Leviticus 19
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Leviticus 19:2:
“Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. |
Sin becomes sin when it is measured against the standard of God. When the prophet Habukkuk encountered God, he said "My inward parts trembled, at the sound (of God) my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble" (3:16). Isaiah had a similar experience in God's Holy presence. The prophet saw the Lord in His Holy temple and cried out, "Woe is me" (Isaiah 6:5).
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Leviticus 19:3:
"Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God." |
Both mother and father are spoken of with a togetherness that indicates the need to respect or honor both. It also indicates they are together in a constant relationship with each other as well as with the children who are being told that they should continue that respect. The child is not meant to make a choice between the two, but to carry out that respect and honor in some form that is within the realm of possibility at various times of life's history. The word "honor" was carefully chosen instead of the word "obey," which is how many people interpret the commandment. Sometimes a parent may be evil, or demand evil things. Obedience, then is not required. The honorable thing then, for example, in the case of an abusive parent is to aid in having the parent get help. That is not dishonoring them if the charge against them is legitimate. Respect of persons is looking with favor upon persons with respect to their external priveleges without any real concern about their internal state. Jude had this in mind when he said, "...having men's persons in admiration because of advantage" (Jude 16). It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment. There is a tendency in all ranks--the wealthy, socially influential, and politically advanced wicked men--to overlook one's wickedness for the sake of personal advantage.This respect of persons is condemned (James 2:1-9). It was forbidden in the Mosaic law, particularly in judicial decisions (Deut. 1:17; Lev. 19:15). All respect of persons is not sinful. If it were there would be no place for authority in the local church or in civil government. |
When you read the fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you" (Exodus 20:12 NIV),
you must understand what is implied. It implies that parents are putting God first. They are exemplifying submission to God for their children, just as Christ exemplified God's sacrificial love for us. Of course, if the parents are not exemplifying this behavior, it doesn't negate the fifth commandment for the children. It just makes the children's life more difficult, for the children have no example to follow. They will have to wing it on their own.
However, Ezekiel impresses us with the truth that we cannot blame our behavior on others. Even if our parents have set bad examples, we must not follow their example. "The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: 'The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son-- both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die." (Ezekiel 18:1-4 NIV)
Our parent's sins do not justify our sin. Our teeth don't have to be set on edge just because our parents have eaten sour grapes. We must remember that the fifth commandment does not require that we have loving, stable, and thoughtful parents in order to become healthy ourselves. It is required that we learn to honor the parents we have, whether we like them or not, whether they earn it or not.
Parents Responsibility to Teach Children
There is a crucial aspect of our relationship with the world. The world must be able to see that God comes first in our lives. This is especially true with our children. The fifth commandment instructs children to, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12 NIV) I think we can safely assume that the parents being honored understand their need to honor God. Solomon writes, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6 NIV)
God chose Abraham because he knew that Abraham would rear God-fearing children.
"For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." (Genesis 18:19 NIV) [SOURCE: Focus On God: WhereDoes Honor Begin?]
you must understand what is implied. It implies that parents are putting God first. They are exemplifying submission to God for their children, just as Christ exemplified God's sacrificial love for us. Of course, if the parents are not exemplifying this behavior, it doesn't negate the fifth commandment for the children. It just makes the children's life more difficult, for the children have no example to follow. They will have to wing it on their own.
However, Ezekiel impresses us with the truth that we cannot blame our behavior on others. Even if our parents have set bad examples, we must not follow their example. "The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: 'The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son-- both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die." (Ezekiel 18:1-4 NIV)
Our parent's sins do not justify our sin. Our teeth don't have to be set on edge just because our parents have eaten sour grapes. We must remember that the fifth commandment does not require that we have loving, stable, and thoughtful parents in order to become healthy ourselves. It is required that we learn to honor the parents we have, whether we like them or not, whether they earn it or not.
Parents Responsibility to Teach Children
There is a crucial aspect of our relationship with the world. The world must be able to see that God comes first in our lives. This is especially true with our children. The fifth commandment instructs children to, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12 NIV) I think we can safely assume that the parents being honored understand their need to honor God. Solomon writes, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6 NIV)
God chose Abraham because he knew that Abraham would rear God-fearing children.
"For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." (Genesis 18:19 NIV) [SOURCE: Focus On God: WhereDoes Honor Begin?]
From Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 19, verse 3:
“That children be obedient to their parents: “You shall fear every man his mother and his father, v. 3. 1. The fear here required is the same with the honour commanded by the fifth commandment; see Mal. i. 6. It includes inward reverence and esteem, outward expressions of respect, obedience to the lawful commands of parents, care and endeavour to please them and make them easy, and to avoid every thing that may offend and grieve them, and incur their displeasure. The Jewish doctors ask, “What is this fear that is owing to a father?” And they answer, “It is not to stand in his way nor to sit in his place, not to contradict what he says nor to carp at it, not to call him by his name, either living or dead, but ‘My Father,’ or ‘Sir;’ it is to provide for him if he be poor, and the like.” 2. Children, when they grow up to be men, must not think themselves discharged from this duty: every man, though he be a wise man, and a great man, yet must reverence his parents, because they are his parents. 3. The mother is put first, which is not usual, to show that the duty is equally owing to both; if the mother survive the father, still she must be reverenced and obeyed. 4. It is added, and keep my sabbaths. If God provides by his law for the preserving of the honour of parents, parents must use their authority over their children for the preserving of the honour of God, particularly the honour of his sabbaths, the custody of which is very much committed to parents by the fourth commandment, Thou, and thy son, and thy daughter. The ruin of young people has often been observed to begin in the contempt of their parents and the profanation of the sabbath day. Fitly therefore are these two precepts here put together in the beginning of this abridgment of the statutes: “You shall fear, every man, his mother and his father, and keep my sabbaths. Those are hopeful children, and likely to do well, that make conscience of honouring their parents and keeping holy the sabbath day. 5. The reason added to both these precepts is, “I am the Lord your God; the Lord of the sabbath and the God of your parents.”
“That children be obedient to their parents: “You shall fear every man his mother and his father, v. 3. 1. The fear here required is the same with the honour commanded by the fifth commandment; see Mal. i. 6. It includes inward reverence and esteem, outward expressions of respect, obedience to the lawful commands of parents, care and endeavour to please them and make them easy, and to avoid every thing that may offend and grieve them, and incur their displeasure. The Jewish doctors ask, “What is this fear that is owing to a father?” And they answer, “It is not to stand in his way nor to sit in his place, not to contradict what he says nor to carp at it, not to call him by his name, either living or dead, but ‘My Father,’ or ‘Sir;’ it is to provide for him if he be poor, and the like.” 2. Children, when they grow up to be men, must not think themselves discharged from this duty: every man, though he be a wise man, and a great man, yet must reverence his parents, because they are his parents. 3. The mother is put first, which is not usual, to show that the duty is equally owing to both; if the mother survive the father, still she must be reverenced and obeyed. 4. It is added, and keep my sabbaths. If God provides by his law for the preserving of the honour of parents, parents must use their authority over their children for the preserving of the honour of God, particularly the honour of his sabbaths, the custody of which is very much committed to parents by the fourth commandment, Thou, and thy son, and thy daughter. The ruin of young people has often been observed to begin in the contempt of their parents and the profanation of the sabbath day. Fitly therefore are these two precepts here put together in the beginning of this abridgment of the statutes: “You shall fear, every man, his mother and his father, and keep my sabbaths. Those are hopeful children, and likely to do well, that make conscience of honouring their parents and keeping holy the sabbath day. 5. The reason added to both these precepts is, “I am the Lord your God; the Lord of the sabbath and the God of your parents.”
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Leviticus 19:9-10:
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God" |
I like this verse and the idea very much!! You may say, "I dont have a field," and feel that there is no way to apply this application of gleaning in your life. But it can be. Leaving something in the "corner of your field" could apply to anything you are reaping the fruit or produce of, like through your job or monetarily. It may be leaving something for people we will never see again, or never see at all. It is giving away an uncounted portion of the harvest in our lives, instead of scraping up every last bit of it.
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Although ancient methods of harvesting were not as efficient as today, yet Leviticus 19:9-10 instructs Israelites to make them even less so. First, they were to leave the margins of their grain fields unharvested. The width of this margin appears to be up to the owner to decide. Second, they were not to pick up whatever produce fell to the ground. This would apply when a harvester grasped a bundle of stalks and cut them with the sickle, as well as when grapes fell from a cluster just cut from the vine. Third, they were to harvest their vineyards just once, presumably taking only the ripe grapes so as to leave the later ripening ones for their poor and the immigrants living among them. These two categories of people—the poor and resident foreigners—were unified by their lack of owning land and thus were dependent on their own manual labor for food. Laws benefiting the poor were common in the ancient Near East, but only the regulations of Israel extended this treatment to the resident foreigner. This was yet another way that God’s people were to be distinct from the surrounding nations. Other texts specify the widow and the orphan as members of this category. (Other biblical references to gleaning include Exod. 22:21-17; Deut. 24:19-21; Judg. 8:2; Ruth 2:17-23; Job 24:6; Isa. 17:5-6, 24:13; Jer, 6:9, 49:9; Obad. 1:5; Mic. 7:1.) -Theology of Work
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Leviticus 19:12:
And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD. |
A false oath is forbidden where God's name is involved. Note that the law reads "by my name." The modern oath is godless: the court requires, in many states, that we swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" merely on our affirmation and the courts demand. Such a court has placed itself and its oaths outside of God, and they are thus lies to begin with. The Christian, in such a court, does swear, whether the court language includes it or not, by God, not man, because he can recognize no other oath as anything but blasphemy. On the other hand, a godless court which still retains God in its oath is also guilty of taking the Lords name in vain. In Levitical law perjury required the same penalty as in the case involved; the penalty against the accused would be the penalty against the false witness for or against him. (Deut 19:16-21). In our modern legal system perjury is largely becoming the rule rather than the exception. And failure to charge those who commit perjury is becoming even less common. That, however, is not a surprise under any godless legal system, as opposed to a God-fearing justice system.
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Leviticus 19:14:
Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD
Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD
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Leviticus 19:18:
"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD." |
Of course this echoes the words of Jesus who claimed this and “love the Lord your God with all Your heart,” as the two greatest commandments. “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these.” He said . To note, many people claim that when Jesus said that if you hate someone it is equal to murder that he brought a new dimension to the law. Jesus brought a new life to it, but to our unchanging God there was always concern for the inner man even in the law as indicated with “do not..bear a grudge….”
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Leviticus 19:19:
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. |
Now, that certainly seems odd, doesn’t it? But Jonathan Morrow explains it all clearly enough in Think Christianly. On page 166 he quotes Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart:
These and other prohibitions were designed to forbid the Israelites to engage in fertility cult practices of the Canaanites. The Canaanites believed in sympathetic magic, the idea that symbolic actions can influence the gods and nature…. Mixing animal breeds, seeds, or materials was thought to “marry” them” so as magically to produce “offspring,” that is, agricultural bounty in the future. I had never heard that before. Had you? aturally I wondered whether it was something I could count on. Are Fee and Stuart right? Is this true? I didn’t know. That makes rather a weak position to hold then, doesn’t it? Maybe not. Do you know whether Fee and Stuart are right? Answer quick now, and do it on your own — no googling allowed! You wanted to look it up, didn’t you? That means you didn’t know it was wrong. You didn’t know it was right, either, but that’s surprisingly irrelevant. Suppose you did look it up and found it false. The very fact that you had to look it up shows that the “unreasonable command” objection fails. For the command is unreasonable only if it is unreasonable in its context, and if we don’t know the context we’re in no position to judge it unreasonable. Some biblical commands are not so culture- and context-dependent. We can recognize them by how frequently and in how many different contexts they are presented, and by the strength of their connection to identifiable culture-transcending principles. By those tests, Leviticus 19:19 is clearly tied to one time and one place, unlike commands relating to (for example) love for God and neighbor, honesty, integrity, and sexual behavior. When atheists and SSM advocates laugh at Lev. 19:19 and other culture-dependent commands, what they’re really displaying is their ignorance of their own ignorance. They don’t know the culture they’re denigrating; and either they don’t know that they don’t know, or else they don’t care that they don’t know. See more on this from Tim McGrew here and following. |
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Leviticus 19:28:
"Do not lacerate your bodies for the dead, and do not tattoo yourselves." |
Some point to a passage in Leviticus 19:28 that says, "Do not lacerate your bodies for the dead, and do not tattoo yourselves."
But in its context, that was a Jewish ceremonial prohibition that may have dealt with expressing devotion to a false god; two verses earlier Leviticus had warned, "Do not eat anything with the blood still in it." |
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Leviticus 19:31:
'Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. |
Deuteronomy 18:10: There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer
Leviticus 20:66: “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.
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God associates mediums with necromancers (Leviticus 19:31) and orders that “a man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer [...] be put to death” (Leviticus 20:27). The Lord associates occultists with “the cowardly,” “the faithless,” “the detestable” such as murderers, liars, and the sexually immoral. They will suffer “in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelations 21:8). Scripture conveys a clear message from the Almighty where mediums, sorcerers, magicians, etc. are concerned. They reject God’s word, lead His children astray, and therefore are “cut off from among His people” (Leviticus 20:6). There are “dreamers[s] of dreams” who provide a “sign or wonder that [...] comes to pass,” then guide people away from God. In this case, “the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 13:1-3). God also knows the weakness of human beings to follow and believe these men and women, so “because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving [occultists] out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 18:12-13). -Christianity.com
Necromancy is a practice of communicating with the dead. Some people try to summon the spirit of their dead loved ones for advice and help in times of trouble. Necromancy is an abomination to God, according to many scriptures in the Bible. In Deuteronomy 18:9-12, God warns the Israelites, His own people against participating in the Canaanites' practice of talking to the dead to help them in their situations. God wants us to rely on Him and not on our dead friends and relatives.
God did not beat around the bush. He came right out and told the Israelites that they should not follow the sins of their surrounding neighbors. God said His people should not consult with familiar spirits. He called necromancy an abomination. A very good example of calling up the dead is found in 1 Samuel 28:3–25 when King Saul had the Witch of Endor call up the spirit of Samuel. When Saul needed help to govern the people, he called on Samuel for his help even though Samuel was dead. Instead of King Saul calling on God for help, He wanted the advice from Samuel who was a judge and prophet while he was alive.
Speaking from the dead, Samuel asked, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” (1 Samuel 28:15). In other words, Samuel wanted to know why he had been interrupted from his rest.
King Saul did not receive a death penalty from the people he was serving because he was the highest official in the land at the time. However, he did receive a punishment from God. Within one day after Saul spoke to dead Samuel, he died in battle along with his son Jonathan. God promised that no one from Saul's lineage would ever be on the throne again. -Rev. Margaret Minnicks
God did not beat around the bush. He came right out and told the Israelites that they should not follow the sins of their surrounding neighbors. God said His people should not consult with familiar spirits. He called necromancy an abomination. A very good example of calling up the dead is found in 1 Samuel 28:3–25 when King Saul had the Witch of Endor call up the spirit of Samuel. When Saul needed help to govern the people, he called on Samuel for his help even though Samuel was dead. Instead of King Saul calling on God for help, He wanted the advice from Samuel who was a judge and prophet while he was alive.
Speaking from the dead, Samuel asked, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” (1 Samuel 28:15). In other words, Samuel wanted to know why he had been interrupted from his rest.
King Saul did not receive a death penalty from the people he was serving because he was the highest official in the land at the time. However, he did receive a punishment from God. Within one day after Saul spoke to dead Samuel, he died in battle along with his son Jonathan. God promised that no one from Saul's lineage would ever be on the throne again. -Rev. Margaret Minnicks
Leviticus 19:32:
Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
