THE LORD SAID to Moses, 2“Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.
3“‘Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.
4“‘Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the LORD your God.
5“‘When you sacrifice a fellowship offering to the LORD, sacrifice it in such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf. 6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it or on the next day; anything left over until the third day must be burned up. 7If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is impure and will not be accepted. 8Whoever eats it will be held responsible because he has desecrated what is holy to the LORD? that person must be cut off from his people.
9“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.
11“‘Do not steal.
“‘Do not lie.
“‘Do not deceive one another.
12“‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
13“‘Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him.
“‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.
14“‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD.
15“‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
16“‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people. “‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the LORD.
17“‘Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
18“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
19“‘Keep my decrees.
“‘Do not mate different kinds of animals.
“‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.
“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.
20“‘If a man sleeps with a woman who is a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. Yet they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed. 21The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting for a guilt offering to the LORD. 22With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the LORD for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven.
23“‘When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden. For three years you are to consider it forbidden; it must not be eaten. 24In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the LORD. 25But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the LORD your God.
26“‘Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.
“‘Do not practice divination or sorcery.
27“‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.
28“‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.
29“‘Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness.
30“‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.
31“‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you
will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
32“‘Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD.
33“‘When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
35“‘Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. 36Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
37“‘Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the LORD.’”
Original Meaning
LEVITICUS 19 is a remarkably diverse miscellany of apodictic and casuistic laws that exemplify a wide range of ritual and moral/social legislation and reiterate principles of most of the Ten Commandments. The unifying, organizing principle here is a comprehensively holy life that answers God’s call to emulate his holiness (19:2).
It is easy for us to look back with 20/20 hindsight and underestimate the magnitude of the contribution made by Leviticus 19, in which relationships among human beings are to be based on love (v. 18)—not power, greed, a self-serving desire to have a good image, or even self-preservation, but love. Yet love is ultimately the best path to self-preservation because without it, mutual assured destruction (MAD) comes sooner or later.
Bases of holiness in the Decalogue. Following the overall command to be holy because the Lord is holy, verses 3–4 reiterate several of the Ten Commandments: respect for parents, observing Sabbaths (v. 3; cf. Ex. 20:8–12), and not turning to idols or casting metal gods (Lev. 19:4; cf. Ex. 20:3–6). The end of each verse is punctuated with the motivational refrain, “I am the LORD your God,” with which we are familiar from Leviticus 18:2, 4, 30; this phrase recurs frequently throughout chapter 19. Interestingly, in the command to (lit.) “fear [i.e., revere/respect] [one’s] mother and father” (v. 3), the order of parents reverses that of Exodus 20:12, indicating an intertextual chiasm linking Leviticus 19 to the Decalogue.
Ritual holiness. Leviticus 19:5–8 repeats the ritual instructions governing acceptable consumption of the offerer’s portion of the well-being offering (7:16–18), with the clarification that eating it on the third day profanes the Lord’s holy things and the culpability incurred leads to being “cut off.”
Social and ethical holiness. Verses 9–10 move to a social matter: Do not be too thorough when you harvest, but leave some agricultural produce for the poor and resident aliens to glean (cf. Deut. 24:21). In the story of Ruth the Moabitess and Naomi, a poor Israelite (cf. Ruth 2), we see the life-sustaining value of this directive for socially and economically challenged persons (cf. the sabbatical year in Ex. 23:11).
Leviticus 19:11 prohibits stealing (cf. Ex. 20:15), as well as deceiving and lying. While these laws exemplify the same underlying principle of honesty as the Decalogue’s prohibition against bearing false witness (Ex. 20:16), the formulation of Leviticus 19 is not limited to the judicial process. Rather, it is a more comprehensive injunction against lying.
Continuing the theme of honesty, verse 12 forbids falsely swearing by and thereby profaning the Lord’s name (cf. Ex. 20:7). It is not surprising that this law comes between commands against stealing and dishonesty in Leviticus 19:11 and against oppression/fraud and robbery in verse 13. Recall that in 6:1–7, reparation offerings are required for the kinds of ethical wrongs disallowed in 19:11–13, including misuse of God’s name in fraudulent oaths.
Alongside fraud and robbery, verse 13b prohibits withholding the wages of a hired man, who depends on them, as if they were a deposit or pledge (cf. 6:2). Those of us who have been day-laborers living a hand-to-mouth existence know what happens if an employer finds it inconvenient to provide pay at the expected time.
Continuing the idea of protection for disadvantaged members of society, verse 14 prohibits treating a physically challenged individual disrespectfully or harmfully by taking advantage of that person’s weakness. To compensate for the fact that such people are ill equipped to defend themselves, the motivation for eschewing mischief is pointedly expressed: “. . . but fear your God. I am the LORD.” Further upholding social justice, verse 15 addresses the judicial system, prohibiting unfairness in either direction (cf. Deut. 1:17), whether by reverse discrimination (partiality to the poor; cf. Ex. 23:3) or discrimination (deference to the great).
God is powerful to defend the weak, and all are accountable to him: “The LORD watches over the stranger; He gives courage to the orphan and widow, but makes the path of the wicked tortuous” (Ps. 146:9 NJPS; see also Ps. 82). In the ancient Near East such protection of the socially marginalized was a hallmark of justice from early times. For example, the Sumerian Nanshe Hymn (c. 2100 B.C.) describes the goddess Nanshe: “Waif and widow she delivered not up. She took note of men who used force against men, was mother to the waif, Nanshe was the widow’s guardian, finding (justly) in cases in the millhouse. The queen carried fugitives on the hip” (lines 20–24).1
Holiness in the heart. Leviticus 19:16–18 addresses damaging behaviors and the underlying attitudes toward other people that cause or prevent them. Verse 16 speaks against spreading slander and profiting by (lit., “standing upon”) the blood of a fellow person. The link between these is all too common: By starting malicious rumors, it is possible to hurt or even destroy a person and in the process gain advantage, whether simply to improve the relative status of one’s image at the expense of someone else or even to remove the victim in order to take something that belongs to him or her (cf. the story of Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21).
Verse 17 strikes at the root of antagonistic behavior. The proper outlet for a grievance against a “brother” (i.e., a fellow Israelite) is not hatred, but reproof. By rebuking rather than hating, a person avoids bearing blame/culpability with regard to someone else in two ways: (1) by preempting one’s own sinful action that could result from hatred, and (2) by fulfilling the responsibility to warn the other person (cf. the “watchman” in Ezek. 33:6).
Here is a simple, effective, and practical approach to feelings of hatred and anger, with which we are routinely tempted. Don’t bottle them up and let them fester, as Cain did with his brother Abel (Gen. 4). Rather, communicate the cause of frustration so that the problem can be resolved in a positive way. “Rebuke” involves rational discourse that conveys constructive criticism. This shifts the focus from self-centered massaging of our own grievances to concern for the well-being of the other person.
Remarkably, this law controls an internal attitude that is “in your heart.” No human legislative body would dream of formulating such a decree because not even the FBI, with the latest surveillance technology, can enforce it. The Lord can hold people responsible to love (19:18) rather than hate (v. 17) or covet (Ex. 20:17) because his perception penetrates human thought.2
Just as you should “not hate your brother in your heart” (19:17), you should “not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people” (v. 18). Just as you should rebuke your neighbor (v. 17), you should “love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 18). In this contrast between love and hatred at the heart of Leviticus 19, the divine legislation reaches behind superficial action to its cognitive and emotional driving forces (cf. Matt. 5:21–22).
Holiness of mixtures. Leviticus 19:19 prohibits mixtures in breeding cattle,3 sowing seed in the same field, and manufacturing garments. Deuteronomy 22:9–11 provides another version of the law, although it speaks of sowing a vineyard rather than a field and plowing with an ox and ass together rather than breeding cattle, and it specifies mixed cloth as combining wool and linen.
These laws do not state their rationale and appear strange to modern readers, who wear clothes made of all kinds of mixtures of cotton, wool, dacron, rayon, polyester, and so on. The key is in Deuteronomy 22:9, where produce from a mixed vineyard “may not be used” (NJPS); that is, it is “forfeit(ed)” (NRSV; NJB). Forfeited to whom? English versions fail to tell us, but the Hebrew behind these translations literally means “will become holy” (Qal of qdš). In other words, a mixture was holy, and any mixtures were to be forfeited to the holy realm of the sanctuary, where mixtures were appropriately found in some of its fabrics and priestly garments (Ex. 26; 28; 39:29), as well as in the cherubim guarding the ark (Ex. 25:18–20; cf. Ezek. 1:5–11).4 The cherubim remind us that in ancient Near Eastern art and literature, mixed beings, including composite guardian creatures, belong to the supernatural realm of the gods.
In other words, the laws regarding mixtures seem intended to protect the distinction between the ordinary domain of laypersons and the sacred sphere of the sanctuary. For this reason Israelites were also prohibited from manufacturing or using oil or incense like the sacred anointing oil and incense of the sanctuary (Ex. 30:32, 37, 38). Today there is no earthly ritual system with reference to which we can make distinctions in this way, so the applicability of these laws has ceased to exist.
Sexual holiness. Leviticus 19:20–22 deals with an unusual case of sexual misconduct. As implied in Deuteronomy 22:24–29, ancient Israelite betrothal was a legal contract stronger than our engagement, so that a betrothed (Pual of ʾrś) maiden belonged to her fiancé. Thus, any other man who had intercourse with her committed the equivalent of adultery and was to be put to death (22:23–27).5 If she consented rather than being raped, she would also suffer capital punishment (22:24). In Leviticus 19:20–22, however, the young woman is a slave assigned for another man in advance (Niphal of ḥrp) of her redemption or manumission,6 that is, while she is still a slave. Because of her nonfree status, she is not betrothed in the same sense, and therefore another man who has sexual relations with her does not commit the equivalent of the capital crime of adultery. Consequently, there is an inquest (noun biqqoret; cf. the Piel of bqr in 13:36; 27:33) “to determine the exact status of the woman and to determine the exact compensation due her owner.”7 If her slave status is confirmed, the sexual partners are not put to death.
Although violation of a designated slave woman is not a capital offense, it is immoral activity offensive to God, violating the spirit of the seventh commandment of the Decalogue, which prohibits adultery (Ex. 20:14). Thus, a man who commits this wrong must sacrifice a reparation offering (ʾašam, the so-called “guilt offering”) to the Lord.8
Why a reparation offering? Specification of this sacrifice implies that before offering it, the offending man must pay reparation to the wronged party, who has lost property through a deliberate ethical offense (6:4–5). To whom should he pay this? It could be argued that the reparation would go to the owner of the woman, who has suffered economic loss because her value is reduced (cf. Ex. 22:16–17). Wenham, however, maintains that the woman was regarded as betrothed, and therefore “the damages went to her fiancé, who had already paid over the bride-money to her owner.”9 The fact that the biblical text does not specify the one entitled to receive compensation seems to imply that the legal inquiry (biqqoret) was to sort out such details.
For Milgrom, the reparation offering in general covers cases of sacrilege (maʿal), and in 6:1–7 misappropriation of someone else’s property falls under the scope of this sacrifice because the wrong is accomplished through sacrilegious misuse of the Lord’s holy name in a false oath.10 But a man who had sexual relations with a designated slave woman did not violate an oath that he had personally taken. So where is the sacrilege in this case? In this context it appears that the reparation offering upholds the sanctity of the marriage covenant. Even the marriage of a slave woman carries a sacred dimension, even before it is consummated, so that violating this holiness constitutes sacrilege. By combining themes of ethical holiness and concern for the socially disadvantaged (see further below) with that of sexuality, this law tightens the connection between Leviticus 19 and the surrounding chapters (chs. 18 and 20).
As a result of his required reparation offering, the offending man is forgiven from (privative min) his sin (19:22). At first glance, the fact that this reparation offering formula has privative min to express removal of evil from the offerer, as in formulae for purification offerings (e.g., 4:26; 5:6, 10), seems to wipe out the uniqueness of the purification offering. However, in 19:22 min expresses removal of evil accomplished by forgiveness granted directly by God, not expiation achieved by the prerequisite sacrificial procedure itself. So the fact remains that only purification offerings expiate evils from (min) their offerers.
Holiness of horticulture in the holy land. In 19:23–25 the Lord commands the Israelites to regard the fruit of trees that they plant for food as “uncircumcised” (see NIV text note; i.e., “forbidden” to eat) for the first three years. The metaphor of uncircumcision may have been chosen for at least three reasons. (1) The immature fruit still enclosed in its bud is analogous to a foreskin in that it is removed and discarded.11 (2) By referring to immature fruit in this way, God encourages compliance by memorably stigmatizing its unfitness to eat. Who would want to eat something referred to as a “foreskin”? (3) The basic rationale for the law seems to be that the Lord claims the Promised Land and the trees on it, just as he claims sons, whose connection to him is shown by their circumcision.
In the fourth year the first fruit considered edible is holy, which means that it, like other required firstfruits (cf. Ex. 23:19; 34:26; Lev. 2:14; 23:17, 20; Num. 18:13; Deut. 18:4; 26:1–11) belongs to the sacred domain and presumably must be given to the priests to eat—in this case, for the purpose of offering rejoicing (hillulim) to the Lord (Lev. 19:24; cf. Deut. 26:11). Only in the fifth year are the people permitted to freely eat the fruit.12 Encouraging obedience is the promise that the yield of the tree would be increased (Lev. 19:25), abundantly compensating for the first four years. This implies God’s blessing, but it is also beneficial horticultural practice to remove the buds of an immature tree.13
Does the law apply to our orchards today? No, not as a religious requirement. For one thing, since its religious rationale is tied to the special holiness of the Promised Land, it would not be applicable elsewhere. Furthermore, it is now impossible to turn fourth-year fruit over to the domain of the sanctuary/temple, which no longer exists. Nevertheless, modern horticulture identifies an ongoing and universal practical benefit (see above).
Holiness versus divination and death. Leviticus 19:26 seems simply to reiterate the command to abstain from eating blood (17:10–14). However, here “blood” is not the direct object. Rather, Israelites are prohibited from eating on/over (ʿal) the blood. Some propose that the meaning is integrally connected to the context, where the remainder of verse 26 forbids divination (consulting omens, etc., to tell the future), and verses 27–28 prohibit pagan mourning practices involved in ancestor worship (cf. Deut. 14:1–2; Jer. 48:37). Divination and ancestor worship were major components of life outside Israel. In fact, cuneiform tablets preserved from ancient Babylonia include more omen texts than any other genre of literature.
In this context, and because we know that in some parts of the ancient world blood was poured into the ground to netherworld deities, it has been suggested that eating over the blood (returning to 19:26a) may involve occult consultation of ancestral spirits (cf. Ezek. 33:25).14
Holiness in various areas of ethical and religious conduct. Leviticus 19:29–36 wraps up the chapter by revisiting various areas of ethical or religious life touched on by the earlier laws: sexuality and protection of subordinate females (v. 29), respect for divinely appointed authority and Sabbaths (v. 30), avoiding consultation of pagan/occult sources of information regarding the future (v. 31), treatment of the physically and socially weak (vv. 32–34), and honesty (vv. 35–36).
Verse 29 prohibits profaning (Piel of ḥll) a daughter by making her serve as a prostitute. To an ancient Israelite listening to a reading of the Torah, the word for “profane” could simultaneously evoke another verb ḥll (“bore, pierce”), of which the Piel means “wound.” If fathers treat their daughters, who are under their authority but also belong to the holy people, with this little respect or protection for the sake of economic advantage, the evil would spread and affect the land, which would “become prostituted and full of depravity” (NRSV).
Verse 30 repeats the reminder to keep the Lord’s Sabbaths (see v. 3). Observe the chiastic relationship between these two verses:
respect (yrʾ ) mother and father
keep (šmr) the Lord’s Sabbaths (v. 3).
keep (šmr) the Lord’s Sabbaths
respect (yrʾ ) the Lord’s sanctuary (v. 30).
In this pattern, the structural equivalence between mother and father (v. 3) and the Lord’s sanctuary (v. 30), representing his worship system officiated by Aaronic priests, suggests a tight conceptual linkage between them. They represent divine and human authority that derives from Creation, which is continued through human reproduction. Keeping Sabbaths encapsulates the core message of the chapter: The holy Creator makes his people holy (cf. Ex. 31:12–17) by teaching them how to emulate him.
The Lord granted the Israelites access to divine wisdom, including knowledge regarding the future, through dreams, prophets, and priestly inquiry by means of the Urim and Thummim (cf. Ex. 28:30; Num. 27:21). Relying on alternate sources of divination, with which he had nothing to do, was dangerous and showed faithless disloyalty to him. Having already condemned divination and mourning practices involved in ancestor worship (Lev. 19:26–28), this chapter now prohibits turning to necromancy: divination through interaction with the purported spirits of the dead (v. 31). This kind of contact with the sphere of death will result in defilement (verb ṭmʾ ), but unlike ordinary corpse contamination (Num. 19), there is no ritual remedy because incurring this moral impurity is strictly forbidden.
The first word for necromancy here is ʾob, which is also known from other ancient Near Eastern cultures as a “ritual hole in the ground dug to give infernal deities or spirits of the deceased access to the upper world for a brief interval of time.”15 By extension, the word in Hebrew can also refer to a necromancer or the spirit that she or he contacts. The so-called “witch” of Endor, to whom King Saul resorted when “the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets” (1 Sam. 28:6), is called a baʿalat ʾob (“owner of an occult hole in the ground,” 28:7). Through this pipeline to the habitation of the dead she brought up a spirit that claimed to be that of the dead prophet Samuel (28:8, 11–14). The tragic story of Saul’s séance at Endor highlights the reason behind the Lord’s prohibition: Reliance on occult power and communication are mutually exclusive with faith in God.
Leviticus 19:32 requires respect for the elderly. As with the deaf and blind (v. 14), the motivation is to fear God, who holds people accountable for the way they treat those who are physically weak. Verses 33–34 prohibit taking advantage of the resident alien, who is to be treated as a citizen rather than oppressed. Verse 34b (“Love him as yourself”) echoes verse 18. The command to love someone else as yourself transcends national boundaries.
Whereas verse 15 has to do with justice (mišpaṭ) in the setting of a law court, verses 35–36 command justice in business dealings through use of right measures. Today we don’t think much about the importance of honest measures of weight and capacity because we take our Bureau of Standards for granted. Nonetheless, even with our modern technology, it is sometimes hard to know if a used car has driven 85,000 or 185,000 miles. Other forms of fuzziness in business include fine print clauses in agreements with long-distance phone carriers. Right measures are not simply the product of honesty. They can also require carefulness and expertise, even in something as mundane as measuring a “cord” of firewood.
GROWTH IN HOLINESS means growth in love. Leviticus 11:45 chiastically encapsulates the framework of chap. 19:
“I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God;
therefore be holy, because I am holy” (11:45)
“Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (19:2)
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt” (19:36b)
How can faulty human beings become holy as God is holy (Lev. 11:44–45; 19:2), a challenge that also applies to Christians (1 Peter 1:16)? To begin with, we must acknowledge the only source of holiness: God, who alone is intrinsically holy. So whatever holiness we enjoy is derived from him. Derived holiness is a special connection with God that is established and maintained by separation to him from the common sphere that lacks this special connection.16 Thus, the personnel, objects, and defined space of the Israelite worship system were consecrated. Similarly, the Israelites themselves became a holy people through entering into a covenant with the Lord, who had delivered and thereby separated them from Egypt in order to belong to him (Ex. 19:4–6). Dr. Laura Schlessinger describes her reaction to this passage:
Reading this virtually took my breath away. I had spent my whole life trying to find meaning—in being the “good kid,” in doing well in school, in being intelligent, in being successful. Though it was all important, it didn’t fill some special empty space, where meaning needed to be. Realizing that I had a God-mandated responsibility to represent His character, love, and ethical will was the meaning I’d been searching for.17
So what, ultimately, is holiness? The “LORD our God is holy” (Ps. 99:9). Holiness is “the distinctive mark and signature of the divine. . . . It is therefore to be understood, not as one attribute among other attributes, but as the innermost reality to which all others are related.”18 God is holy. Because holiness is what God is, if we are to become holy, we must reflect what he is like. Obviously this does not mean that we have all of his mysterious and tremendous glory and power.19 Even Adam and Eve, who were perfect and created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27), were similar to him only in a limited sense. Yet in Leviticus 19 the Lord tells human beings what aspect of his holiness they must emulate: his active, righteous, just character as expressed in the way they conduct their lives within the framework of their relationships.
Just as God’s holy moral character is revealed by his righteous acts of deliverance in human history (Judg. 5:11; 1 Sam. 12:7), so the derived moral/ethical holiness of his people is shown by what they do for him and for other human beings. This righteous holiness (or holy righteousness), modeled on and motivated by God’s character, is relational rather than abstract or legalistic.20 The dynamic, relational nature of holiness largely explains why there is so much narrative in the Bible: We comprehend God’s holiness by seeing what he does in our world and how human beings do or do not reflect his character.
Like the Israelites, the Christians of Corinth were “sanctified” when they were converted to a “new covenant” relationship with God (1 Cor. 6:11; cf. 1:2, 30). Although the Israelites and the Corinthians were holy in the basic sense that they belonged to the holy God, the books of Numbers and 1 Corinthians provide ample witness that these people were far from perfect and needed growth in holiness/sanctification to become more like God in character.
The Thessalonians also needed growth in holiness. Paul wrote to them: “. . . and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you; so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints” (1 Thess. 3:12–13 NASB). Here growth in love yields growth in holiness. This connection is basic and profound. Growth in holiness is growth in love, because the character of our holy God and his law is love (1 John 4:8).
If we want to know what God requires of us, our basic question is not, “How do I keep the external requirements of the law?” but, “How do I become a loving person?” As we become more like God in character by becoming more loving, we thereby become more holy. So it is no surprise that we find love at the heart of Leviticus 19 (v. 18), and we hear Jesus quoting this verse, along with Deuteronomy 6:5, to express the foundational principles of all of God’s revealed will as recorded in Scripture: love for God and for humanity (Matt. 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; cf. Luke 10:25–28).
Abbot Chaeremon described Christian growth:
You see then that there are different stages of perfection, and that we are called by the Lord from high things to still higher in such a way that he who has become blessed and perfect in the fear of God; going as it is written “from strength to strength,” and from one perfection to another, i.e., mounting with keenness of soul from fear to hope, is summoned in the end to that still more blessed stage, which, is love.21
Chaeremon rightly discerned a positive process, but he did not realize that love is not merely a final stage; growth in love is the entire process.
Having come this far into Leviticus, we should not be surprised that there are degrees of holiness in relation to God. The ancient Israelite sanctuary illustrated this concept in material and spatial terms. The inner sanctum was the “Most Holy Place” because that is where the Lord’s Presence was enthroned above the ark of the covenant. The outer sanctum or “Holy Place” was somewhat less sacred because it was not as close to God. Moving outside to the court, there was another step down in sanctity. In other words, the closer you came to the Presence of the Lord, the holier things became. This gradation was reflected in the materials of the sanctuary, the garments of the priests, and access of persons to the various parts of the sanctuary.
(1) The closer an item was to the ark, the costlier its materials. Inside the sacred Tent, furniture was overlaid with or entirely made of gold (Ex. 25; 30). Outside, the altar and basin/laver were only of bronze (chs. 27; 30). Close to the ark, fabrics were intricately woven from colored wool and linen. Further away, fabrics were simpler (chs. 26–27). (2) The elaborateness of a priest’s garments was proportional to his degree of sanctity. The high priest had a much more ornate and expensive set of vestments than ordinary priests (Ex. 28; 39:1–31). (3) Limitation of access to an area was proportional to its holiness. Only the high priest was permitted to enter the Most Holy Place (Lev. 16:2, 29–30, 34). Only priests could enter the Holy Place (e.g., Ex. 30:19–21), but any Israelite was allowed in the courtyard.
Defining and receiving love. God’s holiness is unique, but in our lives he increasingly shares the love portion of it with us as we draw closer to him. God’s kind of love is characterized by justice and unselfish kindness. It does not include all kinds of “love” embraced by this popular English word, which denotes a feeling of affection or expression thereof (e.g., “make love”) that can range from unselfish devotion to sentimental slush saturated with selfgratification—the form of love so aggressively and profitably promoted by the entertainment industry. Our gullible populace wastes vast amounts of money on the latter kind of cheap “love.” As P. T. Barnum is reputed to have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
The Hollywood view of “love” was unself-consciously encapsulated by a young actor who had found a sexy new girlfriend and drooled: “She has the best body I’ve ever seen. We’re very much in love.” Aside from shallowing instead of hallowing the connotation of the word “love,” this approach is boring compared with the God-given sensual raptures of the Song of Songs, where total intimacy of heart, body, and mind enjoys the freedom of security within a holy marriage covenant.
Whereas we tend to think of “love” as a feeling, in the Bible it is also a principle. The verb ʾhb (“love”) in Leviticus 19:18 includes the idea of affection,22 but the fact that God can command his people to love shows that love is something they can choose to do rather than passively waiting for a certain feeling. If love were only something to fall in, how could the Lord hold anyone accountable for having it? Whether we naturally like another person or not, God requires us to treat him or her according to the principle of love, which rules out harboring a grudge.
Why is love so crucial? Someone has said: “Love is the doorway through which the human soul passes from selfishness to service and from solitude to kinship with all mankind.”23 Thomas à Kempis wrote: “Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good; Love alone lightens every burden, and makes the rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable.”24 According to Hans Küng, love provides law with a moral foundation:
For one thing is certain: human beings cannot be improved by more and more laws and regulations, nor can they be improved simply by psychology and sociology. In matters great and small people are confronted with the same situation: knowing about things is not the same as knowing about meanings; regulations are not in themselves orientations, nor are laws morals. Even the law needs a moral foundation! . . . Quid leges sine moribus runs a Roman saying: What is the use of laws without morals?25
There is more: True, unselfish love is the only principle on the basis of which intelligent beings with free choice can peacefully coexist with each other rather than destroy each other. Thus, love is crucial for the survival of the human race.26 Robert Browning said: “Take away love and earth is a tomb.”27
As sinful human beings, we are so far from true love that we cannot even grasp what it is and how it works without God’s help. We need the example of Christ, the influence of God’s Holy Spirit, divine Providence, the witness of natural creation, and the entire Bible to teach us the meaning of love! God’s kind of love is lofty and beyond our grasp.
Philip Yancey wrote to God:
So how do I act as if you’re alive? How do the cells of my body, the same ones that sweat and urinate and get depressed and toss and turn in bed at night—how do these cells carry around the splendor of the God of the universe in a way that leaks out for others to notice? How do I love even one person with the love you came to bring?28
We cannot acquire love by excavating into the secret chambers of our subconscious minds. We cannot conjure it up by transcendental meditation or medication. “Love is the only service that power cannot command and money cannot buy.”29 We can only get it from the Source: God, who is love (1 John 4:8) and who offers it freely.
Have you ever found yourself short of love? I have. Some years ago there was someone I needed to love, but I did not have love for this person. I scraped around in the bottom of my heart, but there was no love there. Love is not natural for sinful people like me. I need help from outside myself, from the Source of love.
When I had no love I prayed for God to give me His love as a gift through His Spirit, claiming the promise of Romans 5:5: “and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
God answered my prayer and that love is still growing and flourishing today. It is a miracle. God created love in my heart where there was no love, just as He created Planet Earth where there was only an empty void in the universe.30
God’s transforming gift of love through the unconditional promise of his Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5) has awesome results. This is the way we receive sanctification, which is growth in holy love. It is simultaneously the way we receive obedience to his law by coming in harmony with its underlying attitudes. When God bestows on us the gifts of repentance (Acts 5:31) and justification/forgiveness (Rom. 3:24), he does not then expect us to pull ourselves up to obedience by our own bootstraps. By freely giving us the love that empowers obedience, he provides us with obedience as a gift of grace received through faith! As John Wesley put it, “In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer.”31
Our task is to accept the gift of love, from which come any good works that we do. So why do we struggle so much (cf. Rom. 7)? To a large extent because our desire for control and self-reliance makes it difficult for us to accept the gift. We need to say “yes” to God as Mary did. She recognized that it was humanly impossible for her to conceive without a man, but Gabriel said: “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Mary replied: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (1:38 NRSV). If God could implant Christ in Mary’s womb through his Holy Spirit (1:35), he can put the love of Christ within us through the same Spirit (cf. Gal. 2:20).
Taking possession of a gift, such as a car, house, or land, can involve effort on our part. Similarly, receiving God’s empowerment requires our effort (compare Phil. 2:12–13). But it is crucial to remember that this effort comes after the gift is already ours to use, not before so that we can earn it.
The more we receive God’s love and emulate his character by bearing the burdens of others (Gal. 6:2), the more we become like the Israelite high priest, who carried the names of his people over his heart (Ex. 28:29), and the more we follow the example of our heavenly High Priest, who is qualified to intercede for us because he has borne our burdens and carried our sorrows (Heb. 7; 9; 10; cf. Isa. 53:4–5). We also become like Moses, whose unparalleled access to God’s holy Presence (Deut. 34:10) corresponded to his unmatched humility and self-sacrificing intercession for his people (Ex. 32:32; Num. 12:3). As Jesus put it, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8).
Holiness everywhere. The Israelite sanctuary was the headquarters of holiness, but God’s people were to be holy wherever they were. David recognized a kind of holiness that could flourish anywhere: “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes” (Ps. 133:1–2). The oil to which David refers here was the anointing oil that consecrated the first high priest (Lev. 8:12). The point is that unity is holy like that oil, so that whoever and wherever God’s people are, they can enjoy the holiness of unity.
Just before Jesus was crucified, he prayed for his disciples and all those who would later believe. In this magnificent intercession, he tied together the concepts that God sanctifies his people, gives them unity with him and each other, and restores them to full access to his glory (John 17:17–24). He petitioned his Father: “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (17:23). This kind of unity among God’s people is the greatest evidence to the world that the miracle of God’s love has touched them through Christ. Faith in God and loyal obedience to him attracts rather than repels when it comes packaged in deep unity, concern for the well-being of others, and the kind of peace that only Christ can give (14:27).
Because sanctification is growth in love that affects the little events of life on a day-to-day basis as we interact with the Lord, our fellow human beings, and the rest of God’s creation, it is a practical rather than an abstract theological concept. Those who belong to the Lord will manifest their holy connection with him not only with eloquent exhortations and public prayers, but also by honoring their parents (Lev. 19:3), helping the poor and the alien (vv. 9–10, 33–34), dealing honestly (vv. 11–13, 35–36), treating physically challenged individuals with respect (vv. 14, 32), abstaining from malicious gossip (v. 16), rebuking in love rather than hating (vv. 17–18), feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, and visiting those in prison (Matt. 25:31–46).
What is the scope of the command to love? That is, who is “your neighbor/fellow,” whom Leviticus 19:18 commands you to love? Although the word for “neighbor” can have a broader sense elsewhere (e.g., Ex. 11:2), in Leviticus 19:18 the neighbor is one of “your people,” that is, a fellow Israelite, against whom you are not to take revenge or bear a grudge. The requirement to love a non-Israelite resident alien as yourself appears separately (19:34).
A legal expert asked Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). Faced with a choice between denying his own universalism or bringing the wrath of his chauvinistic countrymen down on his head (cf. Luke 4:24–30), Jesus told a story about a man who was robbed and beaten, a priest, a Levite, and a compassionate “Samaritan” (Luke 10:30–35). Then Jesus posed a multiple choice question: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (v. 36). Not comfortable saying “the Samaritan,” the lawyer was nevertheless constrained to respond, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise” (v. 37).
How did Jesus get away with expanding the interpretation of “neighbor/fellow” in Leviticus 19:18 from “Israelite” to “anyone,” including even a Samaritan, so convincingly that a skilled exegete was left without a logical objection? The expert’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” meant: Assuming that I have healthy concern for my own well-being, whom does God expect me to love in the same way? Jesus turned the question on its head: Who loves you as he loves himself? How can you call anyone with whom you can have this kind of reciprocal relationship anything but your “neighbor”?
Jesus’ extension of the law of love beyond the boundaries of the Israelites is in harmony with 19:34, where God commanded his people to treat a non-Israelite living in their land as if he were a citizen and to “love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.” This principle of empathy reinforcing love was encapsulated in Hillel’s famous summary of the entire Torah—“What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it”32—and positively formulated in Jesus’ “Golden Rule”—“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12; cf. Luke 6:31).
The story of the “good Samaritan” reminds us that opportunities to show compassion are tests of love and therefore tests of whether or not we are living as God’s holy people. In Leviticus 19:18, 34, love is not toward humanity in an abstract sense.
Rather, the person to which this teaching refers is the one we meet daily at work, in the neighborhood, or on the street—who emerges from the blur of humankind and confronts us as an individual with special facial features, voice, and character. This person is not an It to be used and abused but is a Thou who, “just like you,” is created by God and wants to live, feel secure, receive help, and find fulfillment.”33
Do we care, even if we are busy health-care professionals who treat dozens of strangers every day with sophisticated technology? Or do we treat human beings as machines or numbers that are merely sources of income to be processed as efficiently as possible in order to fund our lifestyles? Are we willing to put ourselves out in order to benefit another person or creature, or even a tree (cf. Lev. 19:23, 25)?
So how can God’s busy people, wherever they are, remember that the Lord has made them holy? One important way is by pausing to observe the Lord’s holy Sabbaths (19:3, 30). Just as the sanctuary was to be the physical place of special interaction between the Lord and his people (Ex. 25:1–30:11), Sabbath was to serve as a temple/palace of time,34 signifying that God made holy the people whom he had created and redeemed (Ex. 31:12–17; Deut. 5:15). Even when God’s people could not be present at the sanctuary/temple, or even if it would be destroyed, they could enjoy the privilege of regularly remembering, reaffirming, and celebrating their holy connection with him in the dimension of time, which recognizes no boundaries on Planet Earth.
Christians are prone to think of Sabbath-keeping as joyless legalism. For example, there is a story that a devout member of a strictly conservative church woke up one Sunday to discover that he was snowed in. Pondering his options, he concluded that the only way he could get to church was to put on his ice skates and skate down the river. When he arrived and was removing his skates, the elders asked him only one question: “Did you enjoy it?” Applying to Sunday the Sabbath text of Isaiah 58:13 (“If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day,” KJV), the elders thought it was wrong to enjoy activity on the day of rest and worship, not realizing “doing thy pleasure” means “doing as you please” (NIV), that is, breaking the Sabbath by working (cf. v. 3). Verses 13–14 go on to speak of treating the Sabbath as a “delight” and finding joy in the Lord by honoring his holy day.
When God’s people keep his Sabbath in spirit and truth, they are not being legalistic. Rather, they are showing that because he has created and redeemed them, they accept his gift of sanctification, which is to become like the holy God of love (see above). True Sabbath celebrates love the way it is meant to be.
Contemporary Significance
GLOBAL ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY. We have found that Leviticus 19 calls God’s people to responsible, holy living in all facets of life, whether these areas are what we would tend to call “sacred” or “secular.” Nothing could be more relevant to our twenty-first-century culture of exponential integration and globalization. Communications, travel, business, and geopolitics link continents in a worldwide web. On individual and corporate levels we experience, exploit, and suffer from intertwining and cascading consequences as everything we do affects something or someone else. Rather than presenting an unbearably messy miscellany, Leviticus 19 targets life the way it really is.
P. Tillich recognized the danger of alienation between the religious and secular realms:
Religion opens up the depth of man’s spiritual life which is usually covered by the dust of our daily life and the noise of our secular work. It gives us the experience of the Holy, of something which is untouchable, awe-inspiring, an ultimate meaning, the source of ultimate courage. This is the glory of what we call religion. But beside its glory lies its shame. It makes itself the ultimate and despises the secular realm. It makes its myths and doctrines, its rites and laws into ultimates and persecutes those who do not subject themselves to it. It forgets that its own existence is a result of man’s tragic estrangement from his true being. It forgets its own emergency character.
This is the reason for the passionate reaction of the secular world against religion, a reaction which has tragic consequences for the secular realm itself. For the religious and the secular realm are in the same predicament. Neither of them should be in separation from the other, and both should realize that their very existence as separated is an emergency, that both of them are rooted in religion in the larger sense of the word, in the experience of ultimate concern.35
When religion does not sufficiently interact with “secular” needs, it becomes arrogant and irrelevant. Conversely, when the “secular” world recognizes no accountability to a higher, unifying authority, society starts coming apart at the seams, violent conflict rears its ugly head, the fragile environment of Planet Earth is rapidly compromised, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board testifies to Congress regarding declining investor confidence that is bringing down the stock market: “An infectious greed seemed to grip much of our business community.”36 In response to the modern global situation, H. Küng strongly argues “that ethics, which in modern times has increasingly been regarded as a private matter, must again become a public concern of prime importance in postmodernity—for human wellbeing and for the survival of humankind.”37
It should not be forgotten that economic thought and action, too, are not value-free or value-neutral. . . . Just as the social and ecological responsibility of business cannot simply be foisted on to politicians, so moral and ethical responsibility cannot simply be foisted on to religion. . . . No, ethical action should not be just a private addition to marketing plans, sales strategies, ecological bookkeeping and social balance-sheets, but should form the natural framework for human social action.38
To budge a grudge. The nature of the love in view in Leviticus 19:18 is clarified by its antithesis: taking revenge or bearing a grudge. This is not romantic or easy love, but tough love that faces a challenge and is linked to action. In an imperfect world and society, people inevitably have differences among themselves, but they must get along in spite of those differences. Everyone is tempted to unlove, but what God forbids is to cherish and nurse a grievance, which can become a seething volcano that erupts into a Vesuvian explosion of violence.
Do we need any modern illustrations? Daily newscasts reek with them. An enraged father beats another dad to death at their children’s hockey match. A mother drowns her five children. A bomb explodes on Ben Yehuda Street in downtown Jerusalem. From New York to India, from Serbia to Afghanistan, from Northern Ireland to North Korea, grudges ancient or young are a major roadblock to peace.
So how do we wage war against war, whether between individuals or groups? Sigmund Freud echoed Leviticus 19:18 when he wrote:
Anything that encourages the growth of emotional ties between men must operate against war. These ties may be of two kinds. In the first place they may be relations resembling those towards a loved object, though without having a sexual aim. There is no need for psychoanalysis to be ashamed to speak of love in this connection, for religion itself uses the same words: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ This, however, is more easily said than done. The second kind of emotional tie is by means of identification. Whatever leads men to share important interests produces this community of feeling, these identifications. And the structure of human society is to a large extent based on them.39
If anything can destroy prejudice that breeds conflict, selfless compassion can. When George Wallace, the racist governor of Alabama, was ailing toward the end of his life after a gunshot wound ended his presidential aspirations, a man who happened to be black took care of him with such tenderness that Wallace renounced his racism.
The idea that you are to love your fellow human beings as you love yourself assumes, of course, that you love yourself—that is, that you have a basic desire for self-preservation in a state of well-being. Modern psychologists point out that sociopathic individuals have difficulty loving others because they do not love themselves.
Vengeance is an urgent human imperative. If you don’t make sure justice happens, who will? If not now, when? But a person who allows God to lift the burden of responsibility for taking vengeance (Deut. 32:35; Prov. 20:22; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30) does not waive his or her right to justice. Rather, this is how to claim justice in the only way that it can adequately be carried out in an ultimate sense.40
Revenge is irreverent. When we strike back we are saying, “I know vengeance is yours, God, but I just didn’t think you’d punish enough. I thought I’d better take this situation into my own hands. You have a tendency to be a little soft.”41
By contrast, “to forgive someone is to display reverence. Forgiveness is not saying the one who hurt you was right. Forgiveness is stating that God is fair and he will do what is right.”42
Sexual harassment. When a slave woman pledged to a man has sex with someone else, the fact that only her status of servitude prevents her from being executed (Lev. 19:20) indicates that she is not a victim of rape. Execution would be out of the question even for a free rape victim (Deut. 22:25–26). The law in Leviticus 19:20–22 protects a female of inferior legal status by recognizing that her ability to withhold consent is seriously compromised. She suffers no punishment, whether she offers consent or gives in to sexual harassment. Vulnerable as she is, her consent is not even an issue.
Biblical narratives show that social inequality could be a major factor in a situation involving illicit sex or its potential. The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife illustrates how vulnerable a slave could be to sexual harassment (Gen. 39).43 Although Bathsheba was free, the drastic inequality between her and her absolute monarch, which was even greater than the difference between a U.S. President and a White House intern, weakened the relevance of her consent (2 Sam. 11).
Although our society does not have slavery, subordinates can still be vulnerable to sexual advances. A boss can pressure an employee, a teacher can become too friendly with a student, or an adult can take advantage of a child or adolescent. This is unfair, but thanks to enhanced social awareness, protection against abuse of power through unwanted sexual advances has increased. Subordinates should be treated with respect.
Sex slavery. It is distressing that there was a need for God to prohibit parents from making their daughters become prostitutes (19:29). How could anyone imagine doing such a thing? But desperate poverty can be hard on decency, as illustrated in My Fair Lady. Watching an exchange between Prof. Henry Higgins and Alfred P. Doolittle concerning a potential financial arrangement with regard to the latter’s daughter, Eliza, Colonel Pickering incredulously queries: “Have you no morals, man?”
Doolittle replies: “Naw, naw, can’t afford ‘em, Governor.”
Doolittle’s response is funny in the context of entertainment, but in Asia the same attitude in real life is breeding tragedy.
According to the International Labor Organization, at least 1 million children are working as prostitutes in Asia. Sexual slavery feeds on destitution, and Asia, home to two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor, offers plenty. . . . The ILO estimates that the flesh trade has mushroomed into a major regional industry, accounting for 2% to 14% of GDP in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.44
Moral wickedness is not the only evil spreading around. With HIV on the rise, compelling one’s child to become a sex slave can be a death sentence.
Surely it is only men who sell their daughters! Wrong. After journalists investigating a brothel in Thailand purchased Tip and Lek, two fourteenyear-old Burmese girls, in order to set them free, they learned that “the mothers of both girls were in on the deal from the start and had received regular payments from the brothel.”45
So what can we do? Not much as individuals, but as a group we can raise awareness, work through international organizations, support the kinds of economic aid to developing countries that benefit the lower strata of society, and push for some kind of effective restraint on people from our developed countries who foster the sex trade by flying into places like Bangkok to exploit children.
Modern occult. The Lord’s motivation in keeping the Israelites from occult practices (19:26, 31; 20:27) was not to withhold beneficial knowledge or power from them. When King Saul desperately resorted to a spiritualist séance to find out what the future held (1 Sam. 28), he gained only paralyzing dread because he had turned from the Lord, who holds the future (cf. 1 Chron. 10:13–14). The occult still lures people who want success without the moral strings attached to following the Lord’s guidance. Reader’s Digest reports a trend to TV shows that feature clairvoyants, of which there were five in the fall of 2002.
“The paranormal is very seductive. It explains those things that science can’t,” says Bob Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television. In fact, 60% of us believe that some people possess psychic powers, and we blow an estimated $1.4 billion a year on psychic hotline calls.46
It is logical for those who are “trying to locate the Big Deal of the Day apart from any concern for moral guidance”47 to seek information from any source they think might help them, including psychic hotlines and horoscopes. “It only makes sense to ask God for guidance in the context of a life committed to ‘seeking first the kingdom.’”48
Isaiah 8:21–22 describes the results of turning to occult sources of guidance:
Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
Occult’s reign of terror was well known outside Israel. Will Durant writes of ancient Greek culture:
Between these upper and nether poles of Greek religion, the Olympian and the subterranean, surged an ocean of magic, superstition, and sorcery; behind and below the geniuses whom we shall celebrate were masses of people poor and simple, to whom religion was a mesh of fears rather than a ladder of hope.49
In the Bible there is no such thing as good occult. To the contrary, within the context of ancient Israel, Leviticus 20:27 condemned mediums and spiritists to death, and Deuteronomy 18:10–12 forbade a wide range of occult practices:
Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.
The New Testament confirms the ongoing and universal applicability of separation between occult and worship of the true God. When practitioners of occult in Ephesus accepted the gospel of Christ, they publicly burned their valuable manuals (Acts 19:19). The Ephesians understood what Paul meant when he wrote to them in Ephesians 6:10–12:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Here is the reason why God forbade any contact with occult: to protect his people from deception and destruction (cf. Rev. 16:13–16). No occult power can prevail against God’s people as long as they trust in him and his infallible “missile defense shield” (Num. 23:23; Rom. 8:38–39). So there is no reason for them to concern themselves with occult.
If only the Bible were not so relevant today! Increasingly we smell the foul breath of occult in what we thought was our “civilized” culture. According to Leviticus 19:31, occult is spiritual defilement, and like all defilement, it has a tendency to spread. All sorts of divination (astrology, palm-reading, tarot cards, etc.), magic (Ouija boards), and witchcraft have become popular and lucrative in modern culture. Through the entertainment industry (including movies, television, and video games for children), as well as the publishing and music industries, occult now enjoys a high profile, high-tech, glossy image, portraying itself as exciting and “user-friendly.” But who is using whom?
In the Bible, Christians read about Jesus and his disciples casting out demons, but they fail to see the inconsistency of inviting demons into their homes! Things that promote the kingdom of darkness are not harmless, and the forms of occult that they market are not new even if they are packaged for the twenty-first century. Various revolting aspects of modern witchcraft, including ritual murder and fornication, strikingly parallel pagan practices of the ancient world.
Rock music performers, from the “Black Sabbath” and “KISS” groups to Marilyn Manson, have been hell-bent on parading their allegiance to the powers of darkness. Manson is a (male) minister of the church of Satan who attempts to look like his diabolical master and succeeds quite well at it. Do we worry that these kinds of nauseatingly degraded individuals are the heroes of many of our young people? Are we surprised that Manson was a favorite of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teenage boys who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado?50
Are we seeing the impact of moral terrorism on our culture when many kids prefer ugliness and evil to beauty and good? The prophet Isaiah saw this kind of twisted worldview as a sign of moral bankruptcy: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).
What can we do?
• Keep the miasma of occult influences out of our homes and away from our children.
• Warn as many people as possible about the danger.
• Let our elementary school teachers, principals, and boards know that we regard materials that promote occult as media of religious cult proselytization rather than entertainment. If educators insist that the Bible has no place in public education, concerned parents have every reason to insist that books promoting other religious viewpoints also be banned from the classroom.
• Boycott entertainment providers, game producers, and stlores that market occult to children, and let them know what we are doing and why, thereby appealing to their financial “consciences.” Since we are up against massive industries, only well-organized, vigorous action by large numbers of people will make a dent.
Am I arguing against personal freedom? On the contrary. We cannot take away a person’s decision to imbibe occult and convert to this sinister religion. But we have the right to demand that we be free to raise our children without them being subjected to invasive proselytization by a cult that is opposed to everything we hold dear before they reach an age at which they are capable of making mature and informed choices.