Leviticus24chapter 24

Leviticus 24:1-4

The lamp and the loaves sit between the yearly feasts of chapter 23 and the sabbath years of chapter 25, and both of them run continually. Exodus 27:20-21 gave this instruction first, and Leviticus repeats it here as a standing charge laid on the whole nation rather than on the priesthood alone. The people beat the olives and bring the oil, Aaron sets the lamps in order from evening to morning, so the light inside the tent burns on what the congregation supplies.

Leviticus 24:5-7

Twelve cakes go in two rows of six on the pure table before the LORD. The number answers to the twelve tribes, and the table stands in the holy place where no Israelite outside the priesthood comes, so the nation is represented in a room the nation never enters. The frankincense set on each row is the part offered by fire, and the loaves are called a memorial, so what burns and what is eaten are two different things.

Leviticus 24:8-9

The bread is changed every seventh day and the arrangement is called an everlasting covenant, so a loaf that goes stale in a week carries a word that does not. What comes off the table belongs to Aaron and his sons, who eat it in the holy place as most holy. David ate that bread at Nob when he was hungry and running from Saul in 1 Samuel 21:6, and Jesus argued from the case at Matthew 12:3-4 that the priests themselves were blameless when the sabbath bent for a man in need.

Leviticus 24:10-11

The book breaks into narrative for the second and last time, and the man at the centre of it is half Egyptian. Exodus 12:38 records a mixed multitude going up with Israel, so a household like his was ordinary in that camp. He and a man of Israel fight, he blasphemes the Name and curses, and the text names his mother, Shelomith the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan, while leaving him unnamed. What started the quarrel is never said.

Leviticus 24:12-14

No penalty for this has been written yet, so they hold the man and wait. Three other cases in the Torah have the same shape, the men unable to keep the passover at Numbers 9:6-8, the man gathering sticks at Numbers 15:32-36, and the daughters of Zelophehad at Numbers 27:1-11, and in each one Moses takes the question to God instead of deciding it himself. The ruling puts the hands of everyone who heard him on his head before the stones are thrown. Everywhere else in Leviticus a hand is laid on the head of an animal, and Deuteronomy 17:7 makes the same demand of witnesses, that the men whose word convicts a man strike first.

Leviticus 24:15-16

The case produces a statute and the statute is given twice, once as a general rule and once with the penalty attached. Bearing his own sin is the language used of a man who has no sacrifice to carry it for him. The rule binds the stranger on the same terms as the homeborn, and the first man it falls on is the son of a foreigner. Matthew 26:65 has the high priest tearing his clothes and naming this charge at the trial of Jesus, and John 10:33 has the same charge in the mouths of men already holding stones.

Leviticus 24:17-18

Two sentences set a man's life beside an animal's and put a price on only one of them. A dead beast is made good, beast for beast, and no payment is named for a man, because Genesis 9:6 grounds the difference in the image of God. These rules read as a digression until a reader remembers that the chapter got here through a fight, and a fight is where both a curse and a killing begin.

Leviticus 24:19-20

Eye for eye is a ceiling on what a court may exact. It stands three times in the Torah, at Exodus 21:23-25, here, and at Deuteronomy 19:21, and each time it ties the penalty to the exact size of the injury so that a family cannot answer a tooth with a life. The Mishnah, the rabbinic law code compiled about 200 AD, reads the rule as payment in money rather than matching wounds at Bava Kamma 8:1, and John Gill reports that reading on this verse. Matthew 5:38-39 quotes the same words and tells a disciple to let the claim go.

Leviticus 24:21-22

The two rules are stated again in short form and then the chapter gives its reason. One manner of law for the stranger and for one of your own country, and the sentence that closes it is I am the LORD your God, which is the reason and not a signature. Exodus 12:49 had already said that one law shall be to him that is homeborn and unto the stranger, and Leviticus 19:34 grounds the same equality in Israel's own years in Egypt. The court about to stone a half Egyptian is told in the same breath that it owes him the protection of the same law.

Leviticus 24:23

The sentence is carried out and the last line records that the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses. The man is taken outside the camp, which is where the sin offering was burned at Leviticus 16:27, and Hebrews 13:12 says Jesus suffered without the gate. Stephen died under this statute at Acts 6:11 and 7:58, charged with blasphemous words and stoned outside the city. A chapter that opened with a lamp burning continually and bread set fresh every sabbath ends with an execution.