Leviticus 23-24

Festivals / Miscellaneous

Today's reading is divided into two parts. The first part concerns the various festivals of the Israelites. The second part concerns miscellaneous regulations.

Festivals: Leviticus 23

The Lord speaks to Moses, telling him to inform the Israelites of the appointed festivals of the Lord...

The Sabbath, Passover, and Unleavened Bread: Leviticus 23.1-8
The sabbath is the seventh day of the week and no work should be done on it.

Families should make a passover offering to the Lord on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month of the year. The fifteenth day marks the beginning of the week-long festival of unleavened bread. Each day offerings by fire should be made to the Lord. A holy convocation should be held on the first and seventh day, and no one should work at his occupation on these days.

The Offering of First Fruits: Leviticus 23.9-14
When the Israelites enter Canaan, they are to bring a sheaf of the first fruits of the harvest to the priest. The pries will raise the sheaf before the Lord on the day after the sabbath, in order to gain acceptance. On this day, a year-old lamb without blemish should be sacrificed as a burnt offering, along with a grain offering and drink offering. The Lord commands that the Israelites "shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears until that very day" (Lev. 23.14).

The Festival of Weeks: Leviticus 23.15-22
A second festival will occur seven weeks after the day of the elevation offering of the sheaf - 50 days after the sabbath. This shall consist of two loaves of leavened bread as first fruits. Seven one-year-old lambs, a young bull, and two rams should be offered alongside, as well as a drink offering.

One male goat should be offered as a sin offering, and two male lambs as a sacrifice of well-being. These shall all be raised with the bread as an elevation offering.

On this day no one should do work

A previously stated commandment then appears in the midst of festival descriptions: fields should not be reaped to the edges and the gleanings should be left for the poor.

The Festival of Trumpets: Leviticus 23.23-25

On the first day of the seventh month the Israelites should observe a day of complete rest, commemorated by trumpet blasts. Offerings to the Lord are still required, though unnamed.

The Day of Atonement: Leviticus 23.26-32
The tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement (actually, starting the evening of the ninth day and ending the evening of the tenth day). People are to do no work and fast the entire day to make atonement before the Lord. Those that do not fast will be cut off, and those that work will be killed by God.

The Festival of Booths: Leviticus 23.33-44
The fifteenth day of the seventh month marks the first day of the week-long festival of booths. The first and eighth days are days of holy convocation; no one should work. On the first day the Israelites should take fruit, palm branches, and boughs of leafy trees and willows, and rejoice before the Lord for seven days.

For this week the congregation is to live in booths as a reminder that the Israelites lived in booths when they were first brought out of Egypt.

Miscellaneous: Leviticus 24

The Lamp: Leviticus 24.1-4

The people of Israel are to provide pure olive oil so the lamp may be kept burning regularly from dusk until dawn. Aaron should set the lamp up in the tent of meeting, outside the curtain of the covenant, so that it burns "before the Lord."

The Bread for the Tabernacle: Leviticus 24.5-9

The bread of the tabernacle consists of twelve loaves (one for each tribe of Israel), each made with 2/10 ephah of choice flower. The loaves should be arranged in 2 rows of six on a table of pure gold. Frankincense should be put with each row as an offering by fire.

Every sabbath Aaron shall arrange the loaves thus to show the commitment of the people of Israel. Aaron and his family may eat them in a holy place.

Blasphemy and Its Punishment: Leviticus 23.10-23

This set of instructions differs from much of Leviticus in that an anecdote of the crime is given, which prompts an explanation of the penalty. Throughout the rest, there has been little narrative in explanation of laws. The story goes like this:

Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan, has a son. One day the son is speaking with a man whose father is an Egyptian. They begin to fight, and the Israelite son curses the Egyptian, uttering the divine name in the process (the Tetragrammaton; YHWH). The Israelite is brought to Moses and put into custody until a decision comes from the Lord.

The Lord tells Moses to take the blasphemer out of the camp, where those who heard him should lay their hands on his head, while the rest of the congregation stones him. (The laying of hands served to transfer the sin from the blasphemy back to its source, much as a priest transfers sin to a sacrifice.)

God commands Moses to speak to the people of Israel: Anyone who blasphemes shall be stoned by the entire congregation. The law applies to both aliens and citizens.

God gives further commandments regarding death and injury, these applying to alien and citizen alike. Anyone who kills a human being should be put to death. Injuries should be dealt with in kind, "fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered" (Lev. 24.20).  Anyone who kills an animal should make restitution, but anyone who kills a human or blasphemes God should be killed.

We're getting to the end of Leviticus. Tomorrow: Time, time, time.