I think the ideas presented with the Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee have real lessons for us. The Sabbath Year solves a problem which modern farmers address by crop rotation and leaving fields fallow every so many years. However, academia and mission organizations have adopted the idea of a sabbatical year from this concept. The idea of the Year of Jubilee is to level the economic stratification which happens in society every so many years. The idea being that everyone should have equal chances in life. I do not see any way we could make the idea of the Year of Jubilee work in a non-agrarian society, but we should keep its ideal in mind. Even in this passage there is an exemption made for property within cities. The Year of Jubilee reminds us that we should seek ways to give those who suffer from the bad economic decisions of their parents, or even their own bad economic decisions, a chance for a fresh start.
At the beginning of the passage it discusses the need for priests to maintain both spiritual and physical holiness. The passage then goes on to command that flawed animals are not acceptable offerings to God. Every time I read this I think about what this means when we make offerings to God today by donating to charitable causes. When we make an offering to God it must be perfect not used, not our castoffs. That does not mean that we should not donate such things that still have use to charity. It just means that we should not think of that as an offering to God. If we have clothes which no longer fit us but are still in good repair, it is a good thing to donate it to a thrift store or other charity, but doing so does not qualify as an offering to God.
From time to time someone comes to the conclusion that Christians can benefit from paying closer attention, perhaps even from celebrating the festivals God commanded the Israelites to observe. There is some merit to the idea. Yet in every case I am aware of, they start the discussion with the Festival of First Fruits. Oh, they mention the Sabbath in passing, but they start their discussion with the Festival of First Fruits. However, I think we should pay more attention to that very first of the festivals which God established for the people of Israel. I do not believe it matters whether we celebrate that Festival on Saturday or Sunday. The important thing is that we should gather once a week to celebrate God. Which brings up another point, our Sunday services should be a celebration. They are not an obligation which we grudgingly spend an hour or two fulfilling. No, they should be celebrations which we eagerly look forward to taking part in and regret when they come to an end.
There are a lot of very basic, good life rules in today’s passage.
do not deceive and cheat
do not twist justice to favor the poor or show partiality towards the rich
I think it is worth noting that this command spells out our human tendency to twist justice in favor of the poor when we don’t twist it to gain favor with the rich and that both are wrong.
Do not spread slanderous gossip
help people when they are in danger
do not nurse a grievance, instead confront the person directly whom you believe to have wronged you
All of these represent good rules to follow and are summed up by the one which Jesus listed as the second most important command (which is in this passage): Love your neighbor as yourself.
There are more rules that are worth noting in chapter 19, then I see a kind of transition and a series of rules with a different focus in chapter 20. While the rules in chapter 20 can also be summed up by loving others as you love yourself, I see a somewhat different common thread among them. I am not quite sure how to summarize these rules, but I think they are tied together. Here God forbids sacrificing children, attempting to communicate with the dead, dishonoring your parents, and a laundry list of sexual acts. All of these involve putting yourself and your own pleasure over the best interest of others.
In today’s passage God gave Moses the instructions for the Day of Atonement. The first thought I had about this passage was curiosity about where the “wilderness of Azazel” was. As I suspected, the place being referred to is ambiguous. In fact, some translations say that the goat should be driven into the “wilderness for Azazel”. In fact, there are Jewish legends which say that Azazel was a demon, whom the goat was intended to appease. That would essentially make the goat an offering to a demon, which seems to me to be inconsistent with the commands against idolatry. A little further research on my part revealed that the Hebrew word “azazel” is composed of the Hebrew word for rugged, “azaz”, and a generic word for God, “el”. (note: “el” in the Bible usually, and perhaps always, applies to God, but was used by the people of that area for other gods as well, even in some of their names for their gods). All of which suggests to me that the original writer of this passage would have understood the phrase to mean that the goat would be driven into a rugged wilderness dedicated to God (perhaps so dedicated by its use for this purpose?). I want to add that it is from this passage that we get the term “scapegoat”, which is sometimes misspoken as “escape goat”. Interestingly enough, the “scape” in “scapegoat” is almost certainly a shortening of the word escape. The importance of all of this is that words change meaning over time and Ancient Hebrew was a language which, at least the written form, contained many words whose meanings changed significantly depending on context.
Later in today’s passage, in chapter 18, there are a series of prohibited sexual practices. When Christians refer to these prohibitions as guidelines, some people ask why they do not also follow kosher food rules. There is a relatively simple answer to that question of which most Christians fail to be aware. When the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts, sent out a letter instructing Gentile believers on the issue of following Jewish “Law”, they specifically said that Gentile believers only needed to follow three elements of Jewish Law. Those elements were: do not worship idols by taking part in their feasts (eating food offered to idols), do not eat/drink blood, do not commit fornication. These instructions contained here would have been more or less what they were thinking of by fornication.
I write this sometime around now every year, this stretch of passages is one of the reasons I write this blog. If I did not write this blog I would get bogged down reading these and start skimming over the passages, or even skipping days. While I cannot ind anything in this passage today which builds my faith, I still think there is value in reading this passage regularly (in my case, once a year). One of the reasons it is important to read these passages regularly is that people with anti-Christian, or anti-Judaism, biases will often misrepresent what is written here. If we read them regularly we will recognize when someone is doing that.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 13.
Now that we have modern medicine and a scientific understanding of how mold and mildew spread, is there anything we have to learn from today’s passage? I will answer that with a definite “Yes.” The passage lays out a definite and deliberate approach to deciding what actions to take when someone or something appears infected. This passage reminds us not to rush to judgement. Instead, examine the facts and patiently wait to see how things develop. If there is a risk of things escalating, isolate in a reversible manner until the situation becomes clear one way or the other.
Yesterday I wrote that a process of dedication like the ordination which Aaron and his sons went through can make people more determined to do things the right way. Today’s passage starts off by demonstrating that it does not always do so. Despite going through the somber, serious process of ordination decided that they could take a shortcut to the proper procedures. So, a dedication/ordination service does not in and of itself prepare us to do the Lord’s work. We still need to put in effort to get things right.
The passage goes on to describe what animals the Israelites were allowed to eat. While Christians do not follow these dietary laws, we have recently been reminded why it is a bad idea to eat anything you can lay your hands upon by the outbreak of the coranavirus from Wuhan, China. While there are other theories about the origins of this infectious agent, currently the most likely theory is that it jumped from one of the animal species sold for food in the markets of Wuhan, markets which are known for selling as food animals no one outside of Asia, and few outside of China, would consider eating. A similar thing happened in 2002 from a different part of China. The rules laid out in this passage provide an easy to remember set of rules which limit your diet to things which have little to no risk of making you sick.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 8-9.
The process which Moses went through with Aaron and each of his sons must have really made them feel called out from the ordinary. Reading it makes me realize that we should have such ceremonies for people in our Churches more often. Not this elaborate, but designed to make them feel the support of the people and dedicated to serving God. Such an acknowledgement in front of others can make us more determined to do things the right way and to help others serve God.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 5-7.
In the New Testament, Paul writes that if you think it is sinful to some specific thing, than you commit a sin when you do that particular thing. This has led some people to the conclusion that if you do not think a particular act is a sin, for you that act is not a sin. Today’s passage makes very clear that you can sin without realizing that you are doing so. A careful reading of what Paul writes on the subject reveals that there are things which are not sinful to do in and of themselves. However, they may be sinful to do if we think of them as sinful. Or, if we them in front of someone who thinks of them as sinful, who then does them because they saw us do them. That latter sin does not require that we know the person thinks that the action is a sin.
As an example of how this works. I have some friends who often tell self-deprecating jokes about themselves in order to make people laugh, and often intentionally set themselves up as the straight man for a joke told by others. If someone took advantage of one of these set ups in order to make them look bad, it would fail because the butt of the joke, and those around them, knew the whole thing was just to get a laugh. However, the person who tried to make them look bad would still be guilty of trying to bring harm to them by besmirching their reputation. On the other hand, if someone set themselves up to be the butt of a joke, I took advantage of that opportunity, and that person felt denigrated by what I said, I would be guilty of hurting their feelings, even if I only meant to make them laugh. or, to put it another way. If I intend to do harm, I am guilty of doing wrong even if I fail to do harm, but I am also wrong if I do harm, but did not intend to do so.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 1-4.
Today moves on to a description of the various sacrifices which the Israelites were required to make. I found two things in this worth taking note of. First, the passage makes a connection between the use of blood and fat in the various animal offerings and God prohibiting the Israelites from eating either. I am not sure of the significance of this for us today, but there it is. Second, the Israelites were only to offer animals without defect. Here the significance is clear. We should only bring our best to God, whether that is the material goods we offer, or the effort we put into doing His will. It should not be an after though, or done carelessly.
