THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS.

INTRODUCTION.

1. SUBJECT OF THE BOOK.

LEVITICUS forms the centre and nucleus of the five books of Moses. Closely attached to it are the two Books of Exodus and Numbers, and outside of them, on either side, stand Genesis and Deuteronomy. The subject of the Book of Leviticus is the Sinaitic legislation, from the time that the tabernacle was erected. It does not, however, comprise the whole of that legislation. There is an overflow of it into the Book of Numbers, which thus contains the laws on the Levites and their service (Numb. i. 49–53; iii. 5—15, 40—48; iv. 1—33; viii. 5-26); on the order in which the tribes were to encamp (Numb. ii. 1—31); on the removal of the unclean from the camp (Numb. v. 2-4); on the trial of jealousy (Numb. v. 11-31); on the Nazarites (Numb. vi. 1-21); on the form of blessing the people (Numb. vi. 23-27); on the second month's Passover (Numb. ix. 6-12); on the silver trumpets (Numb. x. 1—10); besides a repetition of the laws on restitution (Numb. v. 6-10); on the lighting of the lamps (Numb. viii. 2-4); on the Passover (Numb. ix. 1-5). With these exceptions, the Book of Leviticus contains the whole of the legislation delivered in the district of Mount Sinai, during the month and twenty days which elapsed between the setting up of the tabernacle on the first day of the second year after quitting Egypt, and the commencement of the march from Sinai on the twentieth day of the second month of the same year. But while this was the whole of the Sinaitic legislation "out of the tabernacle," there were also laws given on Mount Sinai itself during the last nine months of the first year of the march from Egypt, which are recounted in Exod. xix.-xl. While, therefore, Leviticus is very closely connected with the early part of Numbers on one side, it is very closely connected with the latter part of Exodus on the

other.

ANALYSIS OF ITS CONTENTS.

The book naturally falls into five divisions. The first part is on sacrifice; the second part records the establishment of an hereditary priesthood; the third deals with the question of uncleanness, ceremonial and moral; the fourth enumerates the holy days and seasons. The book ends with a fifth

LEVITICUS.

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part, consisting of an exhortation to obedience, and there is attached to it an appendix on vows. The following is a more detailed sketch of the contents.

§ 1. Sacrifice.

A question is often asked whether the idea underlying Jewish sacrifice is (1) that of a gift to God, the Giver of all good things, by man, the grateful receiver of his gifts; or (2) that of appeasing and satisfying the justice of an averted Deity; or (3) that of symbolically manifesting full submission to his will; or (4) that of exhibiting a sense of union between God and his people. And this question cannot be answered until the different sacrifices have been distinguished from one another. For each of these ideas is represented by one or other of the sacrifices-the first by the meat offering, the second by the sin offering and trespass offering, the third by the burnt offering, the fourth by the peace offering. If the question be, Which of these was the primary idea of Hebrew sacrifice? we may probably say that it was that of symbolical self-surrender or submission in token of perfect loyalty of heart; for the burnt sacrifice, with which the meat offering is essentially allied appears to have been the most ancient of the sacrifices; and this is the thought embodied in the combined burnt and meat offering. But while this is the special idea of the burnt sacrifice, it is not the only idea of it. It contains within itself in a minor degree the ideas of atonement (ch. i. 4) and of peace (ch. i. 9, 13, 17). Thus it is the most complex as well as the oldest form of sacrifice. If we had no historical information to guide us (as we have Gen. iv. 4), we might reasonably argue from this very complexity to the greater antiquity of the burnt and meat offerings. Symbolism first embodies a large idea in an institution, and it then distinguishes the institution into different species or parts in order to represent as a primary notion one or other of the ideas only secondarily expressed or suggested in the original institution. The sin and trespass offerings, therefore, would naturally spring, or, we may say, be divided off, from the burnt and meat offerings, when men wanted to accentuate the idea of the necessity of reconciliation and atonement; and the peace offering, when they wished to express the joy felt by those who were conscious that their reconciliation had been effected.

The sacrifice of Cain and Abel appears to have been a thanksgiving offering of the firstfruits of the produce of the land and of the cattle, presented to the Lord as a token of recognition of him as the Lord and Giver of all. It is called by the name of minchah-a word afterwards confined in its signification to the meat offering—and it partook of the character of the meat offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering (Gen. iv. 3, 4). Noah's sacrifices were burnt offerings (Gen. viii. 20); and this was the general character of subsequent offerings, though something of the nature of peace offerings is indicated by Moses when he distinguishes "sacrifices" from "burnt offerings," in addressing Pharaoh before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt (Exod. x. 25). The full idea of sacrifice, contained implicitly in

the previous sacrifices, was first developed and exhibited in an explicit form by the Levitical regulations and institutions, which distinguish burnt offerings, meat offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and trespass offerings; and the special significations of these several sacrifices have to be combined once more, in order to arrive at the original, but at first less clearly defined, notion of the institution, and to constitute an adequate type of that which was the one Antitype of them all.

The typical character of sacrifices must not be confounded with their symbolical character. While they symbolize the need of reconciliation (sin and trespass offerings), of loyal submission (burnt and meat offerings), and of peace (peace offering), they are the type of the one Sacrifice of Christ, in which perfect submission was yielded (burnt offering) and exhibited (meat offering) by man to God; by which reconciliation between God and man were wrought by means of atonement (sin offering) and satisfaction (trespass offering); and through which the peace effected between God and man was set forth (peace offering). (See Notes and Homiletics on chs. i.—vii.)

The Section, or Part, on sacrifice, consists of chs. i-vii.

Ch. i. contains the law of the burnt offering.

The following chapter and a half contain more definite instructions as to the ritual of the sacrifices, addressed particularly to the priests, namely

Ch. vi. 8-13. The ritual of the burnt offering.

14-23.

meat offering, and in particular of the priests' meat offering at their consecration. 24-30. The ritual of the sin offering.

Ch. vii. 1-10.

22-27 contain a prohibition of eating the fat and the blood.

35-38 form the conclusion of Part I.

§ 2. Priesthood.

The primary idea of a priest is that of a man who performs some function in behalf of men towards God which would not be equally acceptable by God if performed by themselves, and through whom God bestows graces upon men. The first priests were the heads of a family, as Noah; then the heads of a tribe, as Abraham; then the heads of a combination of tribes or of a nation, such as Jethro (Exod. ii. 16), Melchizedek (Gen. xiv. 18), Balak (Numb. xxii. 40). In many countries this combination of the highest secular and ecclesiastical office continued to be maintained-for example, in Egypt; but among the Israelites a sharp line of separation between them was drawn by the appointment of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood.

Priesthood and sacrifice are not originally correlative.

A man who

acts in behalf of others towards God, whether by making known to him their wants or interceding for them, is thereby a priest; and again, a man who acts in behalf of God towards man, by declaring to them his will and conveying to them his blessing, is thereby a priest. Sacrifice being one means, and at a particular time the chief means, of "calling upon" or approaching God and of receiving graces at his hands, it naturally fell to the priest to perform it as one of his functions, and by degrees it came to be regarded as his special function, and yet never in so exclusive a manner as to shut out the functions of benediction and intercession. The man through whose action, sacramental or otherwise, God's graces are derived to man, and man's needs are presented to God, is, by that action, a priest of God. To suppose that sacrifice, and in particular the sacrifice. of animals, is necessary for either one or the other of the priestly functions, is to narrow the idea of priesthood in an unjustifiable manner.

When so complex a system as that of the Levitical sacrifices had been instituted, the appointment of an hereditary priesthood became necessary. And this appointment took away from the heads of families and the tribe leaders the old priestly rights which up to that time they had maintained, and which we see to have been exercised by Moses. We cannot doubt that this abolition of their ancient privileges must have been resented by many of the elder generation, and we find that it was necessary to enforce the new discipline by a strict injunction, forbidding sacrifices to be offered elsewhere than in the court of the tabernacle, and by other hands than those of the hereditary priesthood (see Notes and Homiletics on chs. viii.-x. and xviii.). The Section, or Part, on the priesthood consists of chs. viii.—x.

Ch. viii. contains the ceremonies of the consecration of Aaron and his sons.

Ch. ix. recounts their first priestly offerings and benediction.

Ch. x. contains the account of the death of Nadab and Abihu, and the law against drinking wine while ministering to the Lord.

These three chapters constitute Part II.

§ 3. Uncleanness and its Removal.

Offences are of two kinds, ceremonial and moral; the former must be purged by purifying rites, the latter by punishment. A ceremonial offence is committed by incurring legal uncleanness, and this is done (1) by eating unclean food or touching unclean bodies (ch. xi.), (2) by childbirth (ch. xii.), (3) by leprosy (chs. xiii., xiv.), (4) by issues (ch. xv.); whoever offended in any of these ways had to purge his offence-in light cases by washing, in grave cases by sacrifice.

Moral offences are committed by transgressing God's moral law, whether written on the human heart or in his Law. The list of these offences commences with an enumeration of unlawful marriages and lusts (ch. xviii.), to which are added other sins and crimes (ch. xix.). They must not be allowed to go unpunished; else they bring the wrath of God upon the nation. The penalties differ according to the heinousness of the

offence, but if they are not exacted, the guilt passes to the community. Yet a certain concession to human frailty is allowed. Moral offences differ in their character, according as they are committed with a determinate resolution to offend, or have arisen from inadvertence or moral weakness. It is for the former class that punishment, either at the hands of man or of God, is a necessity. The latter are regarded more leniently, and may be atoned for by a trespass offering, after the wrong inflicted by them on others has been compensated.

But after every purification for ceremonial and inadvertent moral faults has been made, and all penalties for presumptuous sins and crimes have been duly exacted, there will remain a residue of unatoned-for evil, and for the removal of this the ceremonial of the great Day of Atonement is instituted (see Notes and Homiletics on chs. xi.—xxii.).

The Section, or Part, on uncleanness and its "putting away," contained in chs. xi.—xxii., consists of four divisions: chs. xi.-xv.; chs. xvi., xvii.; chs. xviii.—xx.; and chs. xxi., xxii. The first division has to do with ceremonial uncleanness, arising from four specified causes, and its purifi cation; the second with general uncleanness and its purification on the Day of Atonement; the third with moral uncleanness and its punishment; the fourth with the ceremonial and moral uncleanness of priests, and their physical disqualifications.

First division: Ch. xi. Uncleanness derived from eating or touching unclean flesh, whether of beasts, fishes, birds, insects, or vermin. Uncleanness derived from the concomitants of childbirth, and its purification.

Ch. xii.

Chs. xiii., xiv. Uncleanness accruing from leprosy to men, clothes, and houses, and its purification.

Ch. xv.

Uncleanness derived from various issues of the body, and its purification.

Second division: Ch. xvi. General uncleanness of the congregation and of the tabernacle, and its purification by the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement.

Ch. xvii. Corollary to all the preceding part of the book. That sacrifices (chs. i.viii.), which are the means of purification (chs. xi.-xvi.), are, since the institution of the hereditary priesthood (chs. viii.-x.), to be only offered at the door of the tabernacle.

Third division: Ch. xviii.

Ch. xix.
Ch. xx.

Moral uncleanness connected with marriage forbidden. Other moral uncleanness forbidden.

Penalties for moral uncleanness, and exhortation to holiness. Fourth division: Chs. xxi., xxii. 1-16. Ceremonial and moral cleanness required in an extra degree in priests, and freedom from physical blemish.

Ch. xxii. 17-33. Freedom from blemish and from imperfection required in sacrifices.

These chapters constitute Part III.

§ 4. Holy Days and Seasons.

The weekly holy day was the sabbath. The injunction to observe it was coeval with the origin of mankind. It kept in mind the rest of God