws. They were infinitely more than general messages of advice and direction. To disregard them was not merely unwise, it was positively penal a and must be visited with actual punishment, and in certain cases with the death penalty.

Leviticus 21

The absolute necessity for the strictest of separation of the priest from all possibility of defilement is vividly set forth in the laws here enunciated. Standing as he ever did in a place of special nearness to God as the appointed mediator of the people, he must, of all men, manifest in all externals of life and conduct the characteristics of that holiness without which no man can see the Lord. He was strictly forbidden to defile himself by contact with the dead in any form. The only exceptions permitted were in the cases of those who were next of kin to him. In the case of the high priest even such exceptions were not allowed. He must not touch a dead person, even though it be father or mother.

The necessity for rectitude within his family is revealed in the one flaming declaration that if the daughter of a priest defile herself, she profaneth her father and is to be burned with fire.

Moreover, it was provided that no cripple of any sort should exercise the priestly office. Approach to God necessitated perfection in the entire man, and so far as it was possible to reveal this by external symbols, it was done in the case of the priest. A tender recognition of the fact that blame may not attach to the man in the matter of defect is found in the provision that he might eat of the bread of God but must not offer it.