The little-known about the book of Leviticus in 3 minutes.

Hey you,

Filled with rules and regulations, the book of Leviticus is clearly not entertaining. Not only are the laws in it too many, but most at times they seem absurd, barbaric, and outrageous. However, understanding its background helps in depicting the reason for these numerous strange requirements.

Leviticus is the heart of the Law of Moses. In it is condensed a majority of the ritual ordinances still followed by present Jews today.

You can read this article in French here.

Flashback to Exodus

The previous book, Exodus, ended with God being the only one inside the tent of meeting, also called the tabernacle. Originally, this tent was made for both God and Israel to meet together, but no person in Israel, not even Moses, could get inside it due to their impurity which greatly contrasted with God’s Holiness (Exodus 40:35).

As a community, they had just grieved the Lord. In fact, in God’s own words, He said they had “prostituted themselves with other gods” by bowing to and pledging allegiance to a man-made golden calf. So, getting into the tent of meeting in that unclean state, would have killed them. Just like one disintegrates as he gets closer and closer to the sun.

Back to Leviticus

Therefore, the Book of Leviticus begins immediately by explaining the various ways of: making amends for wronging Him (atonement); being grateful to God (thanksgiving); and living rightly in society with others.

For that, they had detailed instructions about the Sin offerings, the Burnt offerings, Grain offerings, Peace offerings, and the Guilt offerings. What to offer, how to offer, and when to offer each of these.

Added to this the Book of Leviticus also gave behavioural instructions to the Israelites, as well as lists of rituals and feasts to observe, aiming at making Israel distinct from other nations, for as a nation, they had a priestly duty to lead other nations on the way towards God.

Also, within the nation of Israel, the Law of Moses also aimed at setting Israelite priests apart from the other Israelites, again with specific and stricter behavioural instructions and rituals, for as officers of the tabernacle they had the priestly duty to lead Israel on the way towards God.

In other words, the Priests were to Israel what Israel was to other nations.

The revolting and ridiculous laws of Leviticus

Now, despite the clear meaning of these requirements, some of the instructions are simply strange and uncalled-for, or again are abusive to us modern readers.

For example, the Israelites were forbidden to wear Mohawks (Leviticus 19:27) or to wear a tunic made with different fabrics, like say cotton and wool. (Leviticus 19:19) It is hard to imagine that one can find this in the Holy Law, but there you go!

To make things worse, some laws clearly condone slavery, cruelty to animals, male supremacy, etc. Are all these necessary in a Law that screams to be just, good and righteous? Well, the answer is two headings below.

As questionable as these laws can be, the real question was to find out if they’d work, to permit Israel and God to finally meet despite their uncleanliness and impurity.

Aaand yes!! Right after the ordinances were observed, Aaron and Moses (Israel’s representatives) finally entered the tent of meeting (Leviticus 9:23-24) and were able to commune with God. And now, they could receive other practical instructions on the duties and civics for each tribe in the Book of Numbers.

Takeaway

When reading Leviticus, you have to remember that all these instructions were given by God because His main objective was to find a way to accommodate sinful Man. This Man who had just broken His heart. This Israel, which was the complete opposite of who God is, that is Holy and Faithful.

Instead of God to find a better nation to work with, He took the Israelites as they were and found a way to be with them, yet without compromising Himself. So the book of Leviticus is a call to see how despite our worst, God graciously provides a way for us sinful humans to be with Him in His holy presence.

Coming back to the annoying laws in the Law of Moses

It is true that slavery, cruelty to animals, and the like seemed to be allowed by God when reading the scriptures, but there was something revolutionary about the way He asked the Israelites to practice them:

-Slaves were to be released every 7 years unless they were willing to continue serving their masters.

-Animals were the ones sacrificed to God as offerings, rather than children and women, like it was done at the time in the surrounding nations

The Israelites were to allow the poor to eat from their farms freely, to allow their animals, slaves, and workers to rest from their work. They were to forgive others’ debts, to treat foreigners fairly, and could even regain lost property at a set period each year. These were all found in the Law of Moses and therefore were compulsory in Israel.

All these practices were never heard of anywhere around them, among the nations that surrounded them, given the socio-economic context of the time, and so comparing these ancient texts with the way human history has evolved is faulty. The most important is to understand the intent behind these and not necessarily take them word for word.

Therefore, through this Law of Moses we may consider unfair today, God was already working at reforming unjust systems and eradicating oppression.

I hope I have succeeded in dusting your reluctance to read Leviticus.

Leave me a comment if it helped!!

Cheers!!