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Old Testament · The Law · Book 3 of 66

Leviticus

The laws the LORD gave Moses from the tabernacle at Sinai, by which a sinful people could come near a holy God and live as his own.

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Exodus ends with a finished tabernacle that Moses could not enter, “because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:35). Leviticus begins with the LORD calling to Moses “out of the tabernacle of the congregation” (1:1), and the whole book answers what that leaves open: how a sinful people may have the holy God dwelling among them, come near him, and not die. The answer comes as law: offerings, a priesthood, the difference between clean and unclean, one day a year when the high priest goes within the vail, and a holiness that reaches the harvest field, the market, the household, the calendar and the land.

Two refrains carry it. The words “make an atonement” run through the first half. “I am the LORD” closes law after law in the second, most often in chapter 19, where “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (19:18) stands among laws on gleaning and wages. Hebrews reads the book’s high priest, its vail and its blood as the pattern of Christ’s work (Hebrews 9:7–12).

Key verse
Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.

Leviticus 19:2 KJV

The fire on the altar Leviticus 6:13
The goat in the wilderness Leviticus 16:22
The trumpet of the jubile Leviticus 25:9

Before you read

Who wrote it
The book names no writer. It is the LORD’s word given “by the hand of Moses” (26:46), and traditionally Moses wrote it. Jesus calls the leper’s offering “the gift that Moses commanded” (Matthew 8:4), and Paul quotes 18:5 as what “Moses describeth” (Romans 10:5).
When it happens
Mount Sinai, from the tabernacle (1:1; 27:34). The tabernacle was reared up on the first day of the first month of the second year (Exodus 40:17), and Numbers opens one month later, still at Sinai (Numbers 1:1). Leviticus falls between the two.
To whom
Most of the laws are spoken to “the children of Israel” (1:2); those on the priests’ own duties go to Aaron and his sons (6:9; 21:1). Several bind “the strangers that sojourn among you” as well (17:10).

How Leviticus is laid out

8 movements · 138 passages · 859 verses

1:410:311:4416:3017:1119:1825:1026:12
11–728–10311–15416:1–34517–20621–24725–26827:1–34

Offerings brought near

Chapters 1–7 · 172 verses

The LORD calls to Moses from the tabernacle and gives the offerings: the burnt offering, wholly burned; the meat offering of flour and oil; the peace offering, eaten in part by the one who brings it; the sin offering for sins “through ignorance”; and the trespass offering, which restores the wrong with a fifth added. Chapters 6–7 give the law of each to the priests.

7 chapters

  1. 1 The Lord Calls Moses
  2. 2 The Offering of Fine Flour
  3. 3 The Peace Offering from the Herd (Cattle)
  4. 4 Introduction to the Sin Offering
  5. 5 Cases Requiring a Sin Offering
  6. 6 The Trespass Offering
  7. 7 The Law of the Trespass Offering

Aaron and his sons ordained

Chapters 8–10 · 80 verses

Moses washes, clothes and anoints Aaron and his sons, and for seven days they keep the door of the tabernacle. On the eighth day Aaron offers for himself and the people, the glory of the LORD appears, and fire from before the LORD consumes the offering. Then Nadab and Abihu offer “strange fire,” and fire from the LORD devours them. Aaron “held his peace.”

13 passages

  1. 8:1–5 Preparation for Consecration
  2. 8:6–13 Robing and Anointing the Priests
  3. 8:14–17 The Sin Offering and Atonement
  4. 8:18–21 The Burnt Offering
  5. 8:22–30 The Ram of Consecration (Installation)
  6. 8:31–36 Instructions for the Seven-Day Consecration
  7. 9:1–7 The Eighth Day: Instructions for the First Offerings
  8. 9:8–14 Aaron Offers Sacrifices for Himself
  9. 9:15–22 Aaron Offers Sacrifices for the People
  10. 9:23–24 The Glory of the Lord Appears
  11. 10:1–7 The Death of Nadab and Abihu
  12. 10:8–11 Regulations for Priestly Conduct
  13. 10:12–20 Instructions Regarding Priestly Portions

Clean and unclean

Chapters 11–15 · 204 verses

The law sets out which beasts, fish, birds and creeping things Israel may eat, and gives the reason: “be holy; for I am holy.” It then covers the uncleanness of childbirth; leprosy in skin, garment and house, which the priest examines, with a rite of two birds, cedar, scarlet and hyssop to cleanse the healed; and the issues of the body, and their cleansing.

5 chapters

  1. 11 Introduction to the Laws of Clean and Unclean
  2. 12 Laws Concerning Childbirth and Impurity
  3. 13 Introduction to the Law of Skin Afflictions
  4. 14 Law for Cleansing the Leper
  5. 15 Uncleanness from Male Chronic Discharge

The Day of Atonement

Chapter 16 · 34 verses

After the death of Aaron’s two sons, the LORD sets the one day the high priest may go within the vail. He sprinkles the blood of a bullock for himself and of a goat for the people on the mercy seat, then confesses Israel’s sins over a second goat and sends it into the wilderness. It is kept “once a year,” in the seventh month.

5 passages

  1. 16:1–2 Introduction to the Day of Atonement
  2. 16:3–10 The High Priest's Preparation and Offerings
  3. 16:11–19 Atonement for the Priest and Sanctuary
  4. 16:20–28 The Ritual of the Scapegoat (Azazel)
  5. 16:29–34 The Annual Statute of Yom Kippur

A people set apart

Chapters 17–20 · 110 verses

Sacrifices are to be brought to the door of the tabernacle, and no blood eaten, “for the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Chapter 18 forbids the unions practised in Egypt and Canaan; chapter 19 sets holiness in harvest, wages, courts, markets and love of neighbour; chapter 20 sets the penalties, death for giving children to Molech among them.

21 passages

  1. 17:1–9 Centralization of Worship and Slaughter
  2. 17:10–14 The Sacred Prohibition Against Eating Blood
  3. 17:15–16 Purity Laws for Eating Carrion
  4. 18:1–5 Call to Embrace God's Statutes
  5. 18:6–18 Prohibited Sexual Relations (Incest)
  6. 18:19–23 Warning Against Other Abominations
  7. 18:24–30 The Consequences of Defiling the Land
  8. 19:1–2 The Call to Holiness
  9. 19:3–4 Basic Obligations: Family and Worship
  10. 19:5–8 Laws of the Peace Offering
  11. 19:9–10 Justice and Care for the Poor
  12. 19:11–18 Honesty and Integrity
  13. 19:19–22 Prohibitions on Mixtures and Customs
  14. 19:23–25 Agricultural and Tree Laws
  15. 19:26–31 Avoiding Pagan Practices
  16. 19:32–34 Respect for the Elderly and the Alien
  17. 19:35–37 Honesty in Commerce
  18. 20:1–6 Death Penalty for Worshipping Molech
  19. 20:7–8 The Call to Holiness
  20. 20:9–21 Penalties for Specific Immorality
  21. 20:22–27 Exhortation to Separation and the Penalty for Consulting Spirits

Holy priests, holy times

Chapters 21–24 · 124 verses

Priests must not defile themselves for the dead beyond near kin, the high priest not even for father or mother, and offerings must be without blemish. Chapter 23 sets the feasts of the LORD: sabbath, passover and unleavened bread, firstfruits, weeks, trumpets, the Day of Atonement and tabernacles. The lamp burns continually, twelve cakes are set out every sabbath, and a blasphemer is stoned.

19 passages

  1. 21:1–9 Purity Laws for Regular Priests
  2. 21:10–15 Stricter Laws for the High Priest
  3. 21:16–24 Physical Requirements for Priestly Service
  4. 22:1–9 Priestly Purity and Handling Holy Things
  5. 22:10–16 Who May Eat the Holy Offerings?
  6. 22:17–25 Requirements for Acceptable Sacrifices
  7. 22:26–30 Additional Sacrificial Regulations
  8. 22:31–33 Call to Keep God’s Commandments
  9. 23:1–3 The Appointed Times of the LORD and the Weekly Sabbath
  10. 23:4–8 Passover and Unleavened Bread
  11. 23:9–14 The Offering of Firstfruits
  12. 23:15–22 The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost)
  13. 23:23–25 The Feast of Trumpets
  14. 23:26–32 The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
  15. 23:33–44 The Feast of Tabernacles (Booths)
  16. 24:1–4 Instructions for Tabernacle Service
  17. 24:5–9 The Bread of the Presence
  18. 24:10–16 The Case of the Blasphemer
  19. 24:17–23 Laws of Retribution and Justice

The jubilee and the covenant

Chapters 25–26 · 101 verses

Every seventh year the land keeps a sabbath. It cannot be sold for ever, “for the land is mine”; in the fiftieth year, the jubilee, it returns to its families, and the poor Israelite who sold himself goes free. Chapter 26 sets blessing for obedience and judgments rising to exile for disobedience, and promises that the LORD will remember his covenant when they confess.

14 passages

  1. 25:1–7 The Sabbath Year for the Land
  2. 25:8–17 The Fiftieth Year of Jubilee
  3. 25:18–22 Assurance of Provision in the Land
  4. 25:23–34 Redemption of Land and Property
  5. 25:35–38 Laws Against Oppression and Usury
  6. 25:39–46 Laws Concerning Hebrew Servitude
  7. 25:47–55 Redemption from a Foreign Owner
  8. 26:1–2 Basic Covenant Demands
  9. 26:3–13 Blessings for Obedience
  10. 26:14–17 Consequences of Disobedience (The Curses)
  11. 26:18–20 First Tier of Judgment: Sevenfold Punishment
  12. 26:21–26 Second Tier of Judgment: Wild Beasts and Plague
  13. 26:27–39 Final Tier of Judgment: War, Famine, and Exile
  14. 26:40–46 The Promise of Future Restoration

Vows and tithes

Chapter 27 · 34 verses

A closing law governs what is vowed to the LORD: persons are valued in shekels by age, and animals, houses and fields may be redeemed at their value with a fifth added. Firstlings are the LORD’s already, a devoted thing may not be sold or redeemed, and the tithe of land and herd is “holy unto the LORD.”

7 passages

  1. 27:1–8 Valuation of Persons Vowed
  2. 27:9–13 Valuation of Dedicated Animals
  3. 27:14–15 Valuation of Dedicated Houses
  4. 27:16–25 Valuation of Dedicated Fields
  5. 27:26–27 Rules for Firstborn Animals
  6. 27:28–29 The Law of the Devoted Thing (Cherem)
  7. 27:30–34 The Law of Tithes

The words Leviticus turns on

Bring near fills the offerings, unclean chapters 11–15 and atonement chapter 16; holy is the reason the book gives.

See these words across the whole Bible

What Leviticus teaches

qârab · bring near

An offering brought near

The first law opens, “If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD” (1:2). Bring and offering share one root, qârab: an offering is a thing brought near, and the worshipper comes near with it. He lays his hand on its head, “and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him” (1:4). The cost is fitted to his means, down to a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for one who cannot bring two pigeons (5:11). The reason for the blood is given in one verse: “the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls” (17:11). A life is given on the altar for the life of the one who brings it.

ṭâmêʼ · unclean

Clean and unclean

The priests were to “put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (10:10), and chapters 11–15 teach that difference in food, in childbirth, in leprosy and in the issues of the body. Much of this uncleanness comes from no wrong done, yet it bars the way to the sanctuary until it is cleansed: a mother after childbirth brings her offering, and “she shall be clean” (12:8). The text gives its own reasons: “ye shall be holy; for I am holy” (11:44), and “that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is among them” (15:31). The leper dwells “without the camp” (13:46); the priest can pronounce him clean, but cannot heal him. Jesus touched a leper, healed him, and sent him to the priest (Matthew 8:3–4).

kâphar · atonement

The Day of Atonement

After Aaron’s sons died for strange fire, the LORD fixed the one day the high priest may pass “within the vail before the mercy seat” (16:2). He goes in with blood and makes atonement for the holy place, “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel” (16:16). Two goats make one sin offering. One is killed; over the other Aaron confesses all their iniquities, and it bears them “unto a land not inhabited” (16:22). Its lot is “for the scapegoat” (16:8), Hebrew azazel. Some read the word as the KJV does, the goat that goes away (16:10); some as the place it is sent to; and some as the name of an evil spirit of the wilderness, set opposite “the LORD” in the lots (16:8). Theodoret saw in the two goats an anticipative image of the two natures of the Savior.

qâdôwsh · holy

Holy, for I am holy

“Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy” (19:2). The command recurs (11:44; 20:7), and its ground is always the LORD himself, who brought them “up out of the land of Egypt” (11:45) and has “severed you from other people, that ye should be mine” (20:26). Chapter 19 shows that holiness in the harvest field, with corners left “for the poor and stranger” (19:10), in wages paid before nightfall (19:13), in just weights (19:36), and in the command “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (19:18). The stranger is to be loved the same way, “for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (19:34). Fifteen verses of the chapter carry the same ground: “I am the LORD.”

Christ in Leviticus

Hebrews reads the Day of Atonement as the pattern of Christ’s work. Into the holiest “went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood” (Hebrews 9:7), and by this the Holy Ghost signified “that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest” (9:8). Christ came “by his own blood,” and “he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (9:12). The bodies of the sin offerings were burned without the camp (Leviticus 16:27); “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12).

The law had only “a shadow of good things to come” (10:1), “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (10:4). Paul calls Christ a propitiation “through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25), with the word Hebrews uses for the mercy seat (Hebrews 9:5). And Peter gives the church the book’s own command: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

People

By how many verses name them

6 more are named.

Places

5 named

The passages it leans on, and the ones that lean on it

Books Leviticus links to most

  1. Exodus676
  2. Numbers464
  3. Deuteronomy429
  4. Ezekiel341
  5. Psalms339
  6. Isaiah334

Cross-references from Leviticus into each book · 64 books in all

See every thread

The Church Fathers on Leviticus

113 quotations from 26 writers before AD 800 · the ten most quoted, in date order

  1. Clement215
  2. Tertullian220
  3. Origen253
  4. Pacian391
  5. Jerome420
  6. Augustine430
  7. Caesarius542
  8. Gregory604
  9. Paterius606
  10. Bede735

Cyprian, on Nadab and Abihu and worship that sets aside what God commanded.

The sons of Aaron also, who set upon the altar a strange fire not commanded by the Lord, were at once blotted out in the sight of the avenging Lord. These examples, you will see, are being followed wherever the tradition which comes from God is despised by lovers of strange doctrine and replaced by teaching of merely human authority.
Cyprian 258 · Treatise I. On the Unity of the Church 18-19 · on Leviticus 10:1

Cassiodorus, on the hyssop dipped in blood at the leper’s cleansing.

Though hyssop is a tiny plant, its roots are said to penetrate the heart of rocks. It is also known to be good for a person’s internal wounds. In Leviticus it was dipped in sacrificial blood and sprinkled seven times on the body of a leper, revealing by way of anticipation that inward stains of sins could be effectively removed by the precious blood of the Lord Savior.
Cassiodorus 585 · Exposition Of The Psalms 50:9 · on Leviticus 14:7

Tertullian saw the Lord’s passion, and his second appearing, in the two goats.

One of these goats was bound with scarlet and driven by the people out of the camp into the wilderness, amid cursing, and spitting, and pulling and piercing, being thus marked with all the signs of the Lord’s own passion.
Tertullian 220 · Against Marcion 3.7.7 · on Leviticus 16:8

Augustine, on the command to love one’s neighbour, given long before Christ.

Long before Christ it had been said, “You shall not covet”; long before it had been said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” a phrase which, as the apostle says, expresses the fulfillment of the whole law. And as no one loves himself unless he loves God, the Lord says that the whole Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.
Augustine of Hippo 430 · Letter 177 · on Leviticus 19:18
Matthew Henry · 88 sections on Leviticus“Observe here, 1. It is taken for granted that people would be inclined to bring offerings to the Lord.”

Keep studying

Articles

Book introductionUnderstanding Leviticus: A Guide to HolinessDevotional · Leviticus 25:12The Holy Economy of RestMeaning mapWhere Leviticus’s verses sit among the whole Bible’sAsk AIAsk a question about Leviticus