Leviticus 26

Leviticus 26:44

Yet in spite of this, when the are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.

I think of this as the Survivor's Promise.  No matter what happens, God will not allow the destruction of his chosen people.  This is why the Jewish people still exist, despite their multiple failings through millenia.

It is also a promise which I believe holds to the church as well.  While the church has been growing in some places and persecuted into hiding in others, it will never be destroyed.  There will never come a time while this world still exists when Christianity will be extinct.  Even during the tribulation, the church will continue, though much reduced.  There will always be the opportunity for people to learn the truth of God and believe.

Leviticus 25

Leviticus 25:21

then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years.

 When I first read of the Sabbath Year, I had the same thought as the people did in the previous verse, how are they going to eat for that year?  This verse holds the answer.

Imagine knowing that every seventh year, you're going to get a bumper crop, without any fear of droughts of bad yields.  Wouldn't having that kind of certainty be amazing?  Knowing that God will provide for you, where you will be able to rest for the year and still be okay.  What peace that would be.

Leviticus 24

Leviticus 24:14

"Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him.

 I find the requirement to lay hands on him both interesting and disturbing.  Placing your hand on his head is what they did to animals they were about to sacrifice.  It almost makes it sound like they're going to sacrifice him to God as some kind of offering, like they would a goat or a bull.

However, I think it is not meant as a sacrifice, but a sign of commitment.  You are about to condemn something to die, that God's Law may be fulfilled.  That is a serious undertaking, and not to be done lightly.  To place your hand on the head of an animal, you are making a connection between you and it, that it may take your sins.  On a man who has transgressed, you are confirming that this is the man you heard curse, as a witness would in court.  He is about to die, and you are going to be responsible for that death, even though it is not you who sinned.  Like someone in a court bearing witness, you'd better be sure you're right.

Leviticus 23

Leviticus 23:22

'When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien.  I am the Lord you God.'"

 When I was in the Truth Project, the subject of gleanings is brought up in one lesson.  Ever since, it's been something I've pondered now and then.  The idea of leaving the gleanings is something I definitely approve of.  It is there for the poor, but they still have to work to get it.  One of the things I most dislike about many ministries to the poor is that support is often given away without any conditions or requirement, which in my opinion is likely to produce further laziness or expectation of that support.

However, I've never been able to figure out what I can do in this respect.  I don't own any land, or have a business I can work through, as I've heard some examples of.  So what can I do to help the poor earn their needs?  I don't have an answer for this, but really want God to point me to something.

Leviticus 22

Leviticus 22:13

But if a priest's daughter becomes a widow or divorced, and has no child and returns to her father's house as in her youth, she shall eat of her father's food; but no layman shall eat of it.

Given my thoughts from last chapter, this caught my eye.  Before I was asking looking at the stigma of divorce, but here there is no stigma, under certain conditions.  Maybe that's because of a single woman's social status, I don't know.

What also interests me here is the condition, that she has no child.  Why is it okay for a now-unattached woman to return to her father's house, but one with children isn't?  Wouldn't a mother be more in need?  I have two theories, both of which are only guesses.  First, having a child makes you part of the father's household, and it is therefore the father's family's responsibility to care for you (though I'd think that would break down in the case of divorce).  The other guess is that since the child in this case is of mixed tribes, that disqualifies them from eating of the priestly food.

Leviticus 21

Leviticus 21:7

They shall not take a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for he is holy to his God.

Divorce has been a topic of some interest to me for several years.  I don't recall what first brought my attention to it, given I've never even been in a relationship, much less married, far less divorce.  But whatever did put it on my radar, it's been something I've wrestled with ever since.  The last couple years have been especially trying for me with this question, as it seems I am more and more surrounded by people who have divorced, including in my church's leadership.

Normally, my attention to divorce is framed around the New Testament.  I hadn't remembered that any statements like this were in the Law.  I find it interesting that this, the first mention in the Bible that I'm aware of regarding divorce, and it equated it to harlotry.

What would happen in today's church if we took that kind of view on divorce?  Would it change our view of ourselves and our marriages?  Would there be fewer marriages in the church, or just fewer divorces?  And what about those who were divorced before coming to Christ?  How would we view them?  These are some of the questions I've wrestled with over the last several years.

Leviticus 20

Leviticus 20:23

Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I will drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them.

A very logical progression here.  The nations violated God's law, so he abhors them.  Since he abhors them, he guides the Israelites to drive them out of the land.

Some use this type of verse as a reason for why God abandons nations then their morals decline (like many claim ours are).  They say that we deserve what we get, because we have turned away from God.  However, here that mindset would not fit.  These people, to our knowledge, had no understanding of God, and had never been given His laws.  So why is he punishing people that didn't know any better?  What was the test that they failed?  Or, to put it into a modern context question, what happens to the people who have never heard about God or Jesus?  Apparently, there are still severe consequences.

Leviticus 19

Leviticus 19:17

'You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him.

On the surface, this appears to be pretty evident, and sorely lacking in our modern times.  Maybe it's because I pay too much attention to politics, but it seems that we tend to hate more of our countrymen than not.  Can't say I'm immune to this, either, though I try not to let my disagreements become personal.  I know I personally like the "reprove your neighbor" part more than I should.

I'm not quite sure how closely these two halves of the verse are supposed to go together.  My first thought is that this is similar to the passage in Ephesians that says to not sin in your anger.  However, I'm not confident that I'm interpreting it correctly.  I guess my uncertainty comes back to where the line defining sin is.  Is it just that you hate the guy, or is it something more subtle?

Leviticus 18

Leviticus 18:25

For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.

 This fascinates me.  When I think about my sins, I sometimes think about the effect it can have on the people around me, but not the things.  I don't think in terms of defilement, of making something unholy just be being around it when committing sin.

How would I live my life differently is this was my mindset?  Most people's sin doesn't notably affect others, so we tend to excuse it a bit more.  But what if I were to think about a sin as spiritually polluting my desk, my bed, my clothes?  If I had the kind of respect for my environment that I do for others, how would that change my attitude about the things that I do wrong?

Leviticus 17

Leviticus 17:11

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.'

Once again, we come back to blood.  Blood is a central tenet, in my opinion, of the Jewish faith.  Original Judaism revolves around the perfection of God and the failure of man.  If that was all there was, Judaism would be hopeless, because we can never achieve the perfection necessary to be worthy of communing with God.  However, God, in His grace, has made a pathway available to us.  That pathway is blood, to act as a covering for our sins.  From the first sin, blood was shed to atone for it; God Himself shed blood and killed animals to provide physical (and spiritual) coverings for Adam and Eve.  In this passage, God implies that the reason for the reason God created blood is so that it can be used for atonement of sins.

However, blood is also finite.  It does not cover all sins with one drop, or one slain animal.  Instead, each offense, each failing, each inadequacy to God's perfect standard requires blood anew.  And so a constant cycle begins, one killed animal after another to substitute for our own deaths, with their blood as the manifestation and remediation of our guilt and sorrow.  And until the coming of God's son, no number of animals could build a large enough rampart to fill the chasm between us and God that our sins created.

Leviticus 16

Leviticus 16:2

Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness.

This is one of those stories that I've heard talked about ever since I was a kid, the origin of the term "scapegoat."  However, reading this, I never before realized how much was involved.  It wasn't just a matter of taking a goat and running it out into the wilderness.  First, the goat had to be prepared to be the scapegoat.  The priest had to confess the sins of the people, and lay that burden upon the goat.  Makes me wonder how they did that.  Was it just some generic speech for many unsaid things?  Or was it confessing known sins of the entire people, like when they disobeyed God as a group?  Or was there some sort of telling of many/all the people, for full disclosure?  I don't know.

The other thing here that caught my attention is that the goat isn't taken out by the priest, or run through some kind of gauntlet of the people to drive it out of town.  It was taken out of the city by a specific person, simply identified as standing in readiness.  What does this mean?  Is he a servant of the priest?  Is he another, lower priest himself?  Or is this some kind of honor/disgrace, that he was chosen for this duty?  I can see reasons for all three, though I think the first or second are most likely.  It's still interesting that this is someone's duty, to be the one to cast out their sins, and probably condemn the goat to a slow death.

Leviticus 15

Leviticus 15:8

Or if the man with the discharge spits on one who is clean, he too shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening.

OK, I have to admit I laughed when I read this.  First, the idea of someone spitting on someone else has never been appealing in my mind.  I come from a culture where people just don't spit; it isn't done, no mater who you are, unless you literally have something in your mouth that has to come out (dirt, bugs, etc.).  Also, spitting at, much less on, someone is the height of rudeness, so you don't do it anyhow.  So why would someone spit on another person to begin with?  I understand that some people do it specifically to be rude to another, but I can't say I ever really understood it.

That led me to another question.  According to everything I've ever been taught, an unclean person had to cry out that they were unclean everywhere they went, so that others would not be infected by accident.  So how did the guy get close enough to spit on someone?

I'm sure that I'm leaving out a few possibilities, but the simplest reason that I found was that they were trying purposefully to infect the other person.  Maybe they've given offense or some such, but this could be used as a route for intentionally make another share your disgrace/misery, by making them unclean for the day.  I even see how this could be used strategically to undermine someone you don't like, say by disrupting a big business meeting.  I'm sure this isn't the original use for the law, but the possible abuses kinda worry me on this one.