Leviticuschapter 22
33 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly, then he shall put the fifth part thereof unto it, and shall give it unto the priest with the holy thing.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Leviticus Overview.
Moses gave this chapter at Sinai to the priests who ate from Israel's offerings and to every worshipper who chose an animal to bring. The priests owned no fields, so the holy food was their daily bread. The chapter asks who may eat what has been given to God, and what may be given at all. Listen for the line drawn between a gift and a promise. Watch for the care shown to a newborn animal and its mother. It teaches that the worshipper's choice at the pen was part of the offering.
Context
- Who
- The priests who ate the offerings, and every Israelite and resident foreigner who chose the animal to bring
- What
- Priestly law on who may eat the holy portions and which animals may be offered, closing with rules for the newborn and the thanksgiving meal.
- Where
- The tabernacle courtyard at Sinai and the priests' own tables, where the holy portions were eaten.
- When
- The second year after the Exodus, about 1445 BC on the traditional reckoning, following the book's own setting at Sinai.
- Why
- To guard the holy food from careless handling and to make every animal brought to the altar a sound one the worshipper would have kept.
Historical context
The chapter runs in three speeches, the first two addressed to Aaron and his sons and the second widened to all the children of Israel and the strangers in Israel. The dating follows the book's own setting at Sinai.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The priests owned no farmland. They ate from the offerings the people brought, which is why a rule about uncleanness is also a rule about a man's dinner. Verse 7 gives the reason a priest is restored as soon as the sun sets and he has bathed, because the holy food is his food.
A first hearer knew how an animal was chosen. A man picked the beast himself out of his own herd or flock, and everyone present could see whether it was sound. The standard the chapter sets is two words, without blemish, and the disqualifying words it lists are largely the words used of the priest in chapter 21.
A first hearer also knew the difference between a gift and a promise. Verse 23 lets an ox or lamb with a limb too long or too short be brought as a freewill offering and never on a vow, because a promise already made fixes what is owed.
Two rules here belonged to a world where every household raised its own animals and knew them. A newborn stays seven days under its mother, and a cow or ewe is never killed with her young on one day.
Significance
The chapter told the worshipper that his own choice at the pen was part of the offering. An animal he would not have kept was an animal God would not accept.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
It told the priest that his access to the holy food turned on his state rather than on his birth, and that the bar lifted with water and a sunset.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
This chapter governs who may eat the holy food and what may be brought to the altar, and Rashi reads it as one continuous ruling on those two questions. The command of the second verse he explains by the root of its verb, which he takes to mean keeping at a distance: the sense is that "they (the priests) shall keep aloof from the holy things during the time of their uncleanness" (Rashi on Leviticus 22:2:1, the Rosenbaum and Silbermann Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary, 1929 to 1934, public domain, citing Sifra, Emor, Section 4 1). At the third verse he argues at length that the approaching the text forbids is eating rather than touching, since a priest who merely touched a holy thing while unclean would not be liable to the penalty the text names, and the word "unto the holy things signifies nothing else but eating of them" (Rashi on Leviticus 22:3:1, citing Sifra, Emor, Section 4 7 and Shevuot 7a). The charge of the ninth verse he reads in the same key, as a charge "not to eat the heave-offering (as mentioned in v. 7) whilst they are in a state of bodily uncleanness" (Rashi on Leviticus 22:9:1, citing Sanhedrin 83a). The corpus also carries a comment of Rashi at the fourth verse in a Sefaria Community Translation released under CC0, which asks whether the high priest himself is included in the bar and answers from the wording that he is, since a man "would also be allowed to offer them up if he has tzara'ath or if he had a discharge" were the bar read narrowly (Rashi on Leviticus 22:4:1, Sefaria Community Translation, CC0).
On who counts as a member of the priest's household Rashi is exact, because the holy food turns on it. The outsider of the twelfth verse he defines as any non-priest, "to a Levite or an ordinary Israelite" (Rashi on Leviticus 22:12:1, citing Sifra, Emor, Section 5 7), and the profaning of the holy things at the fifteenth he explains as happening "by giving them to non-priests to eat of them" (Rashi on Leviticus 22:15:1). The household of the eleventh verse includes a servant bought outright (Rashi on Leviticus 22:11:1), and the priest's widowed or divorced daughter returns to the household of her father (Rashi on Leviticus 22:13:1).
The second half of the chapter turns to the animal, and here Rashi explains the term the text uses for acceptance as propitiation: the offering must be brought "so that it may be to you for propitiation" before God (Rashi on Leviticus 22:19:1). A vow is binding when it is spoken, "expressing it by speech" rather than held in the mind (Rashi on Leviticus 22:21:1). The blemishes he defines one by one in the manner of a man handling livestock, so that one term names an animal that "is an animal that has one limb larger than its fellow-limb" (Rashi on Leviticus 22:23:1, citing Bekhorot 40a), and blindness, mutilation and the rest are read as defects in the beast rather than as marks against the giver (Rashi on Leviticus 22:22:1 and 22:24:1). Sforno at the twentieth verse sends the reader to the prophet for the principle, noting the law of the blemished offering "as elaborated on by Maleachi 1,8" (Sforno on Leviticus 22:20:1, the Eliyahu Munk translation HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY).
One ruling in this chapter speaks directly to a reader who is not Jewish. Reading the twenty fifth verse with the eighteenth, Rashi holds that the word for any man at the eighteenth is there "in order to include in this law the heathens also", so that a person outside Israel could undertake a vow offering or a freewill offering and have it brought on the altar, provided the animal carried no blemish (Rashi on Leviticus 22:25:1, citing Chullin 13b, Avodah Zarah 5b and Temurah 7a). Malbim comments at the first verse, and the corpus holds no English version of it.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, and every one of them is a locator without text, so this site cites where the rabbis took the chapter up rather than what they said there. The blemish list draws the tractate Bekhorot, at 3b:6, 14b:5, 33b:16 and 43a:15, and the holy food draws Chullin at 13b:7, 100b:5 and 130b:13 and Gittin at 42b:14 and 83a:19. The rest of the Babylonian locators are Bava Batra 9b:4 and 120a:7, Bava Kamma 25b:11, Bava Metzia 54a:16, Berakhot 2a:13, Chagigah 18b:6, Beitzah 27b:3, Eruvin 19a:11, Pesachim 42a:2 and Avodah Zarah 5b:6, 23b:8 and 27b:11. The Jerusalem Talmud is taken up at Berakhot 1:1:1, Shabbat 7:2:15, Beitzah 2:2:2, Bikkurim 2:1:10, Kiddushin 1:5:8 and 3:1:13, Nazir 5:1:8, Yoma 4:1:8, Yevamot 8:1:4 and Sheviit 10:1:12. The midrashic locators are Bamidbar Rabbah 7:4, 10:8, 10:14 and 10:17, Bereshit Rabbah 98:20, Midrash Lekach Tov at Leviticus 22:31, and Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 1:15. Rashi himself hands on locators as he goes, and the ones he names in the kept text of this chapter are Sifra, Emor at Sections 4 and 5 and Chapter 4, Sifra, Acharei Mot, Chapter 12 6, and the Babylonian Talmud at Shevuot 7a, Chagigah 11a, Yevamot 74b, Sanhedrin 83a and 90b, Bekhorot 40a, Chullin 13b, Avodah Zarah 5b and Temurah 7a.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Leviticus 22:2:1, 22:3:1, 22:5:1, 22:6:1, 22:7:1, 22:8:1, 22:9:1, 22:10:1, 22:11:1, 22:12:1, 22:13:1, 22:14:1, 22:15:1, 22:16:1, 22:18:1, 22:19:1, 22:21:1, 22:22:1, 22:23:1, 22:24:1 and 22:25:1, the Rosenbaum and Silbermann Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary, public domain, 1929; Rashi, Rashi on Leviticus 22:4:1, the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0; Sforno, Sforno on Leviticus 22:20:1, the Eliyahu Munk translation HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Leviticus, Emor 62:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Onkelos, the Targum of Onkelos at Leviticus 22:16, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Leviticus 22:16:1; Sifra, Sifra, Emor, Sections 4 and 5 and Chapter 4; Sifra, Acharei Mot, Chapter 12 6, as Rashi cites them; Babylonian Talmud, Bekhorot 3b:6, 14b:5, 33b:16 and 43a:15; Chullin 13b:7, 100b:5 and 130b:13; Gittin 42b:14 and 83a:19; Bava Batra 9b:4 and 120a:7; Bava Kamma 25b:11; Bava Metzia 54a:16; Berakhot 2a:13; Chagigah 18b:6; Beitzah 27b:3; Eruvin 19a:11; Pesachim 42a:2; Avodah Zarah 5b:6, 23b:8 and 27b:11; and, as Rashi cites them, Shevuot 7a, Chagigah 11a, Yevamot 74b, Sanhedrin 83a and 90b, Bekhorot 40a, Chullin 13b, Avodah Zarah 5b and Temurah 7a; Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 1:1:1, Shabbat 7:2:15, Beitzah 2:2:2, Bikkurim 2:1:10, Kiddushin 1:5:8 and 3:1:13, Nazir 5:1:8, Yoma 4:1:8, Yevamot 8:1:4, Sheviit 10:1:12; Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 7:4, 10:8, 10:14 and 10:17; Bereshit Rabbah 98:20; Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 22:31:1; Ein Yaakov, Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 1:15.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Holy food and unclean hands
Leviticus 22:1-3
Chapter 21 kept certain priests from the altar for what their bodies were. This chapter keeps them from the sacred offerings for what has touched them, and that bar lifts once they are clean. Verse 3 sets the heaviest penalty in the chapter, "cut off from My presence", on a priest who approaches the sacred offerings while unclean.
Leviticus 22:1
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Immediately after he had spoken concerning blemishes in priests, and in a continued discourse signifying, that though priests that had blemishes might eat of the holy things, yet neither they, nor even such who had not any, if they were under legal impurity, might eat of them: saying; as follows.”
The sacred offerings are gifts the Israelites had consecrated to God, so they reach the priest already belonging to Him. To treat them with respect is to eat and handle them only as the rules of verses 3 to 16 allow. Careless handling profanes His holy name.
Leviticus 22:2
“Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves - The same subject is continued in this chapter as in the preceding, with this addition, that besides the perfection of the priests, it was indispensably necessary that the sacrifices also should be perfect. In the service of God, according to the law, neither an imperfect offering nor an imperfect offerer could be admitted. What need then of a mediator between a holy God and sinful men!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:2
“Separate themselves - When any uncleanness is upon them, as appears from ver. 3, 4. From the holy things - From eating of those parts of the offerings, which belong to them.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
For the generations to come binds the rule on every descendant of Aaron, as 21:17 bound the rule on defects. The offence is to approach the sacred offerings while unclean. The penalty fits a man who serves before the LORD.
Leviticus 22:3
“Goeth unto the holy things - To eat them, or to touch them; for if the touch of one of the people having his uncleanness upon him defiled the thing he touched, much more was it so in the priest.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 22:3
“Cut off from my presence - i. e. excluded from the sanctuary. See Lev 20:17.”
Leviticus 22:3
“The ideas of sin and duty were awakened in their breasts by every case to which either an interdict or an injunction was applied. But why enact an express statute for priests disqualified by the leprosy or polluting touch of a carcass [Le 22:4], when a general law was already in force which excluded from society all persons in that condition?”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Leviticus 22:4-9
A priest with a skin disease or a discharge "may not eat the sacred offerings until he is clean", so the bar ends with the condition. The remedy is water and sunset, and verse 7 gives the reason for his quick return, "for they are his food". Verse 8 lays on him the rule 17:15 lays on every Israelite, and verse 9 ends "I am the LORD who sanctifies them".
Leviticus 22:4
“Is a leper, or hath a running issue - See the case of the leper treated at large in the notes on Leviticus 13 (note) and Leviticus 14 (note); and for other uncleannesses, see the notes on Leviticus 15 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:4
“Not a single case is recorded of a leper being restored to communion by the use of water; it served only as an outward and visible sign that such a restoration was to be made.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The list of verse 4 goes on with a crawling creature and any person whose touch makes a man unclean. John Gill points to 11:31, where touching a dead crawling creature leaves a man unclean until evening, for the limit verse 6 sets. Whatever the uncleanness may be leaves no case outside the rule.
Leviticus 22:5
“Creeping things - i. e. dead vermin. Compare Lev 11:29.”
The remedy has two parts, a bath and the passing of the day. John Gill reports that the Targum of Jonathan, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Law, sets the bath at forty seahs of water, and Gill adds that the man dipped his whole body. Evening restores him only after the washing.
Leviticus 22:6
“The soul which hath touched any such shall be unclean until even,.... Which is the time fixed by the several laws for such uncleannesses, see Lev 11:31, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water; in forty seahs of water, as the Targum of Jonathan; yea, when the evening is come, he may not eat of the heave or wave offerings, until he has dipped himself all over in water; nor should any eat of the Lord's supper under the New Testament, but such as are first baptized in water.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:6
“The soul - Rather, the person. Compare the use of the word “body” in the Prayer Book version of Psa 53:1, and in the compounds “somebody, nobody”.”
Sunset closes the time John Gill calls fixed by the several laws for such uncleanness. The Berean calls the sacred offerings his food, the word chapter 21 used for the food of God on the altar. What is offered to God feeds the priest.
Leviticus 22:7
“His food - His portion, the means of his subsistence. This may be added, to signify why there was no greater nor longer a penalty put upon the priests than upon the people in the same case, because his necessity craved some mitigation: tho' otherwise the priests being more sacred persons, deserved a greater punishment.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown tie this rule to the law against eating meat with its blood, which reached any animal that died naturally or from disease. Albert Barnes notes that the pollution weighed heavier on a priest, since it kept him from his sacred duties. Uncleanness cost him his service.
Leviticus 22:8
“The pollution in the priests would be an aggravated one, inasmuch as they would have to forego their sacred functions. Compare Eze 4:14; Eze 44:31. The general prohibition occurs in Lev 11:39; Lev 17:15; Exo 22:31.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:8
“But an express precept was necessary to show them that whatever died naturally or from disease, was prohibited to them by the operation of that law which forbade them the use of any meat with its blood.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The charge the LORD lays on the priests here is the care of the sacred offerings. The verse warns of death for profaning it, where verse 3 spoke of being cut off. Both penalties rest on the priest's own guilt.
Leviticus 22:9
“Eating the holy things signified an interest in the atonement; but, if they ate of them in their uncleanness, they were so far from lessening their guilt that they increased it: They shall bear sin. (2.) Sin is a burden which, if infinite mercy prevent not, will certainly sink those that bear it: They shall die therefore.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Who belongs at the priest's table
Leviticus 22:10-16
Belonging to the priest's household draws the line, so a slave bought or born in his house eats and the guest and the hired hand do not. A daughter married outside the priestly families eats again only if she returns "widowed or divorced" with no children. Eating in error is repaid with the value plus "a fifth", the addition required at 5:16 and 6:5.
Leviticus 22:10
“There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing - For the meaning of the word stranger, see the note on Exo 12:43. The Jews suppose that stranger here means one who has had his ear pierced, (see the note on Exo 21:6), and that sojourner means a servant who is to go free on the Sabbatical year.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes saw in the rule how completely a purchased slave was taken into the household. John Gill allows either an Israelite who had sold himself in poverty or a foreigner, and the medieval Jewish commentator Jarchi took it of a Canaanite servant. The hired hand of verse 10 stays outside.
Leviticus 22:11
“But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it,.... Whether any of his own nation, who sometimes, when become poor, were obliged to sell themselves; or a stranger, as the Targum of Jonathan; one of another nation, a Canaanitish servant, as Jarchi.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:11
“This shows how completely a purchased bondsman was incorporated into the household. See Exo 21:2, note; Exo 21:20-21, note.”
John Gill reads the man as any layman, a Levite or an ordinary Israelite. John Wesley set the mirror case beside it, for a priest's wife from another family did eat, and a wife passed into her husband's name, state and privileges. The daughter leaves her father's table by the same rule.
Leviticus 22:12
“If the priest's daughter also be married to a stranger,.... Not to an Heathen, but to any Israelite, that is, a common man, or a layman, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, one that is not a priest; but is married either to a Levite, or an Israelite, as Jarchi: she may not eat of an offering of the holy things; the heave shoulder or wave breast, &c. being removed into another family by marriage, she is not reckoned of her father's family, and so had no more a right to eat of the holy things.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:12
“A stranger - To one of another family, who is no priest. Yet the priest's wife, though of another family, might eat. The reason of which difference is, because the wife passeth into the name, state and privileges of her husband, from whom the family is denominated.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Three conditions bring her back to the sacred food: no children, a marriage ended by death or divorce, and a return to her father's house. John Gill reckoned a married daughter as removed into another family. The verse restores only the childless daughter.
Leviticus 22:13
“But if the priest’s daughter be a widow - and is returned unto her father’s house - A widow in Bengal not infrequently returns to her father’s house on the death of her husband: the union betwixt her and her own family is never so dissolved as among European nations. Thousands of widows in Bengal, whose husbands die before the consummation of marriage, never leave their parents - Ward.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Wesley took the payment as the worth of what was eaten, given to the priest, with the ram of 5:15 offered besides. Jerome drew from the verse that ignorance was still charged under the law. He applied it to eating the Lord's Supper with care.
Leviticus 22:14
“Then he shall put the fifth part thereof unto it - The holy thing of which he has unknowingly eaten shall be fairly valued, and to this value he shall add one fifth more, and give the whole to the priest.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 22:14
“Unto it - Over and above the principle, and besides the ram to be offered to God, chap. v, 15. And shall give unto the priest the holy thing - That is, the worth of it, which the priest was either to take to himself or to offer to God, as the nature of the thing was.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 22:14
“At the end, it is stated, "If a man eats of the sanctified things through ignorance, iniquity and wickedness are laid at his feet, and he shall be bound by a vow." Thus also the apostle teaches us that we are to eat the Eucharist of the Lord with caution, lest we eat to our condemnation and judgment. If ignorance is condemned under the law, how much more will full knowledge be condemned according to the gospel?”
Jerome · written before 420 · Against the Pelagians 1.34patristic
Verses 15 and 16 run as one sentence, and Albert Barnes calls them rather difficult. He reads them as a charge that the holy things lifted before the LORD are not to be profaned, with guilt on whoever eats them wrongly. The priests guard their use.
Leviticus 22:15
These verses are rather difficult. Their meaning appears to be: “The holy things of the children of Israel which are heaved before Yahweh” (see Lev 7:30) “shall not be profaned; and they shall incur a sin of trespass who eat of their holy things (so as to profane them).”
John Wesley read the guilt as the punishment the people would bear if the priests let them eat, and he made the priest answerable for seeing restitution paid. Matthew Henry noted a second reading from chapter 10, where the priests' eating of the sin offering is a bearing of the people's iniquity. Both readings put the weight on the priest.
Leviticus 22:16
“They - That is, the priests, shall not (the negative particle being understood out of the foregoing clause) suffer them - That is, the people, to bear the iniquity of trespass - That is, the punishment of their sin, which they might expect from God, and for the prevention whereof the priest was to see restitution made.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:16
“We must not only not suffer sin to lie upon our brother, but, if we can help it, we must not suffer it to come upon him. But perhaps there is another meaning of those words: the priests' eating the sin-offerings is said to signify their bearing the iniquity of the congregation, to make an atonement for them, ch. x.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nothing blemished is accepted
Leviticus 22:17-20
The second speech widens the address from Aaron and his sons to "all the Israelites" and "any foreign resident", because the one who brings the animal chooses it. The standard is "an unblemished male", and verse 20 states the result of missing it: "it will not be accepted on your behalf". Malachi 1:8 holds a later generation to this verse by asking whether a governor would accept their gift.
Leviticus 22:17
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... At the same time; for having said many things concerning the holiness of priests, whose business it was to offer sacrifices, he adds various things concerning the nature, condition, and circumstances of the sacrifices they were to offer: saying, as follows.”
The verse names two occasions for a burnt offering, a vow and a freewill offering. Verse 23 will treat the two differently. Matthew Henry notes that even a foreign resident was held to the standard of an unblemished animal, though strangers were to be given every encouragement to honour the God of Israel.
Albert Barnes renders the clause as that it may be accepted for you, a phrase that recurs at verses 20, 21 and 27. The male is required for the burnt offering, as at 1:3. John Gill notes from Ben Gersom, a medieval Jewish commentator, that the peace offering of verse 21 need not be a male.
Leviticus 22:19
“Ye shall offer at your own will a male - Rather, That it may be accepted (so Lev 22:29) for you it shall be a male. See Lev 1:3. It is the same phrase as in Lev 22:20-21, Lev 22:27.”
Matthew Henry notes the care taken to search every animal brought for sacrifice, so that none carried a blemish to the altar. Accepted on your behalf means the gift stood for the man who brought it. A flawed animal left him unaccepted.
Leviticus 22:21-25
The defects that bar an animal, such as "blind" and "a festering rash", are the words used of the priest at 21:18-20, so one vocabulary covers man and offering. Verse 23 holds the one relaxation: an animal with "a deformed or stunted limb" may be a freewill offering and never a vow. Verse 25 closes the last loophole, judging an animal from a foreigner by what it is.
John Gill counts an animal blind in one eye as barred along with one blind in both. The Egyptians kept a like rule, he adds. They would not sacrifice oxen with a blemish or with the loss of either eye.
The two Hebrew words are sarua and kalut. Adam Clarke glosses the first as a part extended beyond its usual size and the second as a part unusually contracted. He counts either one a monstrosity, by excess or by lack.
Leviticus 22:23
“That hath anything superfluous or lacking - The term שרוע sarua signifies any thing extended beyond the usual size, and the term קלוט kalut signifies any thing unusually contracted; and both mean any monstrosity, whether in redundance or defect.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Gill gives two readings of the closing clause. It can bar any offering of such an animal, burnt offering, peace offering or any other, anywhere in the land. The Jewish writers he cites read it as a ban on castrating any creature at all.
Leviticus 22:24
“Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut,.... The Targum of Jonathan is, whose testicles are pressed and bruised, and whose nerves are corrupted and bruised, and so most Jewish writers interpret it: neither shall you make any offering thereof in your land; any offering of any sort, either burnt offering or peace offering, or any other; or ye shall not do, that is, any such thing as here suggested, not bruise, or crush, or break, or cut the testicles of any creature; so the above writers.”
The word for foreigner here differs from verses 10 and 18. Albert Barnes reads it literally as the son of the unknown, a man of another land who wished to honour the God of Israel. Barnes sets him beside the foreigner from a distant land in Solomon's prayer at 1 Kings 8:41.
Leviticus 22:25
“A stranger’s hand - The word here rendered “stranger”, is not the same as that in Lev 22:10, Lev 22:18: it means literally, “the son of the unknown”, and probably refers to one dwelling in another land who desired to show respect to the God of Israel. See 1Ki 8:41.”
Eight days old, and never with its mother
Leviticus 22:26-30
The third speech turns from an animal's fitness to its life: a newborn stays "with its mother for seven days" and is acceptable from the eighth, as Exodus 22:30 also says. An ox or sheep may not be slaughtered on the same day as its young, and Leviticus gives no reason. Writers who seek one turn to Exodus 23:19 and Deuteronomy 22:6, where the same care stands unexplained.
Leviticus 22:26
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... At the same time, as before, in a continued discourse, the subject being of the same kind, relating to sacrifices: saying, as follows.”
Matthew Henry reports the Jewish reason, that a sabbath had to pass over the animal before it was offered. Clement of Alexandria read the seven days as mercy, as the mother's milk was given for her young. He turned the law against those who exposed human infants.
Leviticus 22:27
“The Jews say, "It was because the sabbath sanctifies all things, and nothing should be offered to God till at least one sabbath had passed over it." It was in conformity to the law of circumcision, which children were to receive on the eighth day. Christ was sacrificed for us, not in his infancy, though then Herod sought to slay him, but in the prime of his time.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 22:27
“Scripture says, "At least grant the offspring to its mother for its first seven days." For if nothing comes to be without reason and milk flows in the mothers for the nourishment of the offspring, then in taking the offspring away from the providential endowment of the milk, a person is doing violence to nature. So Greeks and anyone else who runs the law down ought to blush for shame if the law is generous over irrational beasts. Yet some people actually expose human offspring to abortive death.”
Clement of Alexandria · written before 215 · The Stromata Book 2patristic
Leviticus 22:27
“No victim was to be offered in sacrifice until it was a week old. The meaning of this law appears to be that the animal should realise a distinct existence in becoming less dependent on its mother, and able to provide for its own wants.”
Adam Clarke took the rule as a lesson in mercy and tenderness of heart, and he says the Jews understood it so. He held that a man who kills an animal for food should do it without blunting his own moral feelings. The law guards the man as well as the beast.
Leviticus 22:28
“Ye shall not kill it and her young in one day - This precept was certainly intended to inculcate mercy and tenderness of heart; and so the Jews understood it. When it is necessary to take away the lives of innocent animals for the support of our own, we should do it in such a way as not to blunt our moral feelings; and deplore the necessity, while we feel an express gratitude to God for permission, to do it.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The thank offering is the peace offering of thanksgiving named at 7:12 and 7:15. Albert Barnes ties so that it may be acceptable here to the same phrase at verse 19. Acceptance rests on the rule of the next verse.
Leviticus 22:29
“7 And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food. 8 That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the L ORD . 9 They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the L ORD do sanctify them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The vow and freewill offerings of 7:16 could be eaten on the next day as well. The thank offering kept the shorter limit of a single day.
Leviticus 22:30
“On the same day it shall be eaten up,.... Which is the law concerning it; See Gill on Lev 7:15, ye shall leave none of it till the morning; of another day, as the Vulgate Latin version adds, and much less the fat of them, and the most holy things, as Ben Gersom observes, the one being to be burnt upon the altar, the other to be eaten by the priests I am the Lord; who has made this law, and expect it will be observed.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:30
“Leave none of it until the morrow - See the note on Lev 7:15.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 22:31-33
The chapter closes on the sentence that stands in place of a reason, "I am the LORD". The verb behind "acknowledged as holy" in verse 32 is the one Moses used to Aaron over Nadab and Abihu at 10:3. Verse 33 grounds it all in the God who "brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God".
Leviticus 22:31
“Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them,.... Both priests and people, even all the commandments delivered at this time, as well as all others; these they were to observe and take notice of, and keep them in memory, and put them in practice: I am the Lord; See Gill on Lev 22:30.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:31
“God will be a loser in his glory by no man at last; but sooner or later will recover his right, either in the repentance of sinners or in their ruin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Wesley saw God hallowed in two ways, by Israel keeping His commands and upon Israel in His judgments. Adam Clarke held that a man profanes the holy name when he treats God's commands as he treats those of his fellows. The rules of this chapter keep the name holy.
Leviticus 22:32
“Neither shall ye profane my holy name - God’s name is profaned or rendered common when we treat his commands as we often do those of our fellows, when they do not appear to have self-interest to recommend them. He therefore profanes God’s holy name who does not both implicitly believe and conscientiously obey all his words and all his precepts. I will be hallowed among the children of Israel - The words children of Israel, בני ישראל beney Yishrael, which so frequently occur, should be translated either the descendants or posterity of Israel, or the people of Israel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:32
“Hallowed, or sanctified, either by you in keeping my holy commands, or upon you in executing my holy and righteous judgments. I will manifest myself to be an holy God that will not bear the transgression of my laws.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
to be your God: The same words stand at 11:45, near the end of the food laws, where the LORD who brought Israel out of Egypt to be their God tells them to be holy. Here they close the laws of the priests and the offerings. The exodus is the ground of both.
Leviticus 22:33
“That brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God,.... Whereby he showed himself to be their covenant God and Father, who had a kind and gracious regard unto them, and which laid them under obligation to fear, serve, and worship him as their God: I am the Lord; that hath sovereign right unto them, and claim upon them, and therefore they ought to be subject to his will, and observe his laws ordinances.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 22:33
“Brought you out of the land of Egypt - By such a series of miraculous interferences, to be your God - to save you from all idolatry, false and superstitious worship, teach you the right way, lead and support you in it, and preserve you to my eternal kingdom and glory. God, infinite in his own perfections, has no need of his creatures; but they need him; and, as a source of endless felicity, he opens himself to all his intelligent offspring.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Priestly instruction in three speeches, on the holy food, on the unblemished offering and on the life of the animal, as Keil and Delitzsch, with Matthew Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| I am the LORD, seven times | The sentence falls seven times in these thirty three verses and twice more as I the LORD do sanctify them. The published exposition of verses 31 to 33 records that the last three verses each end on it, and reads the refrain as standing in place of a reason.Matthew Henry, with Andrew Bonar, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and A Commentary on Leviticus, 1846, cited in the published exposition of Leviticus 22:31 to 22:33. | Leviticus 22:2, Leviticus 22:8, Leviticus 22:30, Leviticus 22:33 |
| One vocabulary for the man and the animal | The disqualifying words of verses 22 to 24 are largely the words used of the priest at 21:18 to 20, blind, superfluous, scurvy and scabbed. The broken stones of 21:20 are answered by the bruised, crushed and cut of verse 24, so the man at the altar and the animal on it are described in the same terms.Keil and Delitzsch, with Andrew Bonar, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1864 to 1870, and A Commentary on Leviticus, 1846, cited in the published exposition of Leviticus 22:22 to 22:25. | Leviticus 22:22, Leviticus 22:24 |
| Who may eat the holy portion | Verses 10 to 13 list the household by belonging rather than by descent. A slave bought with the priest's money eats and one born in his house eats, while a hired servant and a sojourner do not. A daughter married outside the priestly families loses the portion until she returns widowed or divorced and childless.John Gill, with Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the published exposition of Leviticus 22:10 to 22:14. | Leviticus 22:10, Leviticus 22:11, Leviticus 22:12, Leviticus 22:13 |
| Speak unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel | The second speech widens the address from the priesthood to the nation and the strangers in Israel, because the animal is picked out by the man who brings it. The published exposition of verses 17 to 21 marks the widening and reads the standard as two words, without blemish.Matthew Henry, with Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1864 to 1870, cited in the published exposition of Leviticus 22:17 to 22:21. | Leviticus 22:2, Leviticus 22:18 |
The Old Testament's use
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Malachi 1:8 holds a later generation to verse 20 by asking whether a governor would accept what they were bringing to God. The published exposition of verses 17 to 21 names that place.
The verb behind I will be hallowed at verse 32 is the one Moses spoke to Aaron at 10:3, over the bodies of Nadab and Abihu. The words there are I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me. The published exposition of verses 31 to 33 marks the link. It records that verse 33 puts the ground under all of it, that God brought Israel out of the land of Egypt to be their God.
The rabbinic reading the exposition carries
The Mishnah, the rabbinic law code compiled about AD 200, gives a whole tractate called Terumoth to who may eat the priest's portion. It opens its sixth chapter on verse 14 with the man who eats in error paying the principal and the fifth. The published exposition of verses 10 to 14 names the tractate and the chapter.
The debated readings
The mother and her young at verse 28. The text gives no reason for the rule. Adam Clarke and Keil and Delitzsch both reach across to Exodus 23:19 and Deuteronomy 22:6, where the same care stands without explanation. The published exposition states that the reason is absent in all three places.
The penalty at verse 3. The heaviest sentence in the chapter, cut off from my presence, falls on a priest who eats a holy portion with his uncleanness upon him. Verse 2 states the danger as profaning the holy name in the things Israel hallows, so the offence is read as a wrong done to the name rather than to the food.
What is repaid rather than punished
Verse 14 sets the remedy for eating a holy thing unwittingly at restitution plus a fifth part. That is the same addition required at 5:16 and 6:5, so the accident is repaid rather than punished. The published exposition of verses 10 to 14 marks the shared surcharge.
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Gordon Wenham, as carried by this site's published chiasm, src/components/book/dossier-content/leviticus.ts, the chiasm "The book's own concentric shape, centered on the Day of Atonement", status proposed and Keil and Delitzsch, with Matthew Henry, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1864 to 1870, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the published exposition of Leviticus 22:1 to 22:3.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Andrew Bonar, A Commentary on Leviticus; Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata Book 2; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Against the Pelagians 1.34; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.