Leviticus 11:44 · Passage · Holiness and Purity
Be Holy, Because I Am Holy
Leviticus gives Israel the command five times, in chapters 11, 19 and 20, and Peter quotes it to the churches of Asia Minor.
Each giving carries a reason, and every reason is His own name, His rescue from Egypt or His choice of a people.
For I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any creature that crawls along the ground.
- The passage
- Leviticus 11:44 to 45, Leviticus 19:2, Leviticus 20:7 to 8, Leviticus 20:26, 1 Peter 1:15 to 16
- Books
- Leviticus, 1 Peter
- When
- at Mount Sinai, after the exodus from Egypt
- Hold in memory
- Leviticus 11:45, 1 Peter 1:18 to 19
Summary
God tells His people to be holy and grounds the demand in His own holiness. In Leviticus the command first closes the laws of clean and unclean food, and later it opens the laws given to the whole congregation of Israel. In each place God's rescue or God's call stands before the demand, so holiness answers grace. Peter keeps that order for the church, setting the command after the ransom paid by the blood of Christ.
- God makes His people holy, and they are called to keep themselves apart for Him.
- Leviticus joins holiness to daily life, to the table, the household, the Sabbath and the neighbour.
- The New Testament sets the food laws aside and keeps the command for the whole church.
- Readers have heard the command as a call to separation from the nations and as a call to likeness to God.
The Command in Leviticus
Three chapters of Leviticus carry the command beyond the altar.
Be Holy, Because I Am Holy reads the command God gives Israel in Leviticus and the use Peter makes of it in his first letter. It belongs to the value of holiness, because it is the plainest statement in Scripture that God's people take their holiness from His.
The question the study answers is why God grounds the command in Himself and what it asks of Israel and of the church. It gives the givings of the command with their reasons, the Hebrew verbs of making holy and setting apart, and Peter's reading of the command after the cross. It sets out two readings of what holiness asks and a third on the food laws, each with its holders and its objection.
The food laws carry the command into every meal, which puts holiness at Israel's table before it reaches the altar.
The laws that follow the command in Leviticus 19 reach the harvest, the poor and the neighbour.
Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.The first law after the command concerns the household, which shows that holiness in Leviticus begins at home.
Chapter 21 gives the command a priestly form. Israel is to treat each priest as holy, "because I the LORD am holy" (Leviticus 21:8), since he presents the food of God.
Five More Givings
After Leviticus 11:44 the command returns four times in Leviticus and once in 1 Peter.
Four of the five reasons name the LORD, and three name an act of His, the rescue from Egypt, the setting apart and the call.
| Text | The reason in the Berean words | The laws around it |
|---|---|---|
| Leviticus 11:45 | "who brought you up out of the land of Egypt so that I would be your God" | The end of Leviticus 11, on what Israel may eat |
| Leviticus 19:2 | "Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy" | Leviticus 19, spoken by Moses to all Israel |
| Leviticus 20:7 | "because I am the LORD your God" | The laws against Molech and the mediums |
| Leviticus 20:26 | "I have set you apart from the nations to be My own" | Leviticus 20:22 to 26, on the land Israel will inherit |
| 1 Peter 1:15 to 16 | "just as He who called you is holy" (1 Peter 1:15) | The call to sober minds and obedient children |
Set Apart from the Nations
Leviticus 20 uses one Hebrew verb for God's choice of Israel and for Israel's choice of food.
The close of Leviticus 20 ties the people to the animals, so each distinction between creatures recalled the distinction God had made between peoples.
But I have told you that you will inherit their land, since I will give it to you as an inheritance—a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the peoples. You are therefore to distinguish between clean and unclean animals and birds. Do not become contaminated by any animal or bird, or by anything that crawls on the ground; I have set these apart as unclean for you.These verses set God's act and Israel's act side by side, the ground of the separation that the command asks.
And you shall keep My statutes and practice them. I am the LORD who sanctifies you.It sets the keeping of the statutes beside the name of the LORD, so Israel's obedience answers to Him.
You must not profane My holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy among the Israelites. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD.”It joins God's holy name to the rescue from Egypt, the reason the command recalls at Leviticus 11:45.
The Hebrew of the commandThe Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 11 and 20
In Leviticus 11:44 and Leviticus 20:7 the words consecrate yourselves are one Hebrew verb in the reflexive stem, so Israel is told to make itself holy.
In Leviticus 20:8 the same root stands as a participle in the stem that makes a thing holy, in the words the LORD who sanctifies you.
In Leviticus 11:45 the words who brought you up are a participle of the verb to go up, the verb Scripture uses for the exodus.
In Leviticus 20:24 to 26 the verb badal, to set apart, stands four times. God is the subject three times, in Leviticus 20:24, Leviticus 20:25 and Leviticus 20:26, and Israel is the subject once, in Leviticus 20:25.
Sinai and the Churches of Asia
Leviticus was given at the mountain, and 1 Peter was sent to five Roman provinces.
Leviticus is set at Sinai, and its first verse has the LORD speaking to Moses "from the Tent of Meeting" (Leviticus 1:1).
These are the commandments that the LORD gave to Moses for the Israelites on Mount Sinai.The last verse of the book names the mountain as the place of every command in it.
And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”Israel received this calling before the laws of Leviticus, so the command builds on a standing God had already given.
First Peter goes to believers scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Peter writes that they were "sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood" (1 Peter 1:2).
Peter and the Command
Peter wrote to believers who once lived in "the passions of your former ignorance" (1 Peter 1:14).
Peter quotes the command as Scripture, with the words "for it is written" (1 Peter 1:16).
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.Its lamb without blemish takes up the language of the offerings in Leviticus, which ties Peter's ground for the command to the book he quotes.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.It applies the calling of Exodus 19:6 to the church, so the command reaches a people with the standing Israel had.
The Greek of 1 Peter 1:16The SBL Greek New Testament and its apparatus
The SBL Greek New Testament reads hagioi esesthe, hoti ego hagios, you shall be holy, because I am holy.
The Robinson-Pierpont text reads ginesthe, become holy, and adds eimi, I am, after holy.
Voices on the Command
John Wesley in 1755 and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown in 1871 wrote on 1 Peter 1.
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
Wesley joins the gift of faith to the holiness it brings and to the obedience the call asks.
“They who receive the precious gift of faith, thereby become the sons of God; and, being sons, they shall receive the Spirit of holiness to walk as Christ also walked. Throughout every part of this appointment of God, promise and duty go hand in hand. All is free gift; and yet such is the gift, that the final issue depends on our future obedience to the heavenly call.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on 1 Peter 1:3Evangelical
1802 to 1910 · Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
The three Scottish commentators read Peter's command as the call to take God for a pattern.
Read the page on Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
“Literally, ‘But (rather) after the pattern of Him who hath called you (whose characteristic is that He is) holy, be (Greek, 'become') ye yourselves also holy.’ God is our grand model.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible · on 1 Peter 1:15Reformed
What Does the Command Ask?
Adam Clarke, Rashi, Bonaventure, Albert Barnes and Charles Spurgeon are among the holders.
Separation from the nationsAdam Clarke; Rashi
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), read the first giving as a command to keep separate from all the people of the earth. Rashi, in his commentary on Leviticus 20:7, read sanctify yourselves as keeping aloof from all idolatry.
Against this reading, 1 Peter 1:15 grounds the command in the holiness of the God who called, which asks likeness as well as separation.
Likeness to GodBonaventure; Albert Barnes
Bonaventure, in his Collations on the Hexaemeron, wrote that in holiness the creature must resemble the Creator. Albert Barnes, in his Notes, wrote that as God's people "they ought to be like their God."
Against this reading, the close of Leviticus 20 ties holiness to God's choice of Israel from among the peoples.
The command stands and the food laws are fulfilledCharles Spurgeon, with Mark 7:19 and Acts 10:15
Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon The Clean and the Unclean (1863), held that the prohibitions of the food laws "were now once for all withdrawn", while the holiness they taught remains.
because it does not enter his heart, but it goes into the stomach and then is eliminated.” (Thus all foods are clean.)Mark's note on the words of Jesus is the first text this reading rests on.
The voice spoke to him a second time: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”The voice Peter heard at Joppa is the second, and it came to the apostle who quotes the command.
Against this reading, the first giving and the close of Leviticus 20 both stand inside the food laws themselves.
Holy Because He Is Holy
The command in 1 Peter reaches the whole of a believer's conduct.
Peter's phrase "so be holy in all you do" (1 Peter 1:15) gives the command the whole of life for its field.
The Hebrew and Greek words for holy across the canon are taught in their own study.
Where the pursuit of holiness turns into rules that people add to God's command is taught in its own study.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (Westminster Leningrad Codex with morphology)
- The SBL Greek New Testament (2010), text and apparatus.
- Rashi on Leviticus, in Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary, translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (1929 to 1934)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on 1 Peter 1:3.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 1 Peter 1:15.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Leviticus 11:44.
- Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 2.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on 1 Peter 1:16.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon 499, The Clean and the Unclean (1863)
Keep Studying
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