MSB Book Introduction:
The original Hebrew title of Leviticus is Hebrew for "And He called...".  In my Jewish study Bible, that word is Vayikra.  In that study Bible, the first words are "Adonai called".  Our word, Leviticus, originated with the Latin Vulgate version of the Greek OT (LXX) Leuitikon meaning "matters of the Levites".  The book does concern Levite responsibilities, but it also instructs all priests in how to assist the people in worship, and informs the people as to how to live a holy life.

The last verse of the book attributes it to Moses.  In fact. there are 56 times in the 27 chapters of Leviticus where it says this law was given to Moses.  
By the end of Exodus, God was "residing" with the Israelites, and the Tabernacle had been erected and consecrated for the first time, along with Aaron and his sons.  Now the need for a structured and regulated set of sacrifices and feasts was needed, along with a High-Priest, a formal priesthood, and a cadre of tabernacle workers.

MSB makes this important point:  "Israel had, up to that point, only the historical records of the patriarchs from which to gain their knowledge of how to worship and live before their God."  The rest of this paragraph is NOT from MSB, but is my own opinion.  There is a sharp break here with Islam.  Islam somehow decided that what the Israelites did was a perverted form of worship, and attempted on their own to recreate the way that Abraham and so on worshiped before the tabernacle was erected.  Yet they count Moses as a great prophet - though they ignore all his teachings about worship.

No geographical movement occurs in this book.  The Israelites are encamped at the base of Mt. Sinai for this whole month - the first month - Abib - of the second year after departing from Egypt.  The phrases "I am the Lord" and "I am holy" are used over 50 times in this book.  The persistent theme of the book is instruction in not only ritual purity during worship, but in personal purity - in ridding oneself of uncleanness.  

Also, the Conditional Covenant of God with Israel surfaces many times in the book.  It details the consequences of both obedience and disobedience.  MSB says "...it does so in a manner scripted for determining Israel's history."  

The five sacrifices and offerings were symbolic.  Their design was to allow the truly penitent and thankful worshiper to express faith in and love for God by the observance of these rituals.  In the absence of this penitent and thankful approach, God was not pleased with the ritual, no matter how exactly it complied with the recipe.  

MSB says it is difficult to really understand the ceremonies, laws, and ritual details comprehensively because Moses assumed a certain context of historical understanding.  MSB also says the NT clearly abrogates OT ceremonial law (cf Ac 10:1-16; Col 2:16,17), the Levitical priesthood (1Pe 2:9, Rev 1:6, 5:10; 20:6), and the sanctuary (ch Mt 27:51), as well as instituting the New Covenant.  

There is now another warning - as we had before Exodus when reading too much into the details of the Tabernacle was discouraged - not to insert any "typology" into the details of the sacrifices that is not identified by the NT writers.  

The first 16 chapters tell how to have personal access to God through appropriate worship and Chapters 17-27 detail how to be spiritually acceptable to God through an obedient walk.  

Chapter 1
The book opens with this verse:
1 The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, [Lev 1:1 ESV]
God is there with them, in the camp, a constant, visible, discernible presence.  
Vs 2 starts with "When anyone brings an offering..."
JSB says the word offering is korban -which I remember from the NT - and the root word means to "come close" or "draw near".  This is how the Jews saw these offerings.  They were an opportunity to come close to God.  So korban is an object that helps the worshiper draw closer to God.

I am going to be using "The Complete Jewish Study Bible" as I go through Leviticus this second time, as it seems to offer more explanation of these strictly Jewish rituals.  It says this by way of introduction to the burnt offering:
The Hebrew word for burnt offering is 'olah, meaning literally "goes up".  JSB elaborates that the 'olah deals with one's specific violation of the Torah.  It is a voluntary act of devotion, commitment, and surrender to God.  The other two offerings in Leviticus, the sin offering "hattat", and the guilt offering, "asham" are offerings meant for atonement.  The Hebrew word for atonement is "kaphar, or kippur" and means "to ransom by means of a substitute.  All this in the first 3 verses.
MSB references a note after Eze 45, 46 that compares the sacrifices here to the Millennial sacrifices.  That would be a good one to read!
MSB also notes that only domestic animals could be sacrificed, nothing wild.  
2024 - As worded above, it is not obvious that the burnt offering is about atonement, but not about just atonement in general.  The burnt offering if for a specific violation of a Law in the Torah that has been committed.  Which makes one wonder...would it only be for violations committed unintentionally?  I have somewhere gotten the opinion that these offerings only "cured" unintentional sin, and that intentional sin could not be put away...But maybe instead it is the once/year offerings that the priest makes on the Day of Atonement that are about the intentional sins.  And the punishment for those CANNOT be atoned for by the blood of animals, but could only be put on hold until Jesus paid for them?  That makes sense to me, but I don't know if that's right.
2024 - I also note this year for the first time that in the JSB, instead of "flay" in vs 6, it says "skin". That is, the burnt offering was skinned before it was burned, so no hair burning...or maybe the hair was burned separately.  If not burned, where did all those skins go?  We are never told about that.  What does "flay" mean though?  Merriam Webster says it is "to strip off the skin or surface of".  So it always meant "skin".  I reread it...and it is not clear to me whether the skin was also burnt.  Why skin it if you were going to burn it anyway?
2024 - In Chapt 7 we learn that the hide belongs to the priest who offers the burnt offering.  The priest gets the hide.

2024 - From the flock, it does not say it is to be flayed, but is specific that it is to be killed on the north side of the altar.  It didn't say that from the herd.  In fact, from the herd was to be killed at the entrance to the tent of meeting.  Are the procedures different, or do we need to sort of "mesh" all the rules together?  Did a little more research...The north side of the altar is just really not the same place as the entrance to the tent of meeting.  I don't know why they are different, but they certainly seem to be.  So I would also say that from the flock is not flayed first.

Burnt offerings for atonement were males without blemish. The one making the offering laid his hand on the head of the animal to be sacrificed, and the one offering the sacrifice personally killed the bull.  I am sure this would make the whole thing seriously more personal.  The blood was "caught", and thrown against the side of the altar.  The offering was then cut up, entrails and legs washed first, and the entire animal burnt on the altar.
This verse:
9 but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD. [Lev 1:9 ESV]
Parts of it had to be washed.  Likely this has something to do with purity and cleanliness in worship.  There is an MSB note that makes "food offering" equivalent with "an offering by fire".  The second meaning makes better sense to me, though the symbolism may be that we would not offer uncooked food to God.  
Lambs, goats, and pigeons could also be offered as burnt offerings.  The handling of each is a little bit different, but all were acceptable, perhaps reflecting the finances available to the penitent, but maybe just a reflection of the attitude of the one making the offering.

Chapter 2
This chapter switches to the grain offering.  Is this a separate kind of offering, contrasted with the burnt offering, or are we still going down the list of things that can be offered as a burnt offering?  In vs 2 this is referred to also as a food offering, as was the burnt. Only a portion of grain offerings, fine flour, were burnt, and the burnt part was referred to as its memorial.  Aaron and his sons got the rest, and it is called "a most holy part" of the food offering.
You could also go ahead and bake the grain offering, and bring it already prepared.  There were several acceptable ways to prepare this, all listed.  Only the memorial portion of this kind of offering was offered and Aaron and his sons received the rest.  No leaven or honey with the grain offering.

This very interesting verse:
You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
Leviticus 2:13 ESV
I need to do some research on ancient "covenants of salt".  There has to be a lot buried in this simple phrase.

Chapter 3
Peace offerings.  Per JSB, this offering was voluntary, and brought by those moved to express both love and gratitude for Adonai's goodness and to be drawn closer to him.  As with the korban offering the peace offering helps the worshiper draw closer to God.  This offering derives from shalom, because it describes the nature of the relationship between the one offering the sacrifice and God.
2023 - So...not to MAKE peace, but to celebrate peace.  That is much different than how I'd thought of it before.

Male or female. Burn the fat that is on the entrails - not the entrails themselves, the kidneys with their fat, the long lobe of the liver with its fat.  This was for cattle offered.  If from the flock (as opposed to the herd?) the whole fat tail is also to be burned, along with the parts detailed for animals from the herd.
2024 - I just noticed that the burnt offering - from either herd or flock - has to be male.  But this peace offering can be either.
2024 - If the peace offering is from the flock, it is killed at the entrance to the tent of meeting, a different place than the burnt offering from the flock.

And the priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering with a pleasing aroma. All fat is the Lord 's. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood."
Leviticus 3:16‭-‬17 ESV

I don't remember reading this before.  This is a direct indictment of the keto diet, carnivore diet, and so on.  Jews were to keep fat out of their diets because fat belonged to God.  There was also the introduction to this book from the MSB saying all this law was specifically abrogated in the NT.  So we can eat fat now...but if the Jews weren't to eat it, should we eat it?

2021 - I am still intrigued by this statement that the fat is the Lord's throughout all their generations.  It would seem that kidneys and the long lobe of the liver are also the Lord's.  But...it could be that the fat specifically mentioned is the "best of the fat" and that was to be reserved for God, rather than all fat.  It is not possible to eat domesticated meat that has no marbling, no fat of any kind.  Just can't really be done.  Would they have just thrown away this best fat from animals that were slaughtered for food rather than for sacrifice?  Maybe it was only the sacrificed fat portions that were reserved for God forever and not all fat.  Hmm...that's what it has to mean.  Because in the prodigal son, the fatted calf was prepared.  It was deliberately made fat so it would be better eating, and we see no indication anywhere of fat being shunned, either in the OT or the NT.  It was only the sacrificial fat that was 100% reserved for God.  
I also don't really understand about the fat covering the entrails and kidneys.  I've never seen that.  Deer apparently do not have any fat in those places because I never saw any fat at all when I field dressed the deer I killed.  I saw a YouTube video of a woman rendering pork fat into oil, and she said it was the fat from the kidneys that was best for this.  It probably seems a bit weird, but I think I will try to find a video of how to butcher a lamb that might show what this fat looks like and where it is located.  
I also think this is saying that if you want to offer a peace offering, you offer a burnt offering first, and then the fat and such from the peace offering is laid atop the burnt offering and burnt also.  The whole animal is burnt in the burnt offering, entrails and all.  Only fat, kidneys, and the long lobe of the liver are burnt in the peace offering.  

2023 - Maybe the way to see this is that those particular parts of "free fat" belonged to God, but well marbled meats were ok to eat.  That would still make some sense.
2023 - Look how the verse is worded, though.  "...in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood".  So the fat of animals slaughtered strictly for food and not for sacrifice was not to eaten, nor was their blood.  This was not just about sacrificed animals.  Maybe this is WHY they fattened calves, because otherwise there was no fat at all in their diets, other than marbling.  A strange thing.
2024 - I have made much of the fact that before Jesus, the blood was never to be consumed...or according to this verse, eaten.  But now I see this about fat...Does that further complicate a situation I cannot figure out anyway?
2024 - MSB says that it was only the fat specifically set aside for these offerings that they were never to eat.  So they never were to eat the fat on the kidneys, whether the animal was a sacrifice or not.  but other fat - the brisket for instance - they could eat.  Surely does seem like a lot of calories that weren't used.  Apparently, they couldn't even render that fat and use the oil in anything.  Why not???

2025 - And if they were allowed to eat other fat, if a distinction was made here, then we still have to deal with the injunction against eating blood, from any animal at any time anywhere.  I guess blood is characteristically different.  You don't have red blood here and blue blood there.  It's all the same.  And they specifically drained the blood and sprinkled it on the altar before the rest of the sacrifice.  Perhaps that is the basis for saying some fat can be eaten but never any blood.

Chapter 4
Describes the sin offering.  Per JSB, in vs 2, the Hebrew word translated unintentionally, or inadvertently, conveys the idea that if someone forgets to carry out an instruction, he would still be guilty of breaking it.  Or, if someone were ignorant of a law and therefore did not obey it, he too would still be guilty of transgressing the Torah, even though it was unintentional.  

I note that the wording in ESV and JSB indicates that this is something done that should not have been done.  It does not seem to me to be about sins of omission, but of sins committed.  Wrong acts, not undone requirements.  But this is just what I get from the wording.  Neither Bible states it.  MSB does say this is about commission of sin, not about omission of good.  Hmm...so a price must be paid, a sentence must be served, for accidental sins.  But a sin committed on purpose?  Death was the sentence for that,  under the law.

If it was a priest who had sinned, he kills the bull, sprinkles the blood seven times in front of the veil - so this is inside the holy place first, and then he puts some blood on the horns of the incense table.  After this, he burns the fat as in the peace offering - on the altar outside, and then the rest including the head, skin, legs, dung, and entrails, is carried outside the camp and burned there on a wood fire.  These parts are not eaten by anyone, and they are not placed on the altar.  These are the specifics of the sin offering IF it is an anointed priest who inadvertently sins.  This also is typology for Christ's death on the cross.  The "sinful part" of the sacrifice is carried outside the camp and burned not on any kind of special holy consecrated altar - because the altar makes what is on it holy, per Jesus in the NT - but on a common, rude, pile of whatever wood they could find.  The symbolism is that the good part - the best fat and organs - is offered to the Lord for appeasement, and the sinful part is just eliminated quickly and expediently and out of the sight of the camp.

The procedure for a sin of the whole people is very similar.  Some blood is taken into the Holy Place, the fat parts are burnt after the elders lay their hands on the head of the sacrifice, and then kill the bull.  Vs 20 says the priest does this burning and it is characterized as the priest making "atonement for them and they shall be forgiven".  Then the rest of the bull is taken outside the camp and burned.

Leaders of the people offered a male goat, not a bull, and none of the blood is taken inside the Holy Place.  This sin offering takes place on the altar at the door of the tent.   

2021 - Common people brought a female goat as a sin offering, or maybe a female lamb.  It is interesting that the "value" of the required offering in earthly terms gets less as the position of the sinner is less.  It is expected that those higher up the food chain will have greater wealth.  Isn't this an interesting principle...

In every case, the result of the sin offering is forgiveness from God for the infraction.  MSB says this offering was required, not voluntary, once the person or people who had committed the sin are made aware of their sin.  They are guilty even before they are aware, but atonement is required once guilt is realized.  Is this a sort of type of an age of accountability also?  The sin is there but not imputed until the sin is realized?

2024 -It occurred to me this year that perhaps the whole animal rights movement is a sort of end run at substitutionary death.  No animal rights activist would ever think killing an animal to appease God for human sin was ok.  The idea would be revolting.  Get everyone seeing it that way and wouldn't Jesus dieing for the whole world be inexplicable?  Yet look how many cultures sacrificed to god's.  The Muslims still do it...do the Taoist do so...or just food offerings? 

Chapter 5
Starts like this:
1 "If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity; [Lev 5:1 ESV]
This is an interesting one. It is not ok to keep silent when you are a witness.  This says that live and let live is not ok.  
Possible FB post at some point, just because it is so unique.
A long list follows of sins that one might commit unknowingly, and then later find out that a sin has occurred.  Several of these had to do with touching unclean things and becoming unclean, but not finding out about it until later.  If this happened, a sacrifice was to be made.  A "compensation" offered.  The note in TCR says in Hebrew, the words are "guilt penalty" not compensation.  It says the rest of the book will be translated compensation, but the underlying word is penalty.  There is no chapter heading for 5 in TCR, but it is treated like a continuation of four, which was titled Laws for Sin Offerings.  In the MSB, however, chapter 5 is titled The Law of Guilt Offerings, as if this is a separate thing from the sin offering.  The Sin Offering was for sin committed unintentionally.  As in overlooking a rule, or not knowing the rule.  The Guilt Offering appears to be violation of a rule that you do know about, are fully aware of, but without even knowing you've done it.  I picture eating something that includes unclean animal meat, and finding out later that the unclean meat was there.  The Sin offering was for committing an act that was prohibited.  
Ahh...I am making too much of it.  Vs 6 clearly says that this requires a sin offering.  Sin offerings were described in chapter 4.  The sin offering was required both for the kind of offense found in 4 and for these found in 5.   These in 5 all seem to be for individuals, and that is corroborated by the fact that the sacrifice is a female goat or lamb.

Beginning in vs 14, details of what to do if one violates a holy thing of the Lord.  Perhaps this is about touching temple utensils or coming into the court ceremonially unclean.  This required a ram, plus 20% to the priests.  So this is different also.  Seems like all these are sin offerings, but depending upon the nature of the sin, the specific "compensation" for the sin is different.  Seems to me this shows that God does not  consider all sins to be the same level of offense.  Some sins are indeed worse than others.  Some require greater compensation because of their magnitude.  Any sin condemns us, but still some sins are worse than others.  I am also reminded of the chapter intro from MSB saying that Moses assumes we'll have some current knowledge of the sacrifices.  I most certainly do not, and that may be why I find them so confusing.
Either a good study here or a possible FB post.

Allowances made for those who cannot afford calves for offering.  Turtledoves and so on may be substituted.

Chapter 6
This chapter is about offenses against neighbors, acquaintances, etc.  These are sins against other people, not necessarily directly against God, but they are still sin.  It talks about sacrifices being required once one realizes he has sinned against his neighbor, though theft from the neighbor is specifically  named, among others.  One would know if he stole from his neighbor.  Seems to imply that until we are repentant, and willing to restore what we cheated our neighbor of, or what we just plain out stole from him, then there is no sacrifice.  
Sacrifice required for theft, finding something lost and keeping it for yourself, and so on.  These things, when repented of, also required a 20% excess when repaid, plus a sacrifice.
2021 - I think this is about deliberate sin against others.  You don't find something and lie about it by accident.  You don't steal from your neighbor by accident.  The wording in vs 4 is "if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took..."  So though it was done deliberately, it cannot be forgiven until guilt is realized and felt, remorse is required for forgiveness.  First, whatever value was taken from another must be restored plus 20%, and then a sacrifice must be made via a guilt offering.  This guilt offering would be public.  You aren't allowed to keep your guilt secret.  Again this speaks to remorse and to a humbling of spirit because of sin committed, confessed, and compensated.

Beginning in vs 8, instructions to the priests for how to conduct the sacrifices - the ceremony and the logistics and the intricacies specifically required of the priests - are being detailed.  Instead of the prescription for what required a sacrifice, these are instructions for sacrificing.  
MSB says there have been five sacrifices described to this point.  Burnt, Grain, Peace, Sin, and Guilt offerings.

So first instructions about the Burnt offering are given, then the grain offering.  Then a sacrifice to be offered when a "new" priest is anointed is mentioned.  Beginning in vs 24, the sin offering is described.  This verse though:
30 But no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the Holy Place; it shall be burned up with fire. [Lev 6:30 ESV]
So there is another part to some sin offerings that has to do with atonement.  It goes beyond forgiveness to atonement?  The MSB note seems to be worded wrong.   I think it means that if the offering was for a priest or for the congregation, it was to be burned completely.  Other offerings could be eaten by the priests.  The references MSB gives are back to chapter four, and there, the sin offerings for priests and the congregation had the fat burned on the altar and the rest was carried outside the camp and completely burned.  None of these were eaten.  So the MSB note leaves out "not".  These two sin offerings were not eaten.

Fire to be kept burning on the altar 24/7, it is not to go out.  Ever.  Priests are responsible for this.  Also for carrying out the ashes each day.

2023 - Where did they get the wood to burn the sacrifices?  They were in the desert for 40 years.  Even when the Temple was built, a lot of wood was needed to keep the fire going  And imagine during the weeks when all must appear before God?  Where did they get so much fuel?

Chapter 7
Begins with details about the guilt offering.  Vs 7 clarifies this way:
7 The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. [Lev 7:7 ESV]
Though these have different names, the procedure for carrying them out is the same.

More detail about how sacrifices were to be made.  No one allowed to eat fat or blood, at all.

Beginning in vs 11, the peace offering is described.

There were various kinds of peace offerings, and details for each are described.  A peace offering of thanksgiving, a peace offering as a vow offering or as a freewill offering.

Eating meat from any of these sacrifices while you were ceremonially unclean was a major offense, and resulted in that priest being cut off from his people.  Priests better know the rules!  

Then these verses:
23 "Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. 24 The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. 25 For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the LORD shall be cut off from his people. [Lev 7:23-25 ESV]

The fat belonged to the Lord.  This must have applied to separable fat, because a ribeye or a filet has the fat embedded.  In the description of the sacrifices, it is described as the fat on the organs, on the long lobe of the liver, and so on.  These are the fats we render oil from these days.  You don't "render" a ribeye steak.  The "stand alone" fats were for the Lord.
Blood was not to be eaten at all in any form.
2023 - 26 Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling places. [Lev 7:26 ESV]
2021 - Previously, I believed the prohibition against fat was only about the fat of animals that were sacrificed.  But here, Moses is talking to ALL the people, and it says it this way:
23 "Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. ... 25 For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the LORD shall be cut off from his people. [Lev 7:23, 25 ESV]  So even if the animal is NOT sacrificed, but COULD BE sacrificed, they were not to eat its fat.  So they couldn't eat the fat from most of their livestock.  What was done with all this fat?

2024 - Certain fat and all blood were off the menu.  Perhaps unless the animal had a blemish and could not be sacrificed anyway.  7:25 seems to say that the fat of animals that could not be sacrificed could be eaten.  Only bulls, sheep, and goat fat was off limits.  Likely, a wild animal had to be "clean" to eat its fat.  We might also see a push here toward olive oil - vegetable or seed oil - and away from animal fat for cooking.  Hmm...

There are several notations about when the portion for the priests was to be eaten - and only the sons of Aaron were allowed to eat it.  I seem to recall in the NT that meat offered to idols was sold in the marketplaces at a low rate and anyone at all could eat it.  So this is a marked distinction between worshiping God and worshiping pagan gods.

This summary verse:
37 This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering, [Lev 7:37 ESV]
There are 5 general offerings and then the specific ordination offering.  In these chapters, the reason for each sacrifice was described, and the procedure the priests were to follow was described.  No room for error here.

Chapter 8
Consecration of Aaron and his sons.  
2022 - This is the actual consecration, carried out with all the congregation present.  This is not the instructions, but the event.
As we had the instructions for the tabernacle given, and then a recounting of the actual building, we had the sacrifices all described, and then instructions for the priests in conducting the sacrifices, now, since we have been told how Aaron and his sons are to be consecrated, their actual consecration is described.  This verse:
5 And Moses said to the congregation, "This is the thing that the LORD has commanded to be done." 6 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. [Lev 8:5-6 ESV]
Here is possibly the type of baptism in the OT.  Before they could don the sacred garments and begin their service as priests, the first thing that was done was washing with water.  On this second reading, it is noteworthy that they did not wash themselves.  Another washed them.

A bull was sacrificed as a sin offering, part of it being burned outside the camp.  Then there were two rams, one as a burnt offering, which was entirely burned, and then an ordination offering, with bread and wafers.  Only parts of this last were actually burned, then Aaron and his sons boiled the rest of the meat and ate it at the door of the tent of meeting.  They were to remain inside the tent for seven days, as this is how long it would take to ordain and consecrate them.

2024 - Again in vs 17 we see that the hide from the sin offering was not burned, but was taken outside the camp and burned there.  The sin offering came first, a bull.  Then a ram for the burnt offering.  In vs. 22, the second ram is called the ram of consecration.  This was I think a unique offering, not part of the usual daily ritual.  This is the one who's blood is put on earlobes, thumbs and great toes. 

Chapter 9
On the eighth day, Aaron was to take a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering and offer them.  Aaron has the people also bring several offerings, because the glory of the Lord is to appear.  
These were the first sacrifices made by Aaron and his sons, first for themselves, and then for the people.  These offerings atoned first for Aaron and his sons, and then for the people.  First a burnt offering, then a sin offering for Aaron and his sons, then a burnt, a sin, a grain, and a peace offering for the people.  God accepted these offerings, and appeared before the people.  Fire came out and consumed the offerings.  The people shouted and then fell on their faces.

Chapter 10
Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, offer incense that the Lord had not commanded them, and fire came out and consumed them.  MSB says the details are really unknown, but it is possible that they were drunk at the time they did this.  Also, fire for the incense was to come from the brazen altar, but that's not where they got it.  They got it from someplace else, so it was "unauthorized" fire.  Considering what they had just seen, fire coming down and consuming the offering, their action should be seen as careless, irreverent and pretty thoughtless of the possible consequences.  

2025 Addendum - See Ex 30:9.  They were not to offer anything outside the instructed parameters.  Plus this was in the Holy Place.  Were they even supposed to be in there?  This passage is very good context.
9 You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. [Exo 30:9 ESV]

9 "Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. [Lev 10:9 ESV]
This seems to be a new rule, perhaps as a consequence of what Nadab and Abihu had done.  No alcohol of any kind for Aaron, or indeed any that are performing a priestly function.  

Eleazar and Ithamar are "promoted" to take the place of Nadab and Abihu.  But when they first offer the sin offering, they do it wrong.  They burn up the whole animal, when they were supposed to keep certain portions as their due.  This verse:
17 "Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD? [Lev 10:17 ESV]
This one had to be eaten in a holy place.  In vs 15, the breast and the thigh of that sacrifice was to be eaten in a "clean" place, as opposed to a holy place, and with the whole family of the priest.  This was the part of the wave offering - which is a subset of the peace offering.  

Notes from MSB:  The issue Moses had was that instead of being eaten, they had taken part of the sin offering outside the camp and burned it there.  This was supposed to be eaten as a sacred feast. Moses braces the sons of Aaron about this, rather than Aaron himself, because Aaron has already lost two sons, and might well have feared that he was about to lose the other two.  Moses confronts Eleazar and Ithamar, but Aaron overhears.  Aaron says all was done properly up to the point when they were to feast on the thigh and breast.  Aaron says they did not eat because of his dejected attitude at the loss of his sons.  He was in no state to have a "feast".  Aaron implies that the sin of feasting with the wrong attitude might have been worse than not finishing the sin offering properly.  Moses acquiesces to this explanation.

2021 - The wording of 17 is interesting.  "...given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation..."  So symbolically, the sins of the one making the sin offering - whether individually or corporate Israel - are transferred onto the sin offering itself.  By eating some of this sin offering, the priests are "incorporating" that sin into themselves - they are "bearing" the sin of another, making it a part of them, transferring it to themselves from the one making the offering.  See how this ties to the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross?  All the sin was transferred onto him, as priest, and it was therefore his to atone for.  He did this atoning by the shedding of blood, just as the priests made daily sin offerings for themselves and for the people.  In the whole scheme of these things, sin is moved from the common to the holy, and God forebears with the Holy because of their position as priests.  And Jesus stands today at the right hand of God, constantly making intercession for us.  It all fits together.  Nobody could make this up and make it fit like this.  This is not the cumulative imagination of men fitting all this together, only a Holy God could maintain such a process over so long a chronology.  It is plain to see.  This is why pleading ignorance doesn't work.  Anyone who looks can see it.

2023 - So Jesus took the sin of the world onto himself - because he was in fact THE sacrifice - and he dealt with it, bearing "the iniquity of the congregation", in this case the whole world, AS OUR PRIEST.  He therefore took it directly onto himself, he did not have to "eat the sacrifice" in order to take it on himself.  In the Lord's supper, WE are symbolically eating a part of the atoning sacrifice for us, and as our own priests, connecting ourselves with the one sacrificed for us.  Taking his sacrifice into ourselves.  So...I have never so appreciated what the Lord's supper is about, nor the reason we are all priests, as correctly as I do right now.  Even so, I still don't understand WHY WE DRINK THE BLOOD????  Jesus died outside the camp, which is where the parts not eaten were taken.  So I need to look into that.  I think it is connected to Moses meeting God outside the camp when he would intervene for the people prior to construction of the tent of meeting.  It may also have something to do with the scapegoat and the ritual surrounding that.  It may be that each of these ceremonies/procedures/sacrifices sort of "touches" the passion of Christ in part - symbolically acceptable to God - but none encompasses the whole future work of Christ.  The rituals all foreshadowed the crucifixion in some perceptible way, but not is as encompassing as Jesus on the cross.

Chapters 8 and 9 are a good "walk through" of the sacrifices that were regularly made.  We saw the regulations concerning these sacrifices given, and then we see how they are carried out in practice.  We see the consequences of irreverent worship, and chastisement for procedural, though apparently unwitting, mistakes by the priests.

It occurs to me that as these laws and instructions and plans are given, this book is also taking forward the historical account of the Exodus and following.  Plans are given, things are built, then consecrated, then put into service.  We've seen construction of the tabernacle and its furnishings, we've seen it consecrated with blood, Aaron and his sons have been ordained, and the first sacrifices offered according to the covenant rules God has given through Moses.  Much has occurred in Leviticus besides plans and rules.  Geography has not changed, but a lot has happened.

Chapter 11
MSB note says chapters 11-16:34 are prescriptions for uncleanness.  God is teaching people what is clean - that is, acceptable to God - and contrasting that with the unclean.  Further, it makes mention of the possibility, via Abel's offering of meat, that meat was eaten post-fall/pre-flood.  We know that after the flood, God allowed men to eat meat.  These sections codify what meat should and shouldn't be eaten.  MSB says that one of the reasons, and in fact the primary reason for these rules was first to show the people what was holy, and second, to make it difficult or impossible for them to eat with pagans who worshiped other gods.  These dietary rules formed a sort of social barrier between those who feared God and all others.  Others would need to be converted, not courted, to avoid violating God's laws.  Even our relationships with outsiders must be based on, and grounded in, our worship of our God.

2023 - Note vs 1, where "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them..."  Now that Aaron has been consecrated as high priest, God speaks to him also, rather than to Moses only.  Don't think I'd ever noticed this before.

2023 - Vss 4, can't eat camels, they don't "part the hoof".  If you look at a photo, it is more like they  have toenails.  They have sort of a "separate hoof" on each toe.  Note in the diagram below that there are entirely separate bones that go down to each toe of the camel.  They might be said to have two hooves on each foot, rather than that they have one hoof which is parted...or cloven.  This is likely what cloven means.  But...of the pig, in vs 7, it is said that it parts the hoof AND is cloven-footed.    Note how the two "toe bones" in the pig stay close together after they separate, where the camels splay completely out.  




Looking at this "live" picture of pigs though, I am not sure I understand the difference.  No...I'm sure I don't understand the difference...and I'm pretty sure I really don't need to understand it.
We see a little more of this in vs 26, which implies that cloven-footed and parting the hoof are entirely different things.  
But I found this "Bible definition" of a cloven foot at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/leviticus/11-3.htm :  the hoofs must be completely cloven or divided above as well as below, or, as the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 14:6 has it, “and cleaveth the cleft into two claws.” Such is the case in the foot of the ox, the sheep, and the goat, where the hoof is wholly divided below as much as above. The foot of the dog, the cat, and the lion, though exhibiting a division into several distinct toes or claws, is contrary to the regulation here laid down, inasmuch as the division is simply on the upper side, the lower side being united by a membrane, and hence the hoof is not “entirely separated.”  Based on this, both camel and pig "part the hoof", but the camel is not cloven footed.  The halves must be attached by a membrane.  I'm thinking of the way Annabelle's toes were entirely webbed.  I am thinking that since bulls could be sacrificed, that cattle hooves are entirely cloven above and below.  So.  That's all cleared up now.

Unclean animals not to be eaten or touched.
Fish with both fins and scales okay to eat.
Birds of prey unclean, and I think a few others.  Bats unclean.

These verses:
20 "All winged insects that go on all fours are detestable to you. 21 Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to hop on the ground. 22 Of them you may eat: the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind. 23 But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. [Lev 11:20-23 ESV]
Some would make much of the four legged insects.  I find it very interesting that MSB does not mention this at all.  But it doesn't say they only have four, it says they have wings but they walk around on four legs.  It says "all fours".  I expect there is some simple explanation because I have never seen this used as proof the Bible has errors.  The wording seems to distinguish between "regular" legs and legs designed specifically for jumping.  If it jumped, then it might be an exception.  But if all the legs were alike, then it was not to be eaten.  Jewish Study Bible doesn't address this either.
Grasshoppers and crickets ok, but all other winged insects unclean.

2023 - I did find this at https://www.unchangingword.com/four-legged-insects/ :  
This is a simple misunderstanding related to translation.  First, the  locusts listed all have four normal legs plus two very different large  hind legs used for jumping—in ancient times these must not have been  counted among the walking legs, and thus they are described as  “four-legged.”  Furthermore, the term “walk on all fours” is an  expression which includes any creature walking on four or more  legs—insects, millipedes and centipedes.
It may be asked how any “insect” could be described as four-legged,  since an insect is by definition six-footed (in English). The answer is  simple—the Hebrew term translated ‘insect’ is שׁרץ  (sherets)  which  means simply “tiny swarming creeping creature,” rather like our  colloquial term ‘bug.’ Our modern classification of “insect” as  six-legged relates to the modern technical English category, not the  colloquial Hebrew term.

Eating or touching these things made one unclean until evening.  Not a long term unclean, but time had to separate you from the unclean thing.  Clothes had to be washed if they touched these things.

This restriction:
27 And all that walk on their paws, among the animals that go on all fours, are unclean to you. Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening, [Lev 11:27 ESV]
Lions, tigers, cats, dogs...not to be eaten.  All these are meat eaters also.

2023 -We stopped and stared when insects went on all fours, but now we see that this designation also applies to animals.  There are no animals with six legs, nor any with only two legs.  This would imply that the phrase "goes on four legs" is not about how many legs they have, but how those legs are used - whether for walking or for some other specialized purpose.  Like a grasshoppers hind legs.  Not there for walking, but for jumping.  Makes you wonder if Moses' time still had some "dinosaur-like" lizards that had big hind legs for walking and used the front legs only for grasping.  Not saying they were still around, but perhaps they were known to have existed?

Among swarming things, mole rats, mice, and lizards and their like unclean.  I don't know what is meant by swarming.  Didn't think any lizards did that.

2023 - Wow.  Found this at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/leviticus/11-29.htm:  Verses 29, 30. - The creeping things that creep upon the earth. This class contains things that go on their belly, but have not wings, like the previous class of creeping things (verses 20-23). By the words translated tortoise, ferret, chameleon, lizard, snail, mole, different varieties of the lizard are probably meant. The mouse is joined by Isaiah with "eating swine's flesh and the abomination" (Isaiah 66:17). Leviticus 11:29
So, first, Biblehub is an outstanding source of explanatory information on these "ceremonial distinctions" of animals that are pretty remote in time and obscure to those of us who aren't starving.  These old commentaries in Biblehub seem to have divided the animal world up into "classes", based on how they were perceived by the ancients.  This is not our modern taxonomical classification, but is nevertheless an "organization" of life into several different classes.  Note that these classes are based on physical appearance, rather than on their "evolutionary ancestors".  Perhaps a very important distinction.
2023 - A further definition from a different commentary on the same page referenced above:  These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth,.... As distinguished from those creeping things that fly, these having no wings as they; and which were equally unclean, neither to be eaten nor touched, neither their blood, their skin, nor their flesh, as the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it: and the Misnic doctors say (d) that the blood of a creeping thing and its flesh are joined together: and Maimonides (e) observes, that this is a fundamental thing with them, that the blood of a creeping thing is like its flesh; which in Siphre (an ancient book of theirs) is gathered from what is said in Leviticus 11:29 "these shall be unclean", &c. hence the wise men say, the blood of a creeping thing pollutes as its flesh:.  So...creeping things have no circulatory system?
2023 - This page has a LOT more information about each animal named.  The information about why mice are included in this group is especially informative.  You could spend all day on this stuff!  I just have to make one more comment...one of the reasons that they believe mice were unclean is because they will eat dung.  So will my Chihuahua's.  I believe any dog will do so when hungry.  So...I am guessing that plain old dogs were in fact unclean, and maybe that means Jews are not particularly big on pets of any kind....But that's me extrapolating, I didn't read that here.

Anything that touches the dead bodies of unclean things is also unclean.  This uncleanness in general lasts until that evening.  However, some things, like clay pots that something unclean touches, were to be broken, and not used again.  Even clay ovens - which took considerable time and labor to make, were to be broken if they became unclean.  There is also a restriction for things in pots that had water introduced being made unclean.  But if there were no water, not unclean.  As in this verse:
37 And if any part of their carcass falls upon any seed grain that is to be sown, it is clean, 38 but if water is put on the seed and any part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you. [Lev 11:37-38 ESV]

Clean animals that died would make you unclean if you touched them.

MSB says the purpose of the dietary laws was to set Israel apart from the nations around them.  The instructions here end with Be ye holy, for I am Holy.  MSB says vs. 44 is the first time this phrase is used, but it is used 50 more times after this in Leviticus.  Not only the dietary laws, but in the sacrifices, the clothing, and so on - in everything they do - God is setting them apart externally from other peoples to show that internally they are God's and are a different sort of people than all others.  They were to understand that holiness sets one apart in everything about one's life, not just in going to church on Sunday instead of golfing.

2021 - Interesting that all these unclean animals could make you unclean - whether you ate them or only touched their carcass - and yet Jesus is absolutely clear in the NT that what goes into your mouth does not defile the body.  How is that to be resolved?  Because in the OT, we are talking about being ceremonially unclean.  We are talking about being unpresentable to the God behind the veil.  Even to approach, one had to be ceremonially clean.  Jesus is talking about spiritual cleanliness, not bodily cleanliness.  His point is that you can be as ceremonially clean as you care to be, but if you are not submissive to God, you are still unclean.  And if your heart is right, then the rest doesn't really matter.  Leviticus is talking about how to be clean on the outside, Jesus is talking about how to be clean on the inside.  And this ties right in with the dietary laws being about social barriers.

Chapter 12
More instruction on clean/unclean.
Women unclean after childbirth.  Different for having a boy than for having a girl.  For a boy, she is unclean 7 days, then the boy is circumcised on day 8, and then another 33 days is required to complete her purification.  So 41 days I think.  For a girl, she is unclean 14 days, and purification takes another 66 days.  80 days total.  Twice as long.  Women had to offer a burnt and a sin offering following childbirth, as atonement.  Perhaps this goes back to the curse in Genesis.  If the woman's family is poor, a lamb is not required for these sacrifices, but birds.  Seems like Joseph and Mary only have birds because they were so poor.  This is a pretty short chapter.

Chapter 13
And this is a long chapter...
2023 - Again, the Lord speaks to both Moses and Aaron.
Rules about skin problems, how to tell leprous from non-leprous diseases.
Clothes worn by leprous people also had to be examined to determine whether they could be cleaned or must by discarded.
Here is what is meant by warp and woof:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p0MOGm2FxJ8/UYP5DZxnKLI/AAAAAAAAAVY/zHuiHaGqQKQ/s1600/warp+and+woof.jpg

I did not labor over this chapter.

Chapter 14
2023 - Just Moses, not Moses and Aaron.  Does this distinction I keep seeing really mean anything?

Instructions for cleansing a leper, so that he could return to society.  The procedure was twofold. First the priest went out of the camp to where the "former" leper was, and a bird is killed, in a clay pot, over fresh water.  Then a second bird and some hyssop and some scarlet string is dipped in the clay pot where the dead bird's blood is, and the live bird is set free.  Then the leper can come into camp.  Step one.
He has to sleep outside his tent for seven days, after shaving off his hair, head to foot, including his eyebrows.  On the eighth day two male lambs, some oil, and so on to the priest, who performs first a sin offering and a burnt offering, and then there is an anointing with oil.  This is all step two.

It is interesting that both blood from the animal sacrificed and some of the oil brought are put on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the one coming to be cleansed.  This was previously seen as the procedure to consecrate Aaron and his sons.  That is the only previous time we've seen it.  Priests and lepers.  The first separated from the people for service to God, the second brought in from without the camp to within it.  Our positions might be seen the same way.  The inner circle serves God, the next serves God within the body, and then there are those who are without and not associated with us at all.  

2021 - It is also interesting that the leper must make guilt, sin, and burnt offerings to atone for his uncleanness.  It is easy to see where the Pharisees in Jesus time had gotten the idea that sick people had sinned.  In the OT case, you have to remember that Jesus told them that if they behaved he would keep the diseases of Egypt off them.  Disease comes up many times in the OT as punishment sent on people also.  But Jesus was healing "sinners" well before the Law was abrogated...or maybe it was abrogated at his birth, I really don't know.  But it is an interesting area for study.  I know we no longer believe all sickness is the result of sin...but how do we think that went away?  It is certainly implied here.

2022 - Also interesting is that in order for a leper to return, the priest had to go outside the camp, where the leper was.  Somehow, this does not sound like something a Pharisee would ever do.  So...you had priests, all the way up to Jesus' time.  And  you had Pharisees.  Was the High Priest in Jesus time either Pharisee or Sadducee?  That is, he was a priest, but he also had a "party"?  Really, I don't see any priest in Jesus' time going out to cleanse a leper.  I note also, in vs 9, that before the cleansing ceremony, the former leper must shave off all his hair and wash his body and his clothes with water.  Just as Aaron and his sons had to wash first, before service to God.
2023 - Just as the scapegoat was sent out of the camp to take the sin out there and cleanse the camp, just as Jesus died on Golgotha outside the city of Jerusalem to cleanse all mankind, so the ritual of a healed leper requires action outside the camp.
2023 - Next day - Are we really to see this ritual for cleansing lepers as foreshadowing of the regeneration of the New Covenant?  The leper could not enter, he was prohibited because of his leprosy.  He could only be admitted to the camp if the priest came out to him.  The priest was clean, but went to where the leper was, and ritually cleaned and purified him, and then brought him into the camp.   Possible FB post - one of 2 - from Leviticus 14, 15, Lepers and Discharges.

2025 - It is interesting to me that both blood and then oil are put on the lobe of the ear, the thumb, and the big toe of the one being "reinstated" after being a leper.  This is very similar to the consecration rites for Aaron and his sons at the beginning.  How is being set apart for the priesthood so similar to getting well from leprosy that very similar ceremonies are performed in each case.  Perhaps...the priest doesn't just decide to be a priest, God chooses him as priest.  The leper does not decide to get well, either.  I suspect it was almost miraculous - and very very rare - for someone to get better after leprosy.  Only God could make leprosy go away.  Those whom God chooses are set apart for service to him.  They are ceremonially purified and set apart.  When we are lost, we are lepers.  Just as unclean and useless to God as a leper is to the camp.  We are potentially infectious.  But God can bring us home, clean us up, and then use us in his service.  I don't know...It is a very difficult passage to understand.

Then laws for cleansing houses.  If the house "recovered" from the disease, it was also cleansed using two birds, water, an earthenware vessel, hyssop and scarlet yarn, in the same way a recovered leper was cleansed while outside the camp.  Unlike the leper, there was no further offering for atonement of the house.

Chapter 15
Instructions about bodily discharges.  These are very detailed.  Not only is the person unclean but what he or she wears, their bedclothes, chairs they sit in and so on.  Anyone who touches a person unclean for reasons of discharge is unclean until evening and must wash.  Offerings must be brought to the priest and a sin and a burnt offering given after the discharge has stopped to restore the one with the discharge.  

2023 - This verse:
14 And on the eighth day he shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and come before the LORD to the entrance of the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. [Lev 15:14 ESV]
We have seen this before for cleansing/purification.  Seven full days, and then action on the eighth.  Obviously corresponds to the age of males at circumcision.  Why this time frame?  Why on the eighth? Because it took six to create the world, and then one day to rest, and on the eighth day God has done his work and we begin moving ahead with man involved?  Seems pretty far out there...but again, there is a reason.

2023 - Here is another mystery - at least it is mysterious to me...where did they get all this water for the constant washing they had to do to restore cleanness?  Washing everything someone unclean had touched, washing clothing, beds, washing themselves.  That's a lot of water.  Did they have common bathtubs set up for everyone to use such that everyone knew when you went in there that you were unclean for the rest of the day?  Is that how it worked?

All this seems to go on and on and on, but there is finally an explanation for it at the end of chapter 15:
31 "Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst." [Lev 15:31 ESV]
2023 - Nothing unholy, nothing unclean, can make us clean.  Here is another principle I had never seen, incorporated into these OT rituals, sometimes in the strangest places, as here.  Unclean people had to be kept out of the Tabernacle, because if they came in, they would make the clean unclean, and so the tabernacle would no longer be the "conduit" to remove sin from the people.  No one could be made clean as long as the tabernacle stayed unclean.  We are all born unclean, unholy.  Only what is clean and holy can change that.  The gospel is clean.  Just as the tabernacle, when commissioned, had to be purified with blood, and as Aaron and the priests had to be washed before serving, our bodies must be purified and cleaned up for service to God.  We must be washed in the blood.  We are temples and priests of the New Covenant.  Repent and be baptized, Acts 2:38.  Possible FB post from Lev 15, on discharges.

All these rituals and  inspections and re-inspections were designed to insure the safety of those coming to the tabernacle.  God simply won't tolerate what is unclean.  It cannot be allowed, and there are absolutely no exceptions.  If the unclean approach God, they die.  So these rituals were to make them clean, to be sure they were clean, lest their uncleanness also be the cause of their death.  
The typology is to sinners, lost in sin, corrupt and unclean before God.  Like lepers, and those with discharges, such sinners cannot approach God at all without being cleansed by a priest.  In this case, the priest is Jesus, the sacrifice was on the cross, and it is Jesus' blood that reinstates us, cleanses and ritually purifies us, so that we can enter into fellowship with God.  We can approach him.  

Another thought...not only is the one with the discharge unclean, but any and all who touch him, or touch what he has touched, is also unclean.  Is this also typology in that close association with sinners brings some of the guilt of that sin on us also?  Even though it is not our sin.  If you hang with bank robbers, though you never participate in the robbery, won't you be guilty by association and an accomplice under the law?  Yet I know we are only condemned for our own sin. 

Chapter 16
Instructions for the Day of Atonement.  These were given to Moses after Aaron's son's were killed.  One of the instructions is for Aaron not to try coming into the Holy of Holies unless these things are first performed.  Implies that maybe his son's had taken their strange fire all the way into the Holy of Holies.  Going through this veil required intense, accurate, prescribed preparation, and any error would result in death.  No second chances for the High Priest, any more than for anyone else.  First a bull for a sin offering, then a ram for a burnt offering.  This seems to be the required order of operations before approaching God.  First an offering to rid oneself of sin - a spiritual purification - and then a burnt offering as a positional sacrifice wherein the one approaching acknowledges that it is God who is in the higher position, and the offerer is therefore humbling himself before his God.  So many of the sacrifices follow this order.  
Aaron first had to wash himself (baptism?) and put on all the holy garments, then make a sacrifice for himself and his family.  Then two goats were brought as a sacrifice for the people.  Lots were cast to decide which goat would be sacrificed and which would be released into the wilderness.  The MSB note - a long note - on 16:6-28, gives the step by step of how these sacrifices were to be carried out.  It was long, involved, and required complete concentration to do correctly.  

There are these verses:
8 And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel. ... 10 but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. [Lev 16:8, 10 ESV]
I found a number of things relating to Azazel in the notes.  MSB says the word literally means "escape goat".  This is often interpreted as our word scapegoat.  There were the two goats.  One lot showed the goat that would be the Lord's, the one sacrificed, the one that died for the sins of Aaron and the people.  The death of this goat, and its shed blood, were substituted for sin's penalty due from Aaron and the people.  But instead of their deaths, there was the death of this goat.  The other goat was the scapegoat - which was released into the "wilderness of Azazel".   This represented the "removal of sin" from the people.  However, note that the sin was still there, but was in another place.  It was not among the people anymore, and a substitute had died for that sin, but the sin remains somewhere.  God still knows where that sin is.  The blood of bulls and goats is insufficient for the true removal of man's sin.  This is specifically explained in Hebrews.
There are many interpretations of Azazel, depending on which version you look at.

This atonement for Aaron and all the people was all to take place once a year, in the seventh month, the 10th day of the month.  It cleansed the Tent of Meeting from the uncleanness of the people who came there, it cleansed the altar, the mercy seat, and the furnishings of the Tabernacle.  This was done once a year, and is a statute forever for the people of Israel.

2021 - So one of the goats is killed as a sin offering.  The other goat is released in the wilderness to Azazel.  Scapegoat.  Don't know if this should really be capitalized or not.  The sin offering for the people is carried outside the camp and burned.  Once a year.  So this is all for the people as a whole and for the contents of the tent of meeting.  It is atonement.  In this case, the atonement lasts just one year.  
So many symbols here, and it is hard to really understand them.  It seems like Aaron went into the Holy Place two different times, once with blood from the bull that was his sin offering, and then again with the blood of the goat that was the people's sin offering.  The blood was sprinkled, but it seems also to have been applied.  It was applied first then sprinkled.  Blood from both of these was put on the horns of the altar outside, and was also sprinkled seven times on the altar.  What is symbolized by this?  Applied, then sprinkled?  
His  bull's blood is only sprinkled on the mercy seat.  He does not touch the mercy seat.  Same with the goat's blood for the people.  Where the mercy seat is concerned, only sprinkling.  On the altar, outside the tent, blood of both bull and goat applied to the horns, and then both sprinkled on the altar seven times.  Only after all this blood work is done is the "live" goat brought in, and Aaron lays both hands on it and transfers the people's sins and confesses those sins - all the iniquities of the people - and then the goat is sent away into the wilderness.  The goat bearing all the sins is not killed.  It lives.  It does not symbolize the coming Messiah.  It is almost like this goat's purpose is to show that without death, there is no permanent cleansing of sin.  Odd also that lots are cast to see which goat will live and which will die.  I don't see any Messianic symbolism in this either.

2023 -The symbolism seems to be that all the sins of the people are concentrated though the various priests and ultimately reside upon Aaron, the high priest.  It is he who transfers the sin of the people onto the scapegoat.  He mediates for all Israel in transferring their sin onto this scapegoat, which is forever banished outside the camp.  The sin is not still "within" the camp, but has been transferred outside.  But it is not forgiven.  It is not gone.  It takes a perfect sacrifice to forgive sin, and to wholly purify those who committed that sin.

2022 - Everything from here to the *** is 2022.  The bull, which dies first, is a sin offering to make atonement for Aaron and his household.  It is only for them.  Note also that sin offerings are ABOUT atonement.  They appease God for the sin(s) committed against Him.  The bull is killed, and then some of the blood shed is brought within the veil, with coals from the altar and incense.  This blood is first sprinkled ON the front of the Mercy Seat - which faces east - and then seven times Aaron was to sprinkle blood in FRONT of the Mercy Seat.  Presumably on the ground there between the Mercy Seat and the veil.  This is an atonement for Aaron and his family.
NEXT, the goat chosen by lot is killed as a sin offering for the people.  So now atonement via sin offering is made for the people.  The goat is killed and its blood collected, like the bull's blood.  The goat's blood is taken inside the veil, and sprinkled first on the front/east side of the Mercy Seat, and then in front of it, just like the bull's blood.  This step atones for the Holy Place, which is "polluted" by the sins of the people during the year.  As I read it, he goes in a third time - second time with the goat's blood - and does the same as before, atoning for the tent of meeting itself.  
NEXT, after atoning for himself, the Holy Place, and the Tent of Meeting, he comes out to the altar, which is out in front of the Holy Place.  Atonement must also be made for the altar.  Aaron was to put some blood from the bull AND the goat on the four horns of the altar.  Seems like he was to actually use his hand to sort of "smear" the blood of each animal on the four horns of the altar.  Not just the east, but all four.  THEN, he was to sprinkle blood on it seven times.  Looks to me like the blood of bull and goat were mingled for this, and sprinkled using a finger.  This cleansed and consecrated the altar "from the uncleanness of the people of Israel".  One must conclude that objects are contaminated by the presence of sinners.  What is declared Holy must be constantly cleansed of contamination it acquires just by being near what is unholy.  
All this so far has cleansed Aaron, his family, the Holy Place, and the tent of meeting so now it is time to deal with the live goat.

In this part, Aaron, now purified, lays his hands on the goat, and confesses all the sins of the people over that goat.  He "transfers" all the sins of the people onto that goat.  Once the goat has all the sin, it is led out alive to a place outside the camp by a person designated for that task.  The sins of the people are taken outside the camp.  That sin-covered goat is set free.  

Once this happens, Aaron changes clothes, washes with water, and comes out to the altar.  There, he burns the bull and the goat offered as sin offerings which atones for him and for all the people.  So...the goat that has the sins on it is gone out of the camp and set free.  But the sin offering must still take place, because taking those sins outside the camp did not ATONE for those sins.  Only the burning of the sin offering will atone.  But there is still more.  When the sin offering is burned, it is done according to the procedure for sin offerings.  That is, the fat is burned, certain parts are burned, but the rest of the sin offering is taken outside the camp and burned there.  (The sin offering is discussed in Lev 4.  It very specifically says that the sin offering is for unintentional sin.  Perhaps we are to see from this that the goat sent out alive carries intentional sin?  So...let's discuss the procedure of this sin offering.  For a priest or for all the people the procedure is the same.  A bull is killed and some of the blood is brought into the tent of meeting (I read that as the Holy Place) and using his finger/hand, he places blood on each of the four horns of the altar of incense that sits before the veil.  Then he sprinkles blood seven times in front of the veil.  So this atonement, this sin offering, is similar to the annual atonement, but no one goes inside the veil.  After all this, the rest of the blood is poured out before the altar for burnt offerings, which is outside the tent of meeting.  No sprinkling takes place out here.  Then, the fat from this bull, the good fat, is burned on the altar of burnt offering.  The rest - the head, the legs, the skin, the entrails, the dung - are carried outside the camp and burned on a wood fire in a clean place.  I went through all this to show that no part of the sin offering - which is for atonement - is eaten by the priest officiating the sacrifice or the one who offers the sacrifice for his unintentional sin.

2023 - Hmm...am I right in the paragraph above that the priests eat no part at all of the sin offering?  No...I have something wrong because of this verse, which helped me with the symbolic drinking of the blood....17 "Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD? [Lev 10:17 ESV].  So I am missing something somewhere.  Are we supposed to just remember this part in the regular sin offerings, but it is not done at all during the annual atonement offerings?
2023 - Perhaps this is the exception.  I remember that if the blood was taken into the Holy place/Holy of Holies - not sure if it is either one or both - then the animal that shed this blood was NOT to be eaten.  A regular offering would be eaten, but not an animal who's blood was carried inside the holy place.  I remember that specifically.  Look what Moses says after chastising Aaron's sons for burning the whole sacrifice and not eating any of it:   18 Behold, its blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary. You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded." [Lev 10:18 ESV].  Those two verse in Lev 10 seem to be giving us a LOT of important information!  
2023 - The sin offering had to go first, and atone for the offerant, because the burnt offering would not be accepted from one corrupted by sin.  This is consistent with Ezekiel 18, where the good deeds of a corrupt man are not credited to him by God.  

2023 - Look at this verse:
30 For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the LORD from all your sins. [Lev 16:30 ESV].  This applied to all Israel.  This one day a year they were clean before the Lord.  The accumulated sin was expelled in the scapegoat.  But immediately, sin began to accumulate again, via the sinners, through the sin offering to the priests, accumulating all year until the next Day of Atonement.  Jesus, as perfect sacrifice, atoned once and for all for our sins.  His life was perfect, his life was in his blood, shed for us.  In eating his body in the Lord's supper, we take on the sins of ours that he bore for us, and when we drink his blood, we "put on" the perfect life that he lived and stand clean before the Lord.  Salvation does this once for all, and the Lord's supper reminds us in symbolism of what He did for us.

What I am trying to understand is the connection - the symbolism - between Jesus death on the cross outside the camp and these required sacrifices under the law.  All I have figured out is that maybe the scapegoat has the intentional sins, and that goat is gone.  Jesus took on the sins of the whole world.  Jesus was led outside the city of Jerusalem.  But Jesus was not set free there to carry those sins forever.  Else he would never have been able to re-enter God's presence.  So...what is going on?  Jesus carried the sins of the whole world outside the camp.  And I think there is somehow a connection with the Lord's supper, where not only was flesh eaten, but blood was also consumed.  And this was done INSIDE the camp.  So...how to understand all this?  
2023 - Man!  This was bothering me from WAY back there.  To see current thinking, look at "Drinking Blood" in the Bible Study notebook.

What about the Burnt Offering?  Lev 1:4 says the burnt offering is to make atonement also, not just the sin offering.  So why are there two?  There must be a difference in what they are for?  The procedure is familiar.  The offerer lays his hand on the sacrifice, kills it, and the priests collect the blood.  The priests then "throw", not sprinkle, the blood against the sides of the altar. (Might want to look at the actual Hebrew word.  Both translations may be from a single Hebrew word.)  It is clear that this is the altar outside the tent of meeting.  Next, the offering is flayed and cut into pieces.  The priests lay a wood fire, and most of the offering is placed directly on the fire.  The entrails and legs must first be washed with water.  Then the entire animal is burned on the altar.  No part of this animal is consumed.  You can't get the Lord's supper out of this.

So that leaves the peace offering.  This starts just as the burnt offering.  The animal is killed and the priests throw the blood on the sides of the altar.  The instructions seem to say that only certain parts of the peace offering are burned.  Mostly the fat, and then we see that the blood is all poured on the altar - none of it is consumed.  Here is that verse:  "17 It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood."" [Lev 3:17 ESV].  There is also nothing in the Lord's supper about fat.  Except that it is about bread and wine, not meat at all.  

In Lev 7 we get the guilt offering.  It says it is just like the sin offering.  All the fat is burned, the blood thrown on the sides.  BUT, it says here that the rest of the animal may be eaten by the priests in a holy place.  Here is one of the verses about it:  "7 The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it." [Lev 7:7 ESV]

So I cannot pull out what I'm trying to pull out.  I do not yet understand the symbolic connection between Christ's sacrifice on the cross and these offerings.  Perhaps the biggest clue would be to go and see what exact sacrifices will still be required in Ezekiel's Temple.  I think the only one(s) that go(es) away is/are the one(s) that Christ makes unnecessary.  That would make perfect sense, and is possibly the key to understanding all this.  But I am out of time for today.
***
2023 - These chapters keep taking far longer than I expect them to take.  I hope that means I am learning.


Chapter 17
All are instructed to bring their sacrifices to the tent of meeting to be offered to the Lord.  No other place was acceptable.  This was to prevent them sacrificing to other gods.  This is especially important when the kingdom splits and Rehoboam builds an altar in Samaria upon which the northern tribes are to sacrifice.  Direct contradiction to God's word, spoken to Moses.  And how many of those in the north did it anyway, even though they knew the law?  The penalty was that the person doing so would be cut off from his people.  So when the Assyrians came and carted them all away, they weren't really Israel anymore.  They had been cut off by their own doing.

2022 - When Rehoboam did this, many left the northern kingdom and moved south.  It is probably so that almost everyone - if not absolutely everyone - in the northern kingdom was doing all their sacrificing outside of Jerusalem.  Therefore, that entire kingdom, all the ten tribes in the north, sealed their own fate by ignoring this direct, unequivocal, and "forever" command of God as to the proper place of sacrificing to Him.

2021 - So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.  Leviticus 17:7 ESV.
Never noticed this wording before.   Goat demons?  Needs more study.   Meaning may be quite different than I thought... though the next verse sends to clarify.

8 "And you shall say to them, Any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice 9 and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it to the LORD, that man shall be cut off from his people. [Lev 17:8-9 ESV]

This verse is worded quite differently in the ESV as compared to KJV and NKJV:
11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. [Lev 17:11 ESV]
11 'For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it [is] the blood [that] makes atonement for the soul.' [Lev 17:11 NKJV]
11 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.' [Lev 17:11 NASB]
Here are the three variations that I found.  The last one seems to bring it all together in saying that when blood is shed, life goes with it.  We cannot lose our blood and keep our life.  In this way, life and blood are connected.  It is not the physical blood that God requires as a penalty for sin, but life itself.  Death is the curse of sin, and blood connects death and life.  As such, life - and ceremonially life IS the blood - is only God's, and was never ever to be seen as "food".  Blood is never food, it is always life itself.

2023 - Oh my!  Still more confirmation as to why we drink the blood of the Lord's supper, but it was completely prohibited before that.  The actual point being made here not really clear in the NKJV wording.   In ESV, we have this phrase "by the life" which seems completely awkward and forced.  NASB seems the best..."by reason of the life".  Israel never drank the blood because we don't want to imbibe the lives of sacrificial animals in that ritual.  Eating the flesh takes on the sin done in the flesh.  Drinking the blood takes on the life itself.  Jesus sinless life enabled effective atonement, once for all.  So we not only eat the flesh and so take on the sin, but we drink the blood to take in the life that permanently atones for that sin.  Atonement "by the life" of the one who shed the blood.  

2023 - Still another clarification I had not noticed before this year:  14 For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. [Lev 17:14 ESV].  Really, Lev 17:10-16 is all about this.  

2025 - God gave/designated/declared that blood and only blood would be acceptable to him for atonement of sins.  In order to emphasize the unique and special use of the blood for this purpose, God required that this be the ONLY purpose for which it was used.  It was not for food, it was not for drink, it was for atonement, and that only through the priest.  Jesus' blood atoned for all mankind once, for all, and forever.  Therefore, blood is no longer needed for atonement, is no longer unique in that regard, and can now be consumed, as at the Lord's Supper.

2021 - I think this is on the right track.  Life pays for sin,  and blood symbolizes life.   To eat the blood is to put yourself in God's place.  (Nope.  See above.)

2022 - But then there is this:
"27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." [Mat 26:27-28 ESV]
Jesus is telling them to drink from the cup that he says contains his blood.  He is telling them to consume blood.  To take his life into themselves.  Perhaps it is important that he continues that this forgives sins, rather than atoning for them.  The blood of the animal sacrifices was thrown on the altar to delay the penalty.  To appease God so that justice for the sin would be delayed.  But Jesus' blood meant that God forgave for all time the consequences of sin.  By giving his life he obtained our complete  forgiveness.  We incorporate that blood and the forgiveness that it brings by drinking of the blood at the Lord's supper.  (2023 - It was here along!  I'd already figured it out, I just didn't realize I had!)  His blood, effectual for the forgiveness of sin, becomes our blood, our life, when we consume it.  You would never want to consume the blood of an animal sacrifice because it only appeased God for today, it did not satisfy Him forever.
I still have not quite put all this together - the connection between the animal sacrifices in Leviticus and the words Jesus used at the Lord's supper.  Something very huge, very dramatic, and completely different is happening with Jesus' death on the cross and the OT animal sacrifices.  That blood was forbidden, this blood is to be consumed.  I am on the trail, but I do not yet have the words to explain what is going on at the last supper with the wine.  Perhaps it was the fourth cup...and I need to know what the fourth cup signified?  
2023 - I wonder if the paragraph above is on the right track?  The difference between atonement and forgiveness?  The body for temporary atonement, the blood for everlasting forgiveness.  But the blood only works if the life was without sin.  Forgiveness only comes by a perfect life.  Is that right?

Chapter 18
Laws about sex.  Mostly, they say you shouldn't have sex with any of your close relatives.  Certainly at least through first cousin, even if only a half- first-cousin.  Then there is this about homosexuality:

22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. [Lev 18:22 ESV]  Really hard to get around this one, to make it mean something else.  Of course, we don't follow very many things from the Levitical law today.  We eat blood and pork, we no longer sacrifice.  Jesus fulfilled the law, freeing us from all it's details.  This is not to say that what was sin in the OT is no longer sin.  We need NT condemnation of these sins though to be consistent.  There are several NT repetitions of this law against homosexuality.  

MSB says that "uncover the nakedness" is a euphemism for having sex with someone.  How is that the case when one of Jacob's sons uncovered his nakedness?  Does this really mean he had sex with his drunk passed out father?  I have never heard it called this before.  I thought it meant literally that you were not supposed to ever see these people naked.  I though it meant no communal showers or baths or things like that.  This would open up a whole new perspective on things, and many verses will read differently with this "meaning".  
2022 - It likely means that the son had sex with his father's wife - though probably not his own mother.  Could be that while both Jacob and this wife were passed out drunk, Reuben came in and had sex with the unconscious - or barely aware - wife.  That is what Reuben did.  

2023 - I think MSB has it right (big surprise!).  Look at this verse, where it is pretty much spelled out:
8 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness. [Lev 18:8 ESV], and this one even moreso:
16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife; it is your brother's nakedness. [Lev 18:16 ESV]  Having sex with your sister-in-law uncovers her nakedness, but uncovers his also.  
If you read these in detail, you see that it is not always about genetics as I thought it was.  Some of this "don't  uncover the nakedness of" is about people who are not blood relatives at all, as in vs 16.  In-laws in many cases are forbidden.  That truly does seem like a bad idea, but it is not about genetics.  Your brother and your sister-in-law are one in the sight of God, because they are married.  So uncovering one uncovers the other.  Is that how these work?  Maybe...7 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. [Lev 18:7 ESV].  It fits for this verse.  But it does not hold up for this verse:  9 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. [Lev 18:9 ESV].  This one might be about genetics.  And then this one, which is pretty convoluted:  10 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. [Lev 18:10 ESV].  So...you are not to have sex with yourself?  Your granddaughter's nakedness is your own nakedness?  This one also seems more about genetics than about marriage making two people one.  

2023 - So...when Jacob married Rachel AND Leah, he violated this law...though it was not yet codified:  18 And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive. [Lev 18:18 ESV]
2023 - 18 And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive. [Lev 18:18 ESV].  Clearly not genetics.  And really, not about two people being one.  This is just plain about ethical behavior.

This theme, which is repeated in Dt. 18:9-14:
24 'Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. 25 'For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. [Lev 18:24-25 NASB]
God gave Canaan to Israel because those already in Canaan were abominable to God.  Their practices were perverted, far from God's law.  Noah would have passed on the kinds of things going on in the world before the flood took land away from those who practiced such things.  All knew this was wrong...or they  had been perverted for so long that they were no longer sensitive to how perverted such practices were.  The sin and corruption of the people living in Canaan was so awful and so prevalent that the land itself will regurgitate them, and "aid" in removing them from itself.  There are a number of places where we see that what happens in/on/to the land comes to God's attention.  Abel's blood cried out to God from the land was I think the first instance of this, but there are many others.
Abortion pollutes the land itself.  Shedding any innocent blood does this.  And sooner or later, the land will cry out.

2022 - "26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you ... 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. ... 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God."" [Lev 18:26, 28, 30 ESV]
Homosexuality and bestiality are specifically mentioned in the verses that come just before this, as was sex with relatives.  At least that is not rampant in the US!  But when you look at the wording here, it says that if these kinds of things are going on, the land becomes unclean to the point of vomiting out those who live there.  Surely this points to conquest...displacement is probably a more accurate word...of the nation that incorporates such practices, such abominations.  The land itself gets so sick of this kind of behavior that it pushes them out.  I am thinking drought, diseases, famine, storms, rampaging animals...all those sorts of "natural disasters".  Look at what is going on worldwide with covid-19...yet 1918 and the Spanish flu was worse...
I think you have to look at these things as "birth pangs".  I think the frequency and ferocity of these natural disasters tells us where we are, tells us how bad things really are.  Very difficult to quantify...but isn't it interesting that all the screaming about offsetting global warming - because it is making the earth revolt against us - is missing the point entirely.  The "data" is correct, the "predictions" are correct, but the cause is completely misunderstood.  And isn't it interesting that it is "global" warming, not "Israel" warming, or "United States" warming, but global warming.  What is happening is worldwide, as it must be as things approach the way they were "in the days of Noah".  
Possible FB post.

Chapter 19
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":  
1.      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 though 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:
1. to do or deal falsely, be false, trick, cheat
   1. (Piel) to deal falsely
   2. (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!  

Chapter 20
This verse that goes with the paragraph below:  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, [Lev 20:4 ESV]
If anyone gave his child to Molech, he was to be stoned.  Anyone who refused to stone him was to be cut off from his people.  God would be against those who allowed this sort of thing to go on.  So there is no "live and let live" attitude about such practices.  Looking the other way will have consequences.  This says everyone must pick up a rock and throw it.  So...if we equate sacrificing children to Molech with abortion, then we surely have a responsibility to do something about it.  We are not under the law, I get that, but God does not have two sets of rules, either.  It is not that one nation is ok to burn babies and other nations are not.  This practice was and is universally heinous to God, and he expels those who refuse to do something about it.
Possible incendiary FB post.

Also this verse:
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. [Lev 20:6 ESV]
This chapter seems to be continuing the list of behaviors that Israel will encounter in other nations but in which they are not to participate, much less adopt for their own nation.  

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.
Leviticus 20:9 ESV

2023 - This whole section is worth looking at:
10 "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. [Lev 20:10 ESV].
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. [Lev 20:11-16 ESV].
Two things here.   Note that there is not one penalty for the male and a different penalty for the female.  If they participate in the same sins, a sin penalized by death, then BOTH are to die.  This OT, and men and women are equal before the law.  ONLY the Hebrews had such laws at this time.  The OT, the Bible, God make no distinction between male and female before the law.  Second, the penalty for ALL these sins is death.  The unmistakable indication is that these sins are equally heinous to God.  None is especially worse than the others in God's eyes.  Sleeping with the neighbors wife is THE SAME as homosexual relations, the same as bestiality.  ALL THE SAME.  So we ought not go looking down our noses at people because their crimes are worse than ours.  It is unlikely to be true, especially when lust in the heart is also considered.  

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. [Lev 20:11 ESV]
Given my recent "reinterpretation" from MSB that to uncover nakedness is a euphemism for sexual relations, this verse reads a bit differently.  It could be that having sex with your father's wife - but who is not your own mother - is the same as having sex with your own father.  Wonder if this is what really  happened with Jacob's son who uncovered his father's nakedness?  Seems much more likely.
2022 - No.  It is just an expression of the time which meant that to have sex with one person is to make a fool of another.  I think it may also be a reference to how when two get married, the two become one.  Adultery in all its forms was prohibited.  But in some cases, there was the added offense of becoming a third in what God meant to be two person relationship.  It is always the wrong thing to do.

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.
Leviticus 20:13 ESV
This is the same punishment as sleeping with the neighbor's wife, though that sin is not labeled abomination.

This chapter is full of rules about sexual sin of all kinds.  An MSB note says that these are the punishments for the sexual sins previously "outlawed" in 18:1-30.

2021, coming back to this as I read Num 5:11-31.  In Numbers, an elaborate ritual is described for determining whether a woman has been unfaithful to her husband, if she wasn't actually caught en flagrant.  If she is guilty, her womb will swell (no more children) and her thigh will "fall away".  I do not know what this phrase might mean.  But the point here, in Leviticus 20, is that all these prohibitions against adultery, save one, start with "If a man..."  So it seems to me that the penalties resulting from a man's sin of adultery are different from those of a woman's sin of adultery.  Also, here in Leviticus, we know who the guilty parties are, on both sides.  In Numbers, the sin was secret, and the ritual is based on the suspicion of a husband.  Only on suspicion.  No witnesses.  And no way to identify who the man involved was, unless the woman confesses it.  If he cannot be punished with her, perhaps it was unfair for her to be stoned, while the guilty man kept his secret.  That may be the key to this.  The stoning occurred when all the facts were known.  Becoming a curse, and never again bearing children, was the punishment if there were no witnesses, and because the ritual could determine that the woman was guilty, but not identify the other party.

This verse, giving God's reason for outlawing these things:
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. [Lev 20:23 ESV]  These laws are about separating Israel, yes, but these things are also unholy, unacceptable to the God who created all men.  He knows these things should not be done, and he knows the minds of those who do them.  These things are all repugnant to God, and in no way serve or even acknowledge God's sovereignty.

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. [Lev 20:26 ESV]
Separation is also a big part of these rules.  The world had already gotten pretty rotten again, and God separates a people out who can show the right way.

2023 - What does "cut off from his people" really mean?  I did some internet research on this phrase.  Many think it means put to death.  I don't see that.  It is something less severe than death.  One article noted that many times it is God - not the Mosaic justice system - that carries out this punishment.  So I see two possibilities.  One would be that this persons inheritance does NOT go to his children.  His land in Canaan is not inherited by HIS sons, but goes to others as if he had died childless.  His name, his inheritance, would cease to exist in Israel.  I sort of came up with this idea after reading other ideas.  The other one that I read about that seemed possible is that being cut off means that one would not be allowed to be with his ancestors or descendants in heaven.  This forever reunion would be denied to those who committed sins worthy of this penalty.  This would seem to be a severe penalty, it would always be enforceable by God, and would accrue whether or not one ever "got caught" for the sin that brings this penalty.  Either of these last seem pretty workable to me.

2025 - As Chapter 19, rules piled upon rules, but many of the ones in 19 are capital offenses.  They don't just say not to do things, they say that those who choose to do them anyway are to be "stoned with stones".  If I were looking for a loophole for this entire passage, I might rest on this verse:
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. [Lev 20:22 ESV],  You do these things, correctly and without compromise, so the land of Canaan will not spew you out, as it is spewing out the heathens who were there before you.  Hmm...the heathens have forever and always been there first.  It was Native Americans here, with their great spirits and their dolls and their medicine mean calling up magic.  We ought not practice those false religions nor even revere and respect them.  They are against God's Laws.  
I just am not finding any...I hate to use the same phrase again, but I think it is the best phrase for this - intellectually honest justification for NOT practicing the rules given in these two chapters.  The capital punishments for these crimes?  Should we do that?  For adultery and incest?  The mind rebels at the thought of this...just as the minds of the Israelites who first received this law would have rebelled.  But we're newer and smarter right, so when our minds rebel that means we shouldn't follow this law, rather than meaning we are so far from the holiness that God requires that we reject what is Holy and embrace the filth right in amongst us.
This is hard stuff here.  But again, Bonhoeffer is right.  Stop analyzing and DO WHAT IT SAYS!!!

2025 - I don't think God changes.  If it was unholy for Israel it is unholy today, for us.  I can maybe stretch out just a little on the corners of the hair and the tattoos as being commands to NOT be like the heathens in your area.  No...I can't get there either.  Would God say "You can do this if you just like it, but it will be counted as sin if you do it because someone who doesn't know me does it?"  I reject that.  If tattoos are ever wrong they are always wrong.  We are too easy on ourselves while counting ourselves as fine good Christians.  We are not.  We can't claim holiness!  

Chapter 21
Rules about priests.
2022 - This verse:
"4 He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself." [Lev 21:4 ESV].  This is in a section where the priests are being instructed.  Certain prohibitions as to their behavior are put into place.  This first section says that they are not to make themselves unclean, and it starts off with them not being around dead bodies except in very specific instances of very close relatives.  And then we get this verse 4.  What does the phrase "unclean as a husband" mean?  MSB includes the verse with the stuff about corpses.  I do note that the wife's death is not mentioned as an exception to the rule.  Isn't that interesting that it does not say he can be around his wife's corpse???  If we see this verse as about wives, it says he cannot be in the same room with his wife's corpse, but he can with his brother's corpse.  If that's what it is saying, why did it use "as a husband" instead of just saying "for his wife"?  It cannot mean they weren't to marry because Aaron was married.  Priesthood passed from father to son.  Otherwise, you'd quickly run out of Levites!  So it isn't about marriage.  It is about being a husband.  Does it mean no sex before performing the duties of priest?  For instance, if tomorrow is his day to sprinkle blood on the Altar of Burnt offerings, he needs to make sure he stays away form his wife the night before?  That seems a lot more likely.

2022 - Here is a verse that clearly says priests could marry:
"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." [Lev 21:7 ESV].  There are some restrictions, but priests could marry.

2022 - Vss 10,11 make it illegal for the high priest to tear his clothes, or to be around ANY dead body.  Even that of his parents.

Chapter 22
Continued instructions to the priests.
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. [Lev 22:6 ESV]
This is addressed to all the priests and their sons through all generations.  The parts of the sacrifices that were given as food for the priests were holy.  Holy things cannot be given to those who are unclean.  So if a priest had become unclean by touching something or someone who was already unclean, the priest was unclean also, and had to refrain from touching holy things, including sacrifices, until the evening, and until he had washed his body in water.  Water is always about doing away with the sin or uncleanness that pollutes us in this body.  This uncleanness must be removed before we can partake of what is holy.  Until the washing, these priests could hang around, but they could not really commune until they were washed.  It is easy to see analogy to our baptism today, though we do it only once.

2023 - This just makes a lot of sense in context both to John's baptism, for remission of sins, and to the baptism in the church.  It is a SYMBOL of removing sin/uncleanness from ourselves.  It is a symbol of washing away the bad, leaving only the holy, so that we may directly serve our God.  We do it because we are now our own priests, under the New Covenant.  So our "one time only" baptism primarily symbolizes the ordination washing of Aaron and his sons for service that first time.  For them, there was just the one ordination washing.  But it looks to me like getting baptized again - washed again - if we become extraordinarily tainted with the sins of this world, would be entirely acceptable to God.  That is an idea I ought to think about.   I certainly did not understand baptism when I was baptized in Joaquin, and look at all the filth that I have accumulated by my wandering off the road since that time.  Surely I need a good washing.  I will consider this.

All sacrifices must be without blemish, deformity, or injury.  Burnt offerings had to be male.  

2025 - I noticed the phrase "I am the Lord" repeated over and over in this chapter.  This phrase occurs 49 times in 49 verses in the book of Leviticus.  That's seven sevens.  It occurs 10 times in this one chapter.  I believe, today, that God was preemptively answering the question of why these things were not acceptable. Why can't a lame man be a priest and offer sacrifices?  Why can't a priest go near a dead body?  And the answer is "Because I said so".  You can spend all day debating the why's and wherefores and maybe find something acceptable to you, and it is fine to do that.  But in the end your reason pales in comparison to the simplest and best and only really necessary reason.  Because He said so.  Accept it as a child accepting instruction from a parent  He didn't say it to your harm but to your help.  He knows more than you.  Just do as he says.  Bonhoeffer again.

Chapter 23
Enumeration of all the feasts and holy days.
    The Sabbath
     1.  Passover, First month, fourteenth day, at twilight.
     2.  Feast of Unleavened Bread,.  First month, fifteenth day, lasting 7 days.  
2025 - note the phrasing here:  Leviticus 23:8 NASB1995  [8] But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.’ ”  No laborious work as contrasted with no work at all including no elevator floor selections or turning on burners.  ESV translates it "no ordinary work".  Darby goes with "no manner of servile work", as does KJV.  In fact, this word, Strongs H5656, occurs 141 times in the KJV and is translated service 96 of those.  The idea seems to be that you can't go to work as usual for someone else on this day, but not at all that you can't tie your own shoes!  Violating the Sabbath was a capitol offense under the law.  Do we really think God would have them stoned for pushing an elevator button?  That one guy DID get stoned for picking up sticks, but perhaps that was his job rather than just fire his own use. 

https://bible.com/bible/100/lev.23.8.NASB1995
     3.  Feast of Firstfruits.  Specifically says this is forever.
     4.  The Feast of Weeks.  Seven weeks after firstfruits.  Forever.   
2022 - For the first time, I note that the bread offered here is to be baked with leaven.  It is a wave offering.  These verses:
"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." [Lev 23:18-20 ESV]
So the bread and the seven lambs and a bull as a burnt offering.  The lambs and bull are sacrificed with their grain and drink offerings.  Burnt offering comes first.
Then a male goat as a sin offering.  
Then 2 male lambs as a peace offering.  These lambs are waved.  The peace offering is never burned up all the way, nor carried outside.  The priests eat the peace offering.

Several of these say they are statutes forever, in all your dwelling places, throughout your generations.  This might well mean that they should continue even after the perfect sacrifice.  Maybe this is why the temple will be rebuilt and why sacrifices will recommence someday, as seems to be implied in the NT.
2025  - stated this way:  21 ...It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations. [Lev 23:21b ESV].  Here is the point.  If the church and the Jews are now one and t he same, and not any different, would not this "forever" statute, along with several others, be incumbent upon the church?  I mean, the Jews indeed DO still observed these. Why don't we?  And shouldn't the Jews be doing the Lord's Supper and Baptism...of course we see that they don't because of blindness, but supposedly we do see.

     5.  Feast of Trumpets.  Seventh month, first day.
     6.  The Day of Atonement.  Seventh month, tenth day.  From evening the 9th day of the month, until evening the 10th day.  A 24 hour fast, once a year.  People were to afflict themselves, and if they did not, they were to be cut off.  MSB implies that the affliction was to fast on this day.  This sacrifice is forever.  

2025 - 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. ... 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. [Lev 23:21, 28 ESV].  That other noun, that I think means "service work", is missing in this verse.  H5656 is not here t his time.  THIS one means no work at all!  It repeats the none at all idea in vs 31. This one is, I think, a lot more restrictive than the do no service work injunction.
2025 - After noting these ideas, and looking back to vs 3, and the statute about the Sabbath, it is definitely a Sabbath of COMPLETE rest.  No work for others, but also no work for ourselves.  After this year's reading, I think this still applies if you put Israel and the church together.  Which I do not.

     7.  The Feast of Booths.  Seventh month, fifteenth day. lasting 7 days.  Forever.

2022 - Much much later, Hanukah was added to these.

Chapter 24
Lamps were to be kept burning with olive oil, right outside the veil.  They were to burn from evening to morning, continuously, always, for all their generations.  What is that holiday about this...the feast that was added...It was Hanukah, when the lamp miraculously burned in the second temple during the Maccabean revolt.  They made it a holiday because it burned so long on so little oil.

Shewbread, I think.  12 loaves on the golden table, two piles of six each.  Triangle.  Large loaves, about 4.4 liters per loaf.  Not sure how many cups that is, but I think it is a lot.  It was to be replaced every Sabbath day.  Aaron and his sons were to eat the "week old bread"?  and then place fresh on the table?  That seems to be how it is understood.  I know that David and his men will decide to eat this bread at a future time when David is on the run, and I know that Jesus uses this as an example of how the Sabbath is for man in the NT, as it always has been.

Vs 10 begins a narrative of an event.  First one of those we've seen in Leviticus in quite a while.  But the book is at least to some extent historical.  
Penalty for blasphemy is stoning, circumstances don't matter.  This woman's son is brought outside the camp. all those who heard him blaspheme God's name, or "the Name", lay their hands on him, and then all the congregation stones him until he is dead.  Serious stuff.

There is a long explanation of how punishment for crimes will be an eye for an eye.  As one does so shall it be done to him.  If he breaks another's arm, his arm is to be broken and so on.  Animals killed are to be replaced with a like animal, and so on.  At the end of this, it says they brought the son out and stoned him as commanded.  Why is all the information about eye for eye inserted before the story is finished?  Is blasphemy being equated with violence against God.  God was blasphemed, so the earthly equivalent for man is stoning?  

MSB has no comment about it.  It does mention that the son was restrained until his punishment could be determined.  MSB points out that no punishment for these sins was in place.  No prison, no time served.  The penalty if you were guilty was death.  Today.

2022 - Vss 17-22 we could call the "eye for an eye" section.  But it seems that the main idea of this section is to absolutely, strongly discourage violence as a way of settling disputes.  It would also strongly discourage fighting for any reason.  God does not like violence for interpersonal disputes.  Israel will take Canaan from those who live there by force and by violence.  So God makes a distinction between organized violence in war and one on one violence.  He uses the first, but prohibits the second.

Chapter 25
The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, [Lev 25:1 ESV]
Not sure which trip up this might be.  The previous chapters, many of them, start with "The Lord spoke to Moses...", but this one adds that it is on Mt. Sinai.  Maybe all these laws were given up there, and then Moses recounts them in the narrative as they were given?  MSB does not comment on the phrase here.

Seventh years holy for the land.  It stays fallow every seventh year.  Nothing was to be harvested or pruned this seventh year.  Had not noticed the "no pruning" part of it before.  Vines are mentioned, but not figs, but I expect it applied to everything perennial.  It says they weren't to harvest, but it says the Sabbath of the Land will provide food for them...though it also says they weren't to even harvest "volunteer" crops.  It says no reaping, no gathering...then says the land will provide.  MSB says they were allowed to harvest the volunteer crops.  Don't quite understand the wording and phrasing and order of things here...
....they weren't to gather what grows of itself...I assumed that meant volunteer crops, but maybe not.  Maybe it means no wild figs, berries, and so on.  Maybe ONLY volunteer crops could be harvested.  You couldn't gather grapes from "undressed vines", but maybe you could from your own "un-pruned ones".  Might be able to untangle this by looking at the actual words used for undressed and what grows of itself and see if they are translated from words understood to mean something not obvious in English.  
....then this verse, just when you think you might have it figured out...
21 I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives. [Lev 25:21-22 ESV]
So that makes it look like no harvesting at all of any kind, wild or volunteer, and the land would yield a bumper crop in the sixth year for them.
2022 - I don't see how you can read it any other way.  The sixth year gave them so much that they did not not plant in the seventh year at all.  So it must be that what you plant this year is reaped next year.  That's how they reckoned the planting season.  

Jubilee every 50 years.  Slaves freed, debts forgiven.

2025 - This verse:  23 "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. [Lev 25:23 ESV].  The land has never, and will never, belong to Israel.  It belongs to God and Israel will always be strangers there.  The land is not theirs to sell in perpetuity.  The land belongs to God, allocated by tribe and then family, and it is to remain so forever.  Israel will forever be renters of the land on which they live.

35 "If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. [Lev 25:35-36 ESV]
This law was not a voluntary thing.  Does not say support him if you want to.  Says to do it.  The "loophole", I suspect, is whether the brother became poor of his own doing, of his own laziness, bad habits, and so on.  But there is a lot to think about here.

"If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.
Leviticus 25:39‭-‬40 ESV
Brothers were not be treated as slaves, but as hired workers.  This means that there were true slaves, and they were allowed - at least so far.  But your own people who came on hard times were not to be treated as slaves.  I suppose that means that their children remained theirs, instead of following the laws previously given for slaves.
Vss 44-46 are clear that slaves from among the surrounding nations could be bought, sold, and possessed as property.  They could be inherited, and so on.  There is no getting around this, God allowed full out slavery here - as long as the slaves were not Hebrews or their descendants.

But those of other nations...
You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
Leviticus 25:46 ESV

Last verse in the chapter:
55 For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. [Lev 25:55 ESV]
Hebrews are God's own slaves, because He redeemed them with His own power out of Egypt.  They are His alone, and always.  So even Hebrews are slaves, but they all have one master.  This makes slavery the rule, not the exception, the way of things, not a horror.  This is quite surprising.

Chapter 26
In my old NKJV, the formatting of this chapter is very different.  It is indented, and it seems that there are many "You shalls...", and many "I wills...".  As if this is a contract written to highlight the promises and covenants of each party.  Looking at the MSB, it says that vss 3-13 detail the covenant blessings for obedience, and vss 14-39 are the covenant curses for disobedience.  Vss 1, 2 are a restatement that it is the 10 that will be used to determine whether they are obedient or not.  

God promises that if Israel keeps his covenant, he will give them rain in season for their crops, that their crops will do well, that they will have plenty, that wild beasts will be driven from their land and that their enemies will flee before them, even when the enemy has greater numbers.  
Interesting that their is no word here about maintenance of all species, preservation of habitat or any of that...

2023 - Oh my...perhaps God's intent is that domesticated animals - cattle, sheep, goats, are the only really  necessary animals, the only ones that accrue solely to the benefit of man.  You don't need lions and tigers and rhinos and elephants...in fact it is possible that the implication here is that the fewer of them you have the more peaceful and productive life will be.  So....why create them?  To keep the land vital until man arrives?  This seems like the wrong road...but it's a thought...

2022 - Elsewhere, God says that nature, wild beasts, enemies, and pestilence will be used to correct them.  Only pestilence is left out here.  As long as they behave, nature will provide only good things, and enemies will run away.  Pestilence comes in as a punishment.  Nature does not naturally cause pestilence perhaps.  Even if they don't behave, it is not nature, but God who causes pestilence and disease and sickness as punishment/correction.  And sure enough, look what shows up in vs 16, as the result of spurning God's covenant:  panic, wasting disease, and fever, PLUS their crops will provide strength for their enemies, not for themselves.  

If Israel won't keep the covenant, God promises to send panic, wasting disease, and fever.  Those they hate will rule over them.  And if this still doesn't work, then they will receive 7 times the punishment that should have been enough, plus the sky will be iron and the earth bronze.  They will not be able to grow food crops at all.

2022 - Look at this verse:
"18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins," [Lev 26:18 ESV]
Seven times what they deserve as discipline.  Bad things happen at first as correction.  But if the correction is ignored, then punishment/discipline comes (look up the definitions) and it is seven times the severity and seven times the quantity that the correction was.  Not diseases for a year, diseases for seven.  Not crop problems for a year, but for seven years.  
Possible FB post.

2025 - This phrase "seven times more" appears a number of times in this chapter.  In the ESV, the word used is "sevenfold", and it appears four separate times.  Four is the number of man.  Seven of completion. 

2022 - I have to make a note of this:
"22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted." [Lev 26:22 ESV]
What would this look like in our day?  How can this happen with roads and towns and civilization.  With cars.  Wild beasts marauding to the point of reducing the population?  This can only happen with a complete and total breakdown of civilization as we know it today.  That is why we aren't seeing it yet in this country.  People are safe in their homes and when they travel, it is in cars.  When they farm, it is in enclosed tractor cabs.  But someday, this could come also.  This is one to watch for.  One further note...it says the animals will take their livestock - their source of meat.  We could see something like this today.  Another one to watch for.  A case can be made right now that God is sending wasting disease and that rain isn't falling and crops are beginning to fail.  But the sword has not yet come upon us, nor have wild beasts.  We can still turn back and avoid the seven fold punishment.

2023 - Wild pigs marauding everywhere, populations increasing rapidly.  They destroy land and crops.  At some point and in some places, it could become dangerous to walk from place to place.  It's a stretch...but what does happen if their numbers continue to increase as they are?

This part goes on and on.  God will punish in layers, each discipline more terrible than the last, in order to motivate them back to keeping the covenant.  Things get worse and worse, like the birth pangs in the NT.  At one point it says:

29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. [Lev 26:29 ESV]
This is several layers in, but eventually, God will deprive them of any food at all and they will be forced to turn to cannibalism.  You have to remember the hardheadedness of the people that will stick around to let things get this bad.  Remember how unwilling they will have been up to that point to see the plain and simple truth that God is in charge, and they made a covenant and they are determined not to honor it.  This is a very dangerous attitude.
2022 - It can get worse than being eaten by wolves as you lie helplessly sick in your bed...

And a few verses later is this one:
33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. [Lev 26:33 ESV]

Perhaps this is what Hitler's persecution of the Jews was about.  Seven times what their sin called for, the end of punishments was a scattering, a loss of their nation, only transients living in their land.  And the Jews pursued by the sword just because they are Jews so that any could see God Himself was their enemy.

2023 - This verse:
34 "Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. [Lev 26:34 ESV].  This is what Babylon, and the 70 years of captivity were about.  Restoration of the "missed Sabbaths".  So this part of the chapter is in fact a prophecy of the future history of Israel, from Mt. Sinai to the Babylonian captivity.  All condensed into these few verses.  

40 "But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies--if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. [Lev 26:40-42 ESV]
Note that after all these punishments, no matter how bad it gets, there is still relief and restoration available.  But it is NOT FREE!  They must confess, they must turn away from disobedience in their hearts, and they must sincerely turn back to God.  If they do this, they can be restored, but half measures are completely useless.

45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD." [Lev 26:45 ESV]
Even during punishment at this level, with God this angry, He will not destroy them completely, because He has those unconditional promises He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob still to keep.  Still, this verse is part of the conditional statement of what it will take for God to forgive and restore them.  We surely do not see anything like this revival today.  This will only happen as the tribulation starts, and then continue on into the Millennial.

Chapter 27
All about vows to God.

Values are put on people.  It tells what a man is worth, a woman is worth, and a child is worth according to their age.  There is no denying that here in the OT, and under this law, a man was more valuable than a woman.  BUT, it is important to remember that in the NT, this difference is abolished, and all are equal in the sight of God, male and female, parent and child, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile.  This is the New Covenant.

2023 - Surely even today, in an agrarian society, or a hunter gatherer society, men are able to contribute more to the survival of the group than women.  This is not about importance, it is about roles.  Women can get pregnant all they want, but if there's no food for anyone, then that goes nowhere.  Food and water are first, and last.  Necessary in all situations.  And food and water is what men are supposed to do.

A tenth as tithe was established pretty early:
32 And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the LORD. [Lev 27:32 ESV]

All these rules and laws came from Mt. Sinai, before the people moved on from there towards Canaan.  They were to go straight to Canaan, and capture it, and live according to all these covenants with the Lord.  But they messed it up pretty quickly.  Think just how fickle they were, how shortsighted, how immature.  But that was them.  We never see ourselves that way...

​

2025 - This is about a vow.  Something along the lines of "If it will just rain this week so that my crops don't fail, I will sacrifice my best bull to God".  This would be "a difficult vow".  I think this is about "stretch vows" let's call them.  So as I read it, if a man did offer to sacrifice his best bull, and if it did then rain, this chapter allows him to redeem that bull for it's value plus 20%, so that he can keep the bull, keep his vow, and continue to use the bull.  I may have that wrong but that's how I understand it.

2025 - It seems odd to end this section of rules and regs with the valuation of sacrifices offered.  It doesn't really seem to follow from Chapter 26 about the promises and the curses.  I could be missing something, or maybe Moses just wrote Chapter 27 a little later, to include some things he had not mentioned before.   Could be as simple as that.