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. […]
Download audio Leviticus 16:1-34 Let me remind you of where we are in this important book of the Bible. We have completed a section of the book of Leviticus that deals with the causes and remedies of ritual defilement. We have made the point repeatedly that this system of ceremonial purity had as its object […]
Download audio Leviticus 15:1-33 After two Lord’s Days away from Leviticus, let me remind you where we are. Chapters 12-15 detail various ways in which Israelites could become ritually impure and the various steps necessary to be taken to remove the impurity. We have considered the impurity a woman contracts through childbirth (chapter 12), the […]
Download audio Leviticus 13:1-14:32 Some of you said to me last Sunday evening that you had been wondering what sermon I would preach on Leviticus 12, with its account of purification from ritual defilement after childbirth. Well, the emphasis on blood in that chapter made it much easier to see and explain the larger issues, […]
Download audio Leviticus 12:1-8 We are, as we noted last time, now in a section of Leviticus that deals with causes of and remedies for ritual impurity. Last time we considered the ritual impurity that is caused by certain animals. The remainder of the section, to the end of chapter 15, deals with causes of […]
Download audio Leviticus 11:1-47 Tonight we take up the question that occurs to any attentive reader of Leviticus: why in the world were some animals approved to be eaten and others not. Why was beef or lamb allowed, but not pork? Why were some birds clean and others unclean? This distinction seems pointless to the […]
Download audio Leviticus 10:1-20 Public worship had begun in Israel. The daily round of sacrifices, that would continue without interruption for centuries, was now a fixture of Israel’s public life. But anyone who knows the Bible and who knows human nature expects that it will not be long before something goes amiss. As we pointed […]
Download audio Leviticus 9:1-24 The instructions for worship in the sanctuary have been delivered by the Lord through Moses. The priests have been ordained. Now, finally, worship is to begin. Text Comment v.1 The eighth day would be the day following the seven days of the ordination ceremony narrated in the previous chapter. The priests […]
Download audio Leviticus 8:1-36 The regulations for the sacrifices and offerings that would form the bulk of the worship at the sanctuary have now been delivered. There was more than just these five offerings, to be sure. The priests had daily duties in the Holy Place, burning incense for example, that were described earlier in […]
Download audio Leviticus 6:8-7:38 As we read at 1:2, the instructions so far given were intended for the people. Now we turn to instructions for the priests, though we will also read later that some of this material (particularly that concerning the peace offering, which, as you remember, the people were able to eat) is […]
Download audio Leviticus 5:14-6:7 The guilt or reparation offering is the last of the five offerings that made up the sacrificial system of Israel’s public worship. Instead of one Lord’s Supper they had five as it were and each of them had a particular contribution to make to that worship. With three others of the […]
Download audio Leviticus 4:1-5:13 There were five standard offerings that made up the sacrificial system of Israel. We have considered so far three of them: the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the peace offering. The last two, the sin offering (also called the purification offering, the Hebrew term itself could mean either) and the […]
Download audio Leviticus 3:1-17 As we found in chapters 1 and 2, so in chapter 3 the regulations for the peace offering are divided into three very similar paragraphs, each describing how the offering is to be brought depending upon what kind of animal is to be sacrificed: cattle, sheep, or goats. In each case […]
Download audio Leviticus 2:1-16 We considered, last time, the regulations of the first of the animal sacrifices, the burnt offering. But it is not the remaining three animal sacrifices that come next, but the grain offering, the minḥah. One reason why it comes second, apparently, is that it was, like the burnt offering, a versatile […]
Download audio Leviticus 1:1-17 As we begin to make our way through Leviticus we need to remember the historical setting. The Tabernacle had just been built, as we read in the later chapters of Exodus. Public worship is about to begin there with the consecration of the priests, of which we will read in chapters […]
Download audio This evening we begin a series of sermons on the Book of Leviticus. I suppose most Christians find this book, almost uniquely among the books of the Bible, terra incognita. We may read through it as part of our Bible-reading plan, but it alternately bores us and mystifies us. It seems so utterly […]