Lecture

We begin now lecture 17, the study of the book of Leviticus. Leviticus is a book that has to do with the Levites, as the name implies. And remember that from the tribe of Levi there came the sons of Aaron, the priests. So actually, the book of Leviticus is a manual for the work of the priests in the tabernacle. Let me give first, a brief outline of the book. The book of the Leviticus is not so easy to outline as some of the other books that we have had. Yet the twenty-seven chapters can be analyzed I think fairly reasonably.

The first ten chapters I would call “the laws of worship.” Here we have the different types of offerings and the consecration of the priests. Then in chapters 11 to 15, “the laws of cleanliness,” the foods that the Israelites could eat and what they should do in case of sickness of various kinds. Chapters 16 to 17 are a little section by themselves that concern primarily the Day of Atonement, shall we say “the laws of atonement” and the meaning of blood sacrifice. Then chapters 18 to 20 are the laws of incest, forbidden degrees of marriage and other related matters. Chapters 21 to 25, these we might call “the priests and the feasts,” the laws of the festivals, the annual festivals of Israel. There were five festivals. Three of them we call pilgrimage festivals, because on those occasions, all the men of the Israelites had to appear before the Lord at the altar. Then the last section, 26 to 27, is a section of warnings and blessings.

So as we study this manual, first we might say a few things very briefly concerning the critical views on the book of Leviticus. It is, of course, a part of the P document. In fact, practically all of Leviticus is usually analyzed as of the P document. But the P document is itself not a unit. It is partly narrative and partly legal. And, of course, in the book of Leviticus, we have the legal material predominating. According to the critical view, the P document was put together at least and much of it written at about 450 BC. This would be the time after the exile and, of course, a thousand years after the days of Moses according to the dates given in the Bible. The arguments are various. It is said that the book of Leviticus would have to be after Ezekiel because the priestly program of Ezekiel, especially the last chapters, knows nothing of the P document. The last chapters of the book of Ezekiel, for instance, emphasize the sons of Zadok as the priests, whereas the book of Leviticus emphasizes the sons of Aaron. And so here we have a discrepancy, and presumably the book of Leviticus comes later according to this view.

Then also, there is the law of the central sanctuary. According to the critical view, the book of Deuteronomy was written in the days of King Josiah. There are different critics who hold different views on this. Now, of course, we must say, and I have referred already to the very fine book by Dr. Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, which takes up these different views in more detail and answers them very capably. But according to the historic view and the view widely held, the book of Deuteronomy was written in the days of King Josiah at about 620 BC shortly before the exile. And a good part of this work on the book of Deuteronomy was begun because of the desire to bring the worship of Israel and centralize it there in Jerusalem. According to this view, the revival, the reformation of the King Josiah was to centralize the worship at the temple in Jerusalem. According to this view, the book of Leviticus was written after Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy represents this tendency, and the book of Leviticus assumes this centralized worship.

Then again, it has been said in the past that the book of Leviticus has to be late because the cultic terms for sacrifice and so on are late terms that we do not find in the earlier writings of the Bible. Of course, in answer to that last point, it is said that these cultic terms are not found in the early parts of the Bible. The question is, what are the early parts of the Bible according to the usual view? Ezekiel is one of the early parts of the Bible. But if the Bible is cut up and re-dated, then it might be held that these terms are only late. Unfortunately, for this theory, however, and Dr. Archer points out, now these terms are known from the more recently discovered Ugaritic Tablets, which come from about 1400 BC. There is such a cultic term, as for instance, asham, the Hebrew word for sin offering does occur already in the Canaanite religious poems, and other such sacrificial terms do occur. So there here is no good reason, as far as the vocabulary is concerned, why the book of Leviticus and its laws could not have been early. With regard to the matter of the sons of Zadok, of course we understand that the sons of Zadok, according to the Bible, are a subdivision of the Aaronic priests. The sons of Aaron were the first priests. And years later, you have some of the sons of Aaron named. And one of them is Zadok. There is a Zadok in the days of David. There may well be other Zadokites. There may have been a famous Zadok who was the head of a family of priests who remained faithful in the days of the exile. We do not know those details, but there is no good reason to deny the usual picture that the sons of Aaron were the first priests and that the sons of Zadok were priests later in the days of Ezekiel.

With regard to the centralization of worship, it certainly ought to be pointed out that in the days of Josiah, when King Josiah was telling the Israelites that they should worship at the central temple, that this was not the first time this was done. In the days of Hezekiah, according to the witness in Kings, it is very clear that Hezekiah insisted that the children of Israel should worship at the central temple where the worship would be purified and could be standardized and kept pure. So Hezekiah had this program, and it is clear that he did because even his attackers, the Assyrians, sent their emissary Rabshakeh who twitted the Israelites because Hezekiah had told them to worship in the one place in Jerusalem and had forbidden them to worship in the surrounding areas. And so he said that they should not follow Hezekiah. But notice even Hezekiah’s enemies recognized that he insisted that the children of Israel should worship in the central place. And reason would tell us that if Solomon built the great temple, as is made very clear in the historical books, he did not want the Israelites worshipping all over Israel when there was a central temple where they should worship. The whole emphasis of Solomon was to worship at the central temple. And so this emphasis on the religious reformation of Josiah and the consequent late date of both Deuteronomy and the book of Leviticus is not in accordance with all the historical facts. It is doubtless true that from time to time, there were Israelites who worshipped in various places. It is of course also doubtless true that there were Israelites who worshipped falsely and in apostasy in various places. This does not deny the fact that here we have a program of worship from the early days at a central tabernacle first and then at the central temple.

It should be mentioned that there are parts of Leviticus that, even according to critical theory, are written before the book of Ezekiel. This is the so-called holiness code which runs from Leviticus 17 to 26 according to critical theory and is not a very clear unit, but it does have certain phrases that run through the section, particularly the phrase “I am the Lord your God” or “The Lord your God is holy.” And this is called the holiness code. Now, the interesting thing is that this code is quoted in the book of Ezekiel. The verse in Leviticus 18:5, “The laws, which if a man do, he shall live in them.” This is a verse quoted also remember in the book of Galatians. It is quoted three times in the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel. So it is admitted that the holiness code is at least before Ezekiel. It might be of interest to note that there are other parts of Leviticus that should be held to be early. Dr. E. A. Speiser, lately professor, at the University of Pennsylvania, has written an article on this subject found in the Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings of EA Speiser.

On page 142, he gives a conclusion of his study. Actually, he studied four different laws scattered through the book of Leviticus that happened to come to his attention. These laws concern slavery, they concern usury (the laws of interest and so on), and he points out that these laws have their counterpart in the second millennium laws of the Mesopotamian situation. And so he concludes that the background, at least of these four laws, is quite early. Let me just read a few words from his conclusion. He says that he does not imply that all of Leviticus is homogenous and archaic. He says the conclusion just drawn applies only to the passages that have been analyzed here.

“The fact remains, however, that these passages are scattered throughout the book and are not limited to the admittedly early section known as H, that is, the holiness code. To this extent, therefore, the present discussion tends to bear out Kauffman’s position that the late date which critics assign to most of Leviticus cannot be upheld on closer probing.”

Now, of course, Dr. Speiser, himself, does not claim that the book of Leviticus is actually Mosaic, but I would certainly say that there is no objective evidence that would be able to deny the early character of the book of Leviticus. All other allegations really depend upon the critical theories which re-date so many of the passages in the Pentateuch and other Old Testament books.

We turn then back to the material in the book of Leviticus. And I think a good place for me to start the study is in the subject of the laws of worship. And instead of beginning in that section 1¬10, we should perhaps begin with the interpretation of sacrifice as we have it in “Laws of Atonement” in chapters 16 and 17. Chapter 16 gives us the ritual for the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement is celebrated still by Jews. It is called Yom Kippur; the biblical word is in the plural, Yom Kippurim. And the Day of Atonement is to be celebrated on the tenth day of the seventh month, which would be the fall. It would be one of the high holy days of the Jewish year falling usually around September. The Day of Atonement, however, is not celebrated by the Jews today in the way it is specified in the Bible.

According to the Bible, it was a very solemn day. The Jews did not come to the tabernacle or to the temple for the Day of Atonement. They stayed at home. This is the one day of fasting in the Jewish year that was prescribed. They should afflict their souls it is said. The high priest would do the ritual at the central sanctuary. And the Israelites at home would be thinking of the ritual of the high priest and would be joining doubtless in prayer for the nation and for themselves and in confession of their sins before God. The high priest, as the point is made of this matter in the book of Hebrews, would bring the sacrifices for the nation on that day but first would have to cleanse himself. He brought a sin offering. And in this sin offering, he would himself be cleansed. It would be offered for himself and his family. Then, after the sin offering was given, he would proceed to give an offering for the nation. Two goats were brought to the high priest, and lots were cast on the goats. One was supposed to be killed, and the other one on which the other lot would fall would be a goat sent forth into the wilderness. It is called in Hebrew “a goat of going out” Azazel. And because it is called Azazel, there are some students and indeed some modern translations that have called this “a goat of Azazel.”

The later Jewish theology called Azazel a demon of the wilderness. According to some theories, the Day of Atonement featured one goat sacrificed to Jehovah or Yahweh as He is called by some, and the other goat would be sacrificed as Azazel, a demon of the wilderness. Of course, there is nothing about this demon of the wilderness in the book of Leviticus. This is taken off from later Jewish theology of post-exilic and, indeed, intertestamental times. There is no sacrifice of any goat Azazel. The goat that is led out into the wilderness is simply called “a goat of going out” which is what Azazel means. This goat is killed. And the blood of this goat is taken by the priest and taken into the temple itself or to the tabernacle, of course, in Moses’ day. The high priest went into the holy place, and then beyond; he went into the holy of holies where only the high priest could go. And he went there only on this special day. And there he sprinkled the blood of this goat of the sin offering for the nation. And he sprinkled this blood seven times before the Ark of the Covenant. The place where he sprinkled the blood of the Yom Kippur is called in Hebrew, the kapporeth. It was derived, of course, from this same verb “to make atonement.” The English calls it “the mercy seat.” Actually, the name does not emphasize so much mercy, as rather it emphasizes atonement. The Greek word for it is called hilaskomai, to make atonement, a verb.

And this is the verb used in the book of Romans to describe Christ, a noun in form in the book of Romans. Christ is called our propitiation in Romans 3. And actually, the form of the words ties in the work of Christ with the atonement there of the great Yom Kippur and the blood of the atonement sprinkled before the Lord in the central part of the tabernacle. So here we have the emphasis on salvation by the killing of the goat of the sin offering. And the goat was burned outside the camp, and the blood was carried in to the most holy place. Now as far as the meaning of that blood is concerned, chapter 17 of Leviticus explains the theology of the blood perhaps as clearly as any place in the Old Testament. It says in chapter 17, verse 11 that “the life of the flesh is in the blood…I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Now, there is no magic in the blood. The blood is taken as a symbol of life. And the emphasis here is that the innocent goat must die for the sins of the people. It is a clear picture of substitutionary atonement. And this is the basis of the whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament, the blood of the sacrifice, which causes the death of the animal, is accepted by God in place of the worshipper who deserves to die. Verse 14 says, “It is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof.” Therefore, the children of Israel were forbidden to eat the blood because it was the symbol of life, and, therefore, it was holy. And anything that died with the blood in it that was not bled properly, was not to be eaten. It was unclean. And here we have in chapter 17 the significance of the blood that was so carefully and meticulously sprinkled before the Lord on the Day of Atonement.

Then, the other goat is taken, the goat of going out. This is called in the King James Version “the scapegoat.” This, of course, is short for “escape goat.” And the “escape goat” is taken by an appropriate man and led out into the wilderness. But first, there is a little ritual that is very meaningful that takes place. The high priest puts his hand on the head of the goat and confesses over the goat the sins of the children of Israel, all of the nation, for all of the year. And these sins, it says, are put upon the head of the goat. And then the man takes the goat out into a wilderness place and lets it go. And there the symbolism is very clear that the sins are symbolically removed. Here on the Day of Atonement, we have the double aspect of atonement. First, the sins are paid for by the sacrifice of the innocent victim. And these sins that have been paid for are then removed. The psalmist says that they are removed as far as east is from the west. So here we have in the Old Testament the symbolism. And the book of Hebrews makes it very plain that this symbolism applies to Christ who suffered, you remember, outside the camp. And therefore, says the book of Hebrews, “Let us go forth to Him, outside the camp…For here we have no continuing city.” And it’s beautiful symbolism. We have Christ our substitute who died for our sins and who at the same time bears our sins away, and they do not weigh upon our souls anymore. So here we have the symbolism of sacrifice in Leviticus 16 made very plain.

Now, of course, this is the great sacrifice that climaxes the Jewish year. The first part of Leviticus tells about the ordinary sacrifices, and they are usually classified in five kinds. There are subordinate classifications too, but the five major sacrifices are given here in Leviticus 1. The burnt offering—the animal was flayed. The skin was taken off. The animal was cleaned. And then the parts of the animal were put on the great altar. And there it was burned and burned completely. The thousands of offerings were not burnt offerings. It would not have been easy, practically speaking, to burn thousands of burnt offerings. No, the burnt offering would usually be one in the morning for all Israel and one in the afternoon, double on the Sabbath and extra on special days and others could be done, too, from time to time. But the animal could be a larger animal, a cow or bullock. It would be the male of the flock, or it could be a lamb or it could be a goat. But it would be burned on the altar completely. The blood would be sprinkled on the altar. An important feature of all these sacrifices was the blood. Also, in some of these specifically it is said that the worshipper who brings the sacrifice should lay his hand on the head of the animal. And of course, here too, the symbolism of transfer is very clear as we have had it so carefully expressed in Leviticus 16.

We might say that the burnt offering symbolizes many things. Of course, it includes atonement. But inasmuch as all of the sacrifice goes up in smoke, we might say that here we have the symbolism of worship. We must, of course, remember that the sacrifices were offered to the accompaniment of prayer and praise. The Old Testament does not specify the prayers. None of the prayers were written down or memorized as if the priest was supposed to pray certain prayers, not like the liturgy of some churches and of the Orthodox Jewish congregations, too. Prayer was free and spontaneous, and it accompanied this offering that symbolized the worshipper’s, first of all, his atonement and then, also, his worship of God.

The next one that we might mention is the peace offering. That is in chapter 3 of Leviticus. The peace offering would be brought by a worshipper, and the name “peace offering” is not entirely clear whether it means it makes peace with God or it makes peace between us and our fellow men or perhaps both. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. It’s a well-known word, and it means indeed reconciliation and peace in many different aspects. Here it is said that the worshipper shall bring a male or a female, either one. He shall offer it without blemish before the Lord. Verse 2, “He shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.” The peace offering would be brought by many different worshippers. It was not totally burned. The peace offering was largely eaten. It was cleaned and butchered like we would butcher an animal. And when it was butchered, the thing was divided among the family of the worshipper. The whole animal would be cut up and one-fourth would be given to the officiating priest. This was a part of the priest’s salary which would be in kind. And then the other three quarters of the animal would be given to the family or to the larger family including cousins, uncles, and whatnot. They would eat this in a sacred meal before the Lord. So this would emphasize surely communion.

Now, the fat part of the animal, that is the fat over the backbone, the chine we might say, that corresponds to bacon in a pig and corresponds to suet in a beef, the fat part along the back lying above the kidneys, as it says, was burned on the altar. We forget sometimes that the Jews were not supposed to eat fat. We know they were not supposed to eat blood, but they were not supposed to eat the fat either. The fat was burned on the altar. And of course, fat burns very well. Now when you had large crowds of people, many of them would bring their peace offerings. And these peace offerings would number sometimes thousands. Indeed, in the days of Solomon when the temple was dedicated, there were 120,000 lambs offered for peace offerings besides many of the cows, the larger cattle. And the fat would be burned, but most of the animal would be consumed in a sacred meal.

I skipped over chapter 2, the meal offering. The King James calls it the meat offering. The old English sense of the word meat meaning food. The meal offering would be either a handful of flour, or it would perhaps be flour already made up into bread. And the representative part of this would be put on the altar. The rest of it would be used in this sacrificial meal. The flour offering, the cereal offering as it is sometimes called, the grain offering, would accompany the peace offering and would mean the same thing. It would mean communion—communion before the Lord with sins forgiven, the family united in the worship of Jehovah.

There are two other types of offerings, and they are very closely related. Indeed, it is very difficult to tell the difference between them. One is called the sin offering, and the other is called the trespass offering in the King James terminology. The sin offering was of two kinds, but it emphasized the same thing. The sin offering, as we’ve already mentioned, in connection with the Day of Atonement, because the sin offering of the Day of Atonement was the great sin offering for all Israel. A goat would be brought to the tabernacle. If a person felt particularly convicted, he had done something he knew he shouldn’t have done, and he wanted to get right with God, he would come to the tabernacle with his sin offering; and he would offer it. And the sin offering, if it were an ordinary man, could be eaten by the priest. It could not be eaten by the offerer. A man who had sinned and gave an offering would not get any financial benefit from the offering that he brought. If it was an important offering, and particularly if it was a priest’s offering, it would not be eaten. In that case, it would be taken out into a clean place outside the camp, and there it would be totally consumed. This is what happened in the Day of Atonement. And this is the symbolism of Christ who suffered outside the gate. The sin offering apparently would be used in case of sins that a person confessed and could do nothing about. That is to say, the damage was done.

The trespass offering was the same thing, but it was given in cases where a worshipper was able to make restitution. Suppose he had damaged something that he had borrowed and he had said it was accidental but it wasn’t accidental, and now he wanted to confess. The thing to do would be to make it right. And so the trespass offering would be a sin offering which involved restitution when the worshipper would make it right. So here we have the major sacrifices of Israel as detailed in the first five chapters of Leviticus with their meaning as given on the Day of Atonement.