Theopedia

Book of Leviticus

— You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

Leviticus 19:2

Overview

Leviticus is the third book of the Pentateuch, the priestly law book that governs Israel’s worship at the tabernacle newly erected at the close of Exodus. Its Hebrew title, Vayyikra, “and he called,” is taken from its opening word; later Jewish usage also called it “the law of priests” and “the law of offerings,” and its English name derives from the Greek Leuitikon, “pertaining to the Levites,” since its contents govern the duties of that priestly tribe.1 The book follows directly from Exodus: with the tabernacle built and its furniture arranged, Leviticus ordains the services to be carried out in it.1

Author and Date

Leviticus presents itself throughout as words the LORD spoke to Moses, generally at the tent of meeting (Lev. 1:1; 4:1; 6:1; 7:22; 27:1). Elijah Porter Barrows argued for Mosaic authorship of the legal material preceding Deuteronomy on the ground that its historical notices, such as the death of Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10) and the blasphemy of Shelomith’s son (Lev. 24), are woven into the laws abruptly and without narrative connection, exactly as one would expect if they were recorded as they occurred rather than composed retrospectively by a later editor.1 He also appealed to the New Testament’s own testimony: Paul writes that “Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law” in citing Leviticus 18:5 (Rom. 10:5).1

Since the nineteenth century, source-critical scholarship has dated Leviticus differently. Julius Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis assigned the book’s priestly legislation to a “P” document, composed by a priestly party active after the Babylonian exile and combined with the Pentateuch’s other proposed sources only after 400 BC, centuries later than Moses.2 Scholars continue to dispute this dating, and it has not displaced the confessional and traditional case for Mosaic authorship.

Historical and Literary Context

Leviticus is set at Sinai, in the interval between the tabernacle’s completion at the end of Exodus and Israel’s departure recorded at the start of Numbers; unlike Numbers, its unity is not chronological but topical, gathering law rather than narrating a journey.3 Its concern throughout is the newly consecrated priesthood and the sacrificial system by which a holy God could dwell among an unclean people, prefiguring, in the Levitical priesthood and its offerings, the priestly and sacrificial work of Christ.4

Structure

Barrows divides the book into five main sections, followed by an appendix:1

  1. Offerings and priestly consecration (chaps. 1-10): laws for the various offerings, then the anointing of the tabernacle and the consecration of Aaron and his sons, including the death of Nadab and Abihu for offering unauthorized fire.
  2. Purity and the Day of Atonement (chaps. 11-17): precepts on clean and unclean animals and clean and unclean conditions in people, directions for the annual atonement of the sanctuary, and rules governing where animals may be slaughtered and how their blood is to be handled.
  3. Laws admitting no expiation (chaps. 18-20): prohibitions carrying the penalty of the law rather than a sacrificial remedy.
  4. Priestly purity, sacred times, and the sanctuary (chaps. 22-26:2): ordinances for priestly purity, the character of acceptable sacrifices, the annual festivals, the sabbatical year, and the year of jubilee.
  5. Blessings and curses (chap. 26:3-46): the covenant’s promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.
  6. Appendix on vows and tithes (chap. 27).

L. Michael Morales locates the book’s literary center in chapter 16, the Day of Atonement, and argues that Leviticus itself stands as the central book of the Pentateuch: “the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 as the book’s literary centre… In sum, Leviticus is the central book in the Pentateuch, and the Day of Atonement is located in the central chapter in Leviticus.”5

Major Themes

Holiness

Leviticus 19:2 states the demand that structures the whole book: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” Petrus van Mastricht treats this verse as the classic biblical statement of the doctrine of God’s holiness, distinguishing it from righteousness: “righteousness denotes a relative goodness, by which God acts according to eternal right… whereas holiness expresses an absolute goodness, by which God is inclined to all moral purity and recoils from all impurity of sin,” a holiness Moses is commanded to impress on Israel both as motive and as example.6 The laws distinguishing clean from unclean animals, persons, and conditions throughout Leviticus 11-15 served, on this reading, an end beyond mere ceremonial regularity: they educated Israel toward an apprehension of the difference between moral purity and impurity.7

Atonement and sacrifice

Leviticus grounds its entire sacrificial system in the principle stated plainly in the law governing blood: “the life of the flesh is in the blood; and 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” (Lev. 17:11). Barrows drew out the implication: a sacrifice offers to God one life on behalf of another life forfeited by sin, the life of an innocent animal substituted for the life of the guilty offerer, an idea he traced also to Job’s own burnt offerings on behalf of his sons (Job 1:5).7 The classification in Leviticus itself divides offerings into burnt offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, and peace offerings, with the sin offering holding first place because it alone was wholly expiatory, bringing the offerer into forgiveness and divine favor.7 Morales frames atonement in Leviticus as oriented toward covenant fellowship rather than an end in itself: “Atonement is a means to an end… a means to Israel’s fellowship and communion with YHWH God… indicating reconciliation between God and humanity.”5

Priesthood

The Levitical priesthood, consecrated in Leviticus 8-9 and vested with the duty of continual sacrifice, stood as a type of the priestly work later fulfilled in Christ. Barrows read the high priest’s garments, and especially the golden plate inscribed “Holiness to the LORD,” as themselves typifying “Christ our great High Priest, who bears his people on his shoulders by his almighty power and efficacious atonement, and on his heart by his everlasting love.”7 Jay Sklar likewise reads the priest’s charge to tend the altar’s fire continually as instilling “a posture of continual dependence and worship before [YHWH],” a posture Samantha Cheng argues is fulfilled in Christ’s own perpetual priestly intercession (Heb. 7:24-25).8

Related Doctrines

References

References

  1. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 224-236. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. John N. Oswalt, The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature?, Ancient Context, Ancient Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), chap. 10, “Conclusions”: “after the exile, a new priestly party gained the ascendancy, and when their P document was merged with JED sometime after 400 BC, the normative understanding of Israel and its traditions was in place.” ↩

  3. Barrows, 236-238. ↩

  4. Barrows, 236. ↩

  5. L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? A Biblical Theology of the Book of Leviticus, New Studies in Biblical Theology 37 (Downers Grove, IL: Apollos, 2015), 27, quoted in Samantha Ming Sum Cheng, “Contemporary Challenges to, and Defense of, the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit,” in “Retrieving Eternal Procession” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2025), 278-279. ↩ ↩2

  6. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 2, Faith in the Triune God, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Todd M. Rester (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019), chap. 19, “The Holiness of God,” 448. ↩

  7. Barrows, 579-606. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Jay Sklar, Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 3 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 128-129, quoted in Cheng, “Contemporary Challenges to, and Defense of, the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit,” 280. ↩