Leviticus (OTL)

A Commentary

Erhard S. Gerstenberger

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN: 9780664226732
• eBook ISBN: 9781611645910
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

This volume in the Old Testament Library series focuses on the book of Leviticus.

The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

1. Introduction

1.1 Difficulties in Reading the Bible

If before reading a text a person does not first clearly determine just what sort of text it is, misunderstanding is unavoidable. A text is able to communicate only those particular signals and information that are commensurate with its essential character, its origin, use, and intentions. We deal every day with a wide variety of texts: telephone books, novels, business letters, newspaper reports, advertisements, owner’s instructions, traffic signs, cooking recipes. From experience we know how to classify each individual type of text within our daily realities, how to decipher these texts, and we know what they have to say to us. Woe to the person who takes as a joke the warning label “poison” on a bottle, or who reads an invoice as a love letter.

Because priestly duties occupy such a central position within the third book of Moses (cf. Lev. 1–10; 16; 21), it is called Liber Leviticus in the Latin tradition (after the model of the Greek tradition): “Book concerning Levitical Matters.” This name obscures the distinction between priests and Levites as clearly delineated, for example, in Num. 4; Deut. 18:1–8; 1 Chron. 23–26; 2 Chron. 35:1–19. Hence, this later name already derives from a misleading interpretation and represents an early example of how a prejudiced perspective can reclassify a text itself. How much more difficult must it be for us, given our historical distance, to understand these ancient witnesses correctly! They already seem inaccessible to us, since from our own experience we are familiar neither with the older textual types (genres) nor with the customs and rites they discuss. Who among us has dealt with sacrifices and purity prescriptions, or with temple service and taboo regulations? Even Jews living in the immediate sphere of influence of the Hebrew Bible often feel alienated from the priestly laws.¹ Complaints from every quarter, extending even into scholarly commentaries, insist that the strictly cultic orientation of the third book of Moses makes it an unusually dry piece of writing. Such complaints prove how alien and distant this part of the Bible has become to contemporary readers, and how poorly developed is our own capacity for comprehending past situations of life intellectually and emotionally. We presuppose, usually unconsciously (and this is a universally human phenomenon that can be explained sociopsychologically), that our own life circumstances and conceptual habits are the “right” ones, and are the standard by which all ages and cultures are to be measured. Such cultural and religious egocentrism leads especially in the sanctified sphere of worship to a dissociation from cultic practices deviating from our own. We become fully conscious of the Bible’s strangeness in this respect when we read in the third book of Moses about animal slaughter, blood rites, atonement services, dietary restrictions, and so on.

The alien quality of the “Levitical” customs associated with worship resulted in the Christian tradition largely excluding the book of Leviticus from its collection of sermon texts, from confirmation instruction, and from Bible study in general. And even more: Incomprehensible rites such as dietary commandments (Lev. 11) or purity regulations (Lev. 12–15) nourished the feeling of superiority over “the Jews,” thereby strengthening antisemitic prejudices. Christians misused the book of Leviticus, in addition to other Old Testament texts, to make the Jewish faith despicable.²

If, however, we take into consideration the different social and cultural circumstances of the biblical period, that is, the strangeness of ancient priestly traditions as well, and if we are prepared to seek out comparable experiences from contemporary life, then we will not so easily be deterred from reading the third book of Moses. On the contrary, healthy curiosity may result. How did the ancient Israelites understand their own behavior in relation to Yahweh in the intimate life of worship? What connections did they establish between worship and daily reality? We anticipate that “this book is one that particularly reveals something of the living variety and historical development of the whole system of worship in Ancient Israel,”³ and that something of the explosive power of the Yahweh faith—power transcending ceremonial law proper—is yet visible and accessible to experience.

1.2 “Leviticus”: A Book?

According to contemporary literary understanding, Leviticus is not a “book” at all, but rather a fairly artificial excerpt from a larger narrative and legislative work, sewn together like a patchwork quilt from many different, individual pieces. In Ex. 19:1–2, the people of Israel arrive during their wilderness wanderings at the mountain of God; there, after a terrifying theophany, they receive a great many instructions, laws, admonitions, and plans (cf. Ex. 20–23; 25–31; Lev. 1–7; Num. 1–2; etc.). The departure from Mount Sinai and the continuation of the march come only in Num. 10:11–34. Remarks about the wanderings in Ex. 40:36–38 and Num. 9:17–23 are of a general nature (“they customarily set out,” “they would go onward”), and follow descriptions of the appearances of clouds and fire at the tabernacle. “Leviticus” deals with events between Israel’s arrival at the mount of God and its departure, and thus consistently presupposes Israel’s sojourn in Yahweh’s proximity. This excerpt from the giving of the law at Sinai continues the traditions of Exodus 19–40 and itself is continued uninterrupted in Numbers 1–10. The delimitation of this particular portion (why was the division not made after Ex. 35 or Num. 10?) and its characterization as a “book” seem arbitrary, and probably coincide with the division of the writings of Moses into five parts ( = Torah, Pentateuch). Practical considerations regarding the public reading of these writings during worship probably provided the impetus. This division into the “Pentateuch” (five books) took place sometime between the fifth and third centuries B.C.E., since the Greek translation (Septuagint) is just as familiar with it as are the even older holy scriptures of the Samaritans, who split off from Judaism proper.

Both the Hebrew and the Greek tradition named the third book of Moses in its own way. The Hebrew scribes followed ancient oriental convention in naming it according to its beginning word, “he called” (wayyiqrā’; Lev. 1:1), while the designation given by the Greek-speaking scribes refers to the content, “the Levitical (book)”; that is, the traditions collected here are part of the responsibilities of the “Levitical” priests. But is this really a reference to those “Levites” who performed the lower temple duties during the later Old Testament period (cf. 1 Chron. 23:28–32)? This must remain an open question, since the third book of Moses makes no mention of hymnic praise, a typically Levitical activity (cf. 1 Chron. 23:30), but does indeed mention sacrificial institutions (1 Chron. 23:31f.), institutions from which according to other passages the simple Levites were specifically excluded (1 Chron. 23:28–29; cf. Num. 3:6–9). Hence we see that the name of the third book of Moses already offers us information concerning the book’s history of transmission. One might also add that the ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses is known only from much later Jewish tradition (Josephus, first century C.E.).

The style and content of the third book of Moses betray even more than do its various names the long growth process traversed by the entire tradition of the Pentateuch. We must decisively distance ourselves from what is for us the self-evident notion that the biblical books were written down in a single sweep by one or only a few authors. The emergence of this sort of “book” must be sought rather in the liturgical use of the sacred texts, which went on for centuries. The actual genesis of such a book takes place in ever new stages of composition, collection, and interpretation, in both oral and written transmission, alteration, and restructuring of the texts. Growth stages or “rings” emerge which to a certain degree precise and exact study of the biblical books is able to distinguish.

To be sure, at first glance the external form of the third book of Moses exhibits strict uniformity. God speaks to Moses and in some instances also to Aaron, and through these two (prophetic-priestly?) spokespersons makes his will known to the people of Israel. Altogether, the expression “he spoke to Moses” occurs thirty-five times. Although this expression seems to occur at peculiarly asymmetrical intervals (compare the intervals between Lev. 1:1 and 4:1, and between 8:1 and 10:8, with the shorter ones between Lev. 7:22 and 7:28 or 23:23 and 23:26), it nonetheless is clearly conceived as an element of division. All the material collected together in this book is divine discourse, mediated to the community by Moses (and Aaron). Occasional concluding notices associated with main or secondary sections initially strengthen the impression of self-enclosure and of legislative acts following immediately upon one another.

A precise analysis of textual details, however, leads to the opposite conclusion. Not a single chapter in this book has been composed in a single sweep or by a single hand. Various stages of redaction, different concerns, and different theological conceptions are everywhere discernible, something our detailed exegesis will show clearly. In general we can say that as a rule, the later collectors, who were concerned with the role of Moses (and Aaron) as mediators and with the legitimation of the cultic prescriptions as the revelation of Yahweh, brought together much—and extremely eclectic—older material (cf., for example, the interpretation of Lev. 16; 18; 19).

Of course, we would love to know in which or for which situation in life the extant prescriptions were collected. Initially, the question of the genre and social origin of the third book of Moses can be answered only by conjectures. Certain clues suggest it came about within the framework of an early Jewish (postexilic) worship service centered either on reading or on preaching. First, there is the framing formula already mentioned, “Yahweh spoke to Moses,” emphasizing God’s verbal communication with his people. The interpretative formula “this is the law” (cf. Lev. 6:2, 7, 18 [9, 14, 25E]; 7:1, 11, 37; 14:2, 32, 54, 57, and five additional occurrences), the passages directly addressing a congregation in the admonitory fashion of a sermon (cf. Lev. 18:30; 19:19, 37; 20:22; 22:31; etc.), the theological interest in the sanctification of the people (cf. Lev. 19:2), in the cultic purity and absolution of every member of the congregation (cf. Lev. 15), in the implementation of justice and righteousness in Israel (cf. Lev. 24:22)—these and other elements might be additional evidence suggesting the provenance of the texts of the “Priestly Source” within congregational situations (see section 1.3, “The Congregation: Cult and Life”).

But what is the “Priestly Source”? Since the end of the nineteenth century, when Julius Wellhausen presented his theory of the origin of the Pentateuch, scholars have discussed this “Three- or Four-Source Hypothesis.”⁴ According to this hypothesis, the Mosaic Pentateuch is composed of what were originally independent portrayals of Israel’s early history, namely, the Yahwistic, Elohistic, Deuteronomic, and Priestly works. What is known as the Priestly Source (P) is the latest literary stratum, dating to the fifth century B.C.E.; it is the most easily recognizable source in the conglomeration of Pentateuch texts because of its distinctly formed language, content, and theology.⁵

According to this view, the third book of Moses belongs from its first to its last word to the Priestly Source, or at least to its immediate sphere of influence. The authors responsible for P spun the thread from the creation narrative (Gen. 1:1–2:4a), through the genealogies and Flood Narrative (Gen. 5–10; the text is blended with other source components and secondary expansions), the traditions of the patriarchs and the exodus (focal points include Gen. 17; 23; Ex. 6:2–12; 7:1–13), to the revelation at Sinai.⁶

There, at the mount of God, Israel stands before its God and receives especially the instructions for building the “tent of meeting,” its appurtenances, and for organizing its personnel (Ex. 24:15b–29:46). This line reaches its high point with the official consecration of the sacred tent, conceived as the prototype of the Jerusalem temple (Lev. 8–9; 16). Accordingly, after the establishment of 1. the sabbath in creation (Gen. 2:2f.), 2. permission to eat flesh and prohibition against consuming blood (Gen. 9:3f.), and 3. circumcision (Gen. 17) and Passover (Ex. 12:1–20), the authors of the Priestly Source are crucially concerned with anchoring the sacrificial cult at the sanctuary established by Yahweh in Israel’s early history. In the process, they are also concerned with legitimizing the Aaronite priesthood.⁷

During the past two decades, the hypothesis of a self-enclosed Priestly narrative has been increasingly called into question. Various scholars prefer to explain the origin of this late stratum in the Pentateuch on the basis of the general processes involved in tradition: Texts are collected and then altered according to their use by a certain group of people.⁸ This traditio-historical view—as opposed to a literary view—makes it considerably easier to understand the colorful collection of texts in the third book of Moses. Literary analysis tried to isolate a narrative strand of the P editorial circle. The purely legal sections such as Leviticus 1–7; 11–15 were usually viewed as secondary insertions. However, if a text grows like a tree in annual rings, then one can free oneself from the notion of an ordered, continuing narrative and focus on the thematically centered growth of individual textual groups.

The complex in Ex. 25–31; 35–40; Lev. 1–10 is apparently a thematic circle of this sort, to which were added other textual collections such as the impurity regulations in Leviticus 11–15 or blocks of what is known as the “Holiness Code” in Leviticus 17–26. For after the dedication of the sanctuary, the question of necessity became urgent concerning the kind of cultically flawless behavior that was both pleasing to and worthy of God. Thus the text grew in both oral and written tradition, and during a later stage was divided artificially into “books” (scrolls) and lectionary sections according to the quantity of its reading material. Here “Leviticus” actually represents the smallest and most awkward section within the Pentateuch, something also evident in the number of weekly lectionary sections that were probably fixed sometime during the final pre-Christian centuries. In the three-year Palestinian sabbath lectionary cycle, the third book of Moses provided 23–25 sections.⁹

1.3 The Congregation: Cult and Life

The real addressee of the third book of Moses is a colorless “someone,” “any of you,” a member of the people of Israel (Lev. 1:2). Who is this? It is the anonymous member, “any person” in the postexilic community of faith, just as in Ezek. 18 or Ps. 15 and Isa. 33:14–16. Although this “someone” is in all instances genuinely responsible for making a decision, this is not a lone individual, but rather someone imbedded in the common community of faith. He or she does not have to make the decision whether or not actually to join, in contrast to the situation in Josh. 24 or Deut. 29:11f. (12f.E); Ruth 1:16f. But in daily life, this person is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the German Edition
• Bibliography
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Sacrificial Regulations (Leviticus 1–7)
• 3. The Beginnings of Worship (Leviticus 8–10)
• 4. Purity and Purification (Leviticus 11–15)
• 5. Atonement Festival and Sacrificial Blood (Leviticus 16–17)
• 6. Regulations for Living (Leviticus 18–20)
• 7. Priestly Matters (Leviticus 21–22)
• 8. Festivals and Free Years (Leviticus 23–25)
• 9. Conclusion (Leviticus 26–27)
• Index