A holy God desires a holy people.
In all the universe, only God possesses flawless character. He cannot be measured against a higher moral standard—He is the absolute standard of all perfection and purity. As fallen human beings, we can barely begin to understand God’s complete sinlessness; in fact, the closer we draw to Him, the more aware we become of our own sinful condition. In a day when sin may seem like a long-outmoded concept, Leviticus reminds us that God’s holiness is real, undeniable, and just as deserving of our reverence, respect, and worship today as in ages past.
This book details how the Israelites were to relate to their holy God, living out commands conveyed in what Bible scholars call the Holiness Code. The Lord admonished His people, “You shall be holy; for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44, 45; see also 19:2; 20:26). God expected His people to be noticeably different from their neighbors, and He sharply distinguished between proper worship of Himself and the offensive customs of neighboring peoples who served gods usually portrayed as behaving little better than human beings, and sometimes much worse. The rituals of many local religions were often cruel, degrading, and dehumanizing (see “The Abominations of the Canaanites” at Lev. 18:24–30). God rejected such worship and instructed His people to shun these things.
When the Israelites left Egypt, God gave them careful instructions for conduct, diet, and ritual. Most of these laws are contained in Leviticus, which derives its name from the name of the tribe of Levi. The Levites were called to be priests and religious leaders, and Leviticus was the nation’s manual for worship and religious life. It contains several categories of instruction:
• Worship through offerings and sacrifices (Lev. 1–7).
• The relationship between physical and biological matters and religious life (Lev. 11–15).
• The Day of Atonement, the annual ceremony that dealt with the nation’s sin (Lev. 16).
• The spiritual implications of day-to-day life (Lev. 17–24).
• The Year of Jubilee, when property and lands were returned to their owners and servants to their families (Lev. 25).
• The implications of obeying or disobeying the Law (Lev. 26).
• Vows (Lev. 27).
The letter of these laws applied only to ancient Israel, but their spirit continues to be relevant to God’s people today. The New Testament repeats this book’s call to holiness in every area of life (1 Pet. 1:14–16). Jesus drew on a command found in Leviticus when He said that to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) is second only to loving God (Matt. 22:37–39).
Leviticus lists strict laws concerning blood sacrifices, regulations that may seem far removed from modern life. But they remind us of the heavy penalty that sin exacts and the necessity of the atoning death of Jesus Christ. He is the Lamb of God whose death made atonement for all sins, an act anticipated by sacrifices offered on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:11–34; Heb. 9:6–28). Making this connection helps us see what it cost Jesus to reconcile us with God. And as we begin to understand His sacrifice, we picture what our response should be—a life of holiness.
Leviticus is believed to have been written by Moses (see his profile at Ex. 2:10). The events of the book took place in the Wilderness of Sinai (see the map at “Mount Sinai and the Wilderness of Sinai” at Ex. 19:1, 20) after the Israelites received the Law at Mount Sinai and built the tabernacle (Ex. 19–31, 35–40), sometime around 1400 B.C.
Key Events in Leviticus