Download audio Leviticus 27:1-34 Why didn’t the book of Leviticus conclude at the end of chapter 26? Curses usually ended covenant documents in those days, why not here? Chapter 27 does seem in certain ways to be something of an afterthought, a kind of appendix. And, for that reason, as you might expect, some scholars […]
Download audio Leviticus 26:1-46 We are near to the end of this great book. A single chapter follows the one we are reading tonight. The chapter we are about to read contains material that very obviously takes its shape from the covenant or treaty literature of the ancient near east, the diplomatic literature of the […]
Download audio Leviticus 25:1-55 Tonight’s reading, as you can see, is a lengthy one, some 55 verses. I’ll try to keep my comments to a minimum, though there are certain features of the laws contained in this chapter that require some explanation. Obviously, here too, as so often before in Leviticus, the legislation anticipates Israel’s […]
Download audio Leviticus 24:1-23 We are nearing the end of the book of Leviticus. After this evening, only three chapters remain. But there is some fascinating and highly important material in these last chapters, including a passage, or at least a phrase from this evening’s text, which is undoubtedly one of the most widely known […]
Download audio Leviticus 23:1-44 We continue with liturgical regulations in chapter 23, but regulations of a very different kind. Here we are introduced to Israel’s liturgical year, to all the festivals or religious holidays celebrated in biblical times. If the previous two chapters concentrated on the Lord’s holy things, this chapter devotes attention to the […]
Download audio Leviticus 22:1-33 Remember we started our series of sermons in Leviticus by saying that for the ordinary believer in the ancient church the three books of the Bible that he or she would know best would be Deuteronomy, the Psalms and the Book of Leviticus. It may be the book of the Bible […]
Download audio Leviticus 21:1-24 One of the principal reasons why ministers do not preach through books of the Bible is that when they do, they come from time to time to chapters like Leviticus 21. In some ways, it is genuinely remarkable that, given when and where the Bible was written, there are so few […]
Download audio Leviticus 20:1-27 Chapter 19, which we considered last week, was a selection of laws based more or less on the Ten Commandments. Chapter 18 was a long list of laws, most of which dealt with whom it was permissible to have a sexual relationship, always in marriage of course. This chapter concerns the […]
Download audio Leviticus 18:1-30 For the first time in Leviticus we have before us something other than liturgical instruction. We turn now to ethics, to rules for living. But we should not think of these commandments as simply a list of “thou shalt nots.” What we have here is something more fundamental. What all of […]
Download audio Leviticus 17:1-16 Since it has been several weeks since we were last in Leviticus, let’s review. After seven chapters detailing the regulations of the four major sacrifices and three chapters having to do with the ordination and work of the priests, there followed five chapters of regulations concerning ceremonial impurity and its removal. […]