Chapter 19
This oft-quoted verse:
2 "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. [Lev 19:2 ESV]
The most simple statement there is for why we should behave ourselves in all things, why we should obey God's commandments, and live our lives in His will. At that time, people worshiped gods who were more powerful than they were, and who were vindictive if not worshiped. Those gods never claimed to be holy, and they "ruled" by promise of retribution, not promise of blessing and peace with all people. From what I have read so far in the Quran, he rules by threat of throwing non-followers into hell at the last day. He rules by threat, he promises nothing. If you're good enough to be in his club, then you get blessings in the afterlife. Buddha? No idea. Krishna? No idea.
2024 - This verse comes next: 3 Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. [Lev 19:3 ESV].
All must "revere" father and mother, and then all are to keep Shabbat. Here are the definitions of the Hebrew word translated "revere":
to fear, be afraid; 2. to stand in awe of, be awed; 3. to fear, reverence, honour, respect.
The word is used 314 times in the KJV and is rendered "fear" 188 times, by far the most common translation. This is the same fear as is used in this verse. This verse is, I think, a good example of what the word means here: 18 On the third day Joseph said to them, "Do this and you will live, for I fear God: [Gen 42:18 ESV]. The word is used as a verb. Joseph fears God, and so will keep his word, will do what is right in the eyes of his God. He will be in compliance with the wishes of God. Even with God though, we sometimes struggle with what is right. Now apply the word to a father or mother, a human with human faults and problems. We ought to still abide by their wishes for us, so long as those are compatible with God's words, I don't think anyone has a problem with that. It is the specifics...It is "don't take that job" or "this house is dirty and you need to clean it" that give us problems. Can we say that we are revering our parents when we do not obey them? Well...it DOES NOT SAY OBEY them! It says revere them.
2024 - One more thing here. As I read through a number of verses that use this word as a verb, I found a lot more that said DO NOT FEAR, than verses that said TO fear. As here: 24 And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake." [Gen 26:24 ESV]. You would never translate this "Revere not". I also don't think God would ever tell us not to revere Him. So...the instinctive reaction to God, when he reveals himself in his power and glory, is out and out fear because we are nothing and he is everything. We have no defense or recourse against God, and can only cower before him. That is a natural reaction, and God DISCOURAGES that kind of reaction repeatedly. If this is not how we are to react to him, it is also NOT how we are to react to our parents. It is interesting that the same Hebrew word that describes this kind of fear is used also to describe respect, reverence, and honor. We cannot ignore those that we revere. We are to put their words in a higher place, because they are our parents. Their words are weighty, their wishes important. We ought to try and please them before we please others. But I find nowhere the sense that "revere" means to do whatever they say to do. I find nowhere that implies that it is sin to NOT do everything they say. It is sin to withhold respect, to withhold honor from our parents. It is sin to disdain them as worthless and their words as forgettable.
2024 - Revere parents, and then keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath was part of the Law, and we no longer consider ourselves bound by Sabbath Law. We do gather firewood on the Sabbath, mow the yard, fill up with gas...Because that level of keeping is no longer required. Revere parents is in the same sentence. In the same way that we "respect" our Sundays, we ought to respect our parents.
And still another note about this...The word used here for revere is DIFFERENT than the word in Exodus 20 for "honor".
2025 - How in the world can we justify "toning down" the keeping of the Sabbath in this verse, and yet insist that reverence your parents is still in full force and effect? How is there any intellectual honesty in that at all!?!?! Both rules are here. Both rules are in the 10. What is it we're supposed to do here? Is it because keeping the Sabbath was ceremonial law and revering parents was...what, neither dietary nor ceremonial and so therefore falls in with "everything else"? But the everything else are the ones we claim we still keep!!! The MSB says of vs 3, "The fifth commandment to honor one's father and mother is amplified by the use of a different word, "reverence." Because they revered (an attitude), they cold then honor (an action). But look! MacArthur says "they" were to do this and do that. He does not say WE are to do these things. I don't get it, and I don't like it. We need to be able to explain precisely and exactly how this verse fits in with OUR being HOLY! Because that is what it's about! Israel had to be holy but we do not? I think the NT would put the lie to that really quickly as it quotes this verse to the church!
2025 - The chapter continues with multiple restatements of how people are to behave towards one another, what they are supposed to do and how they are to do it. We go through and pick what we are ok with doing in this day and age, and we somehow exclude the rest as if we have some official guidance on what it's ok to ignore - beginning with the Sabbath! WHY!?
(See comments on v.32 below.)
Admonitions against making idols are repeated, emphasized. Details of when to eat peace offerings detailed. So all the verses through 8 are about our behavior toward God.
Beginning in 9, it is about our behavior toward others. Some of the 10 are repeated, but there is additional instruction here also.
2024 - This verse:
11 "You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. [Lev 19:11 ESV]. I have wondered lately about thou shalt not lie, and about how that's not really what it says in the 10. They say don't lie ABOUT your neighbor. So I wondered whether that made some lies acceptable, and I thought specifically about Rahab's lie to the King's soldiers. She lied. Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife. So in this verse, when I saw "you shall not lie" it got my attention. Here are the definitions of the word translated lie in this verse:
to do or deal falsely, be false, trick, cheat
(Piel) to deal falsely
(Qal) to deal falsely
So again, it is not about any untruth at all, it is about false dealing. Perhaps the way to understand it is that it cannot at the same time cause harm to another and benefit to oneself. Answering "Does this make me look fat", with a no, is not necessarily a sin. There is no harm to the other, and no benefit to me. This verse makes the sense of the word quite clear:
23 Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned." [Gen 21:23 ESV]. We are not allowed to cheat people! But there is nothing here about never saying anything that isn't true! You can lie if you are not defrauding someone of something that is rightfully theirs. So you can lie to Nazi's trying to round up Jews. The Jews do not belong to the Nazis. You cannot tell the Nazis that this is a pound of bratwurst when in fact it is only 15 oz of bratwurst.
Or I could really be wrong here...
2021 - “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
Leviticus 19:15 ESV
Here is a second statement saying that while the poor deserve justice they do not deserve treble damages nor to have all their problems adjusted by the court. That is as unfair as deferring to the rich.
Here is what I believe is the first statement of the "golden rule":
17 "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. [Lev 19:17-18 ESV]
We are always to try and be reasonable with those who offend us, abuse us, take advantage of us. This is not exclusively a NT principle. It was here from very early on.
2024 - It says this in the OT also. This is not only a NT admonition:
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. [Lev 19:18 ESV]
This is an interesting one:
"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. Leviticus 19:19 ESV. MSB says this may have been part of the idolatry of other peoples. Maybe. In context, it does not seem so to me. This seems to be just inserted into the flow between love your neighbor and sexual sin. As such, it really should be taken at face value. It is about livestock, not about people. It is about agriculture, not about people. It is about clothing, not about people. I do not understand it, and unless I can find other scripture to help me understand this scripture, I will not build doctrine around this verse. This verse could most certainly be abused.
2023 - These verses: 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. [Lev 19:20-22 ESV]. This looks like atonement for a sin knowingly committed. I thought one could only atone for "mistakes", and that intentional sin was only sent outside the camp once each year at the day of atonement. But this...this clearly is about atonement for intentional sin. Is it an exception, or have I so totally misunderstood the sacrificial system up to now?
2024 - I hate to even think about it this way...but since she was not free, she was property. Perhaps intentional property crimes are forgivable? Hard to really make that fly in any other context.
This one:
26 "You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. [Lev 19:26 ESV]
These are odd things to throw together. Blood and fortune telling. Reading further, it seems that things the heathen do are being specifically proscribed for Israel, to separate and distinguish them, to discourage social interaction. Israel was a holy people, set apart for God, not given great social skills to be loved and adored by one and all. Israel was not really inclusive.
And another:
You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord .
Leviticus 19:28 ESV
2024 - This verse:
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. [Lev 19:32 ESV]. Honor here is a different word than in the verse above about parents. It is also not the word in Ex 20 for honoring your parents. This is now a third word for "honor". So to really get to the bottom of it, there would need to be a whole study done. And being able to speak ancient Hebrew would likely help A LOT.
2025 - Look back at 30. Keep my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary. This is the same Hebrew word for revere that was used of parents back in vs. 3. Same stem and everything. The word translated "fear" your God here is translated "revere" in the NASB. It is the same word as that used back in vs 3 of parents. It seems almost like "fear" and "revere" are interchangeable translations of this word, except in that one verse above, in the negations that say "do not fear", it would just never be ok to say "do not revere". God would not say "Do not revere me".
2025 - This respect for the aged? Did that go away completely also? We don't really push that anymore. We promote the very young, rather than require that they earn their authority over years.
2025 - So many sensible, actionable rules. And yet we pick and choose which ones still count. This says no tattoos for crying out loud. Oh but tattoos are ok because that was about not behaving like the surrounding pagans, not about something specifically wrong with tattoos. We not only throw out ceremonial law entirely, we include all these other laws we don't like.
Bonhoeffer was right. We need to stop analyzing and start DOING. To be holy, as commanded, is to do what it says rather than debate, explain, and excise what it says if you don't like it. Stop making it hard. It's not hard. And THAT is the bottom line here. Everything this chapter says NOT to do, we ought not do. Everything this chapter says we ought TO DO, we should do. We ought not work on Sunday - it is our Sabbath under the New Covenant. We ought not have tattoos. A preacher ought to preach that we shouldn't! We should forego eating the fruit of new fruit trees until the fifth year! We should do all this. There is no reason not to do it!