Leviticus 19:19 ¶ Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee. 20 And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. 21 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. 22 And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him. 23 And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of. 24 But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the LORD withal. 25 And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof: I am the LORD your God. 26 Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times. 27 Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. 28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. 29 Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.
Verse 19 gives us a particular command that identified the Hebrews
from the people around them. This series of commands seems to be symbolic in
addition to having a literal purpose. It also taught the Hebrews the importance
of not mixing doctrine with the errors of the heathen world.
This rule is commonly violated by mankind in agriculture, fashion,
and in many diverse engagements of human beings. We make new breeds of animal
by mixing two, new seeds by mixing, and clothing is composed of different
material. This is clearly a rule specifically for the Hebrew to be a constant
reminder of what they were not to mix, that they were to be different from the
heathen around them.
There are many sermons to be made about why Christians should not
mix pagan elements into worship or let non-Christian doctrines influence our
worship. But, taking the literal text let’s move on.
Verse 20 seems rather cruel to our sensibilities so we need to
take it into the context of the world at that time. If these commandments are
to separate the Hebrews from the pagan world then one must wonder at what laws
of the heathen verse 20 would temper. Remember, God did not create civilization
nor does He create culture, but they are part of His permissive will allowing
man to wander in his own way until sharply rebuked.
In verse 20 there is the suggestion of a consensual act between a
servant betrothed to a husband and a free man. She is committing adultery as
the act of betrothal carried with it the force of marriage without the physical
union.
A slave and a servant in the Bible are hard to distinguish between
and, in fact, are linked in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 2:14 Is Israel a servant? is he a
homeborn slave?
why is he spoiled?
In Egypt from whence the Hebrews came there were several types of
slavery. There were chattel slaves who were personal possessions often taken in
war and awarded to soldiers as booty. There were bonded laborers, sometimes
adults who could not pay off debts or children sold by poor parents. There were
also forced laborers drafted by the government to work on projects, a sort of
tax in a way for a temporary purpose.
If a master permitted a slave could marry. This female servant is
already betrothed to a husband but lies with another man. She is not put to
death because she is a master’s property. If she were free she would be put to
death for adultery. We learn in chapter 20 that both adulterer and adulteress
were to be put to death. This exception is an issue of property. So, God comes
in and where the situation of slavery already existed that the Hebrews were all
too painfully aware of He tempers the culture where a female servant in such a
situation would probably be put to death but in this case is protected by her
status as a slave. The man is not physically punished but has to make an
atonement for his sin. He is clearly probably not a slave.
Matthew Henry stated in his commentary that this law of fruit
trees separated the Hebrew from the heathen in that the pagan world around the
Hebrews offered the very first fruit a tree produced to their gods. There are
differences of opinion about the relevance of five years before the fruit can
be eaten.
Again, the command against eating/drinking blood is stated. It is
stated clearly that the heathen world used the drinking of blood to cast spells
and to declare by divination that a certain day is lucky or unlucky for some
activity like business or war or marriage.
Leviticus 3:17 It shall be a perpetual statute for
your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor
blood.
Leviticus 7:26 Moreover ye
shall eat no manner of blood, whether
it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings.
Leviticus 17:10 ¶ And
whatsoever man there be of the
house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any
manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood,
and will cut him off from among his people. 11
For the life of the flesh is
in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement
for your souls: for it is the
blood that maketh an atonement
for the soul. 12 Therefore I said unto
the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any
stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. 13 And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that
sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be
eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust.
14 For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I
said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh:
for the life of all flesh is
the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.
It
will be noted later;
Psalm 16:4 Their sorrows shall
be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings
of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
Some historical Christian churches have misinterpreted the
spiritual nature of Jesus’ words in John, chapter 6, and confused a symbolic
act with actually drinking literal blood thereby paganizing a Christian rite.
Read John 6:28 and onward. Verse 35 is one verse the underscores the symbolism
of the communion like verse 51.
The origin of Christian communion as a literal blood drink
offering began in the second century possibly with a writing attributed to the
early church father, Ignatius. It is clear in many respects that the
institutional church began absorbing pagan errors early on in the second
century. The Bible itself is our primary authority and we should only use the
so-called writings of the early church fathers as markers for when a belief or
doctrine was first mentioned or that it is not a new doctrine or belief but
exact dates and authenticity of their writings are often disputed. There is,
for instance, a supposed first century writing called The Didache, whose
authority and authenticity have been questioned that some say confirms
communion as having Christ’s literal blood and flesh in it. However, it doesn’t
say that from the version I read online and anyway some early church fathers
believed it was canon, others regarded it only as useful for reading, and
others rejected it as spurious.
For the ancient Greeks drinking blood was a potent medicine and
Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century, talked about the mad rush of
spectators in the Roman arena to drink the blood of fallen gladiators.
Verse 27 forbade the cutting of hair so that it left a tuft on top
and was shaved around the temples and behind the ears. A clue as to why might
be found in the Greek historian, Herodotus, referring to certain groups of
people who kept their hair like this in honor of the god, Bacchus, who
supposedly wore his hair that way. With regard to the beard trimming
prohibition John Gill reports ancient authorities in the same manner, that
shaving the beard, dedicating the hair and the beard to a pagan god, was not unheard
of. This is not about a so-called “worldly” hairstyle that fundamentalists like
to rant about but about a specific religious impulse glorifying false gods. The
Hebrew men were to be different than those around them. Notice the stark
contrast between the expectations for Hebrews in 1,000BC and a Christian in
50AD, the physical characteristics of their religious observance versus the
spiritual observance in attitude and behavior of the Christian. That is, unless
you believe you must never shave or get a haircut to be a good Christian.
Verse 28 reveals another pagan custom, getting body modifications,
marking the body, or tattoos for the dead. Remember what I told you previously
about veneration of ancestors in the ancient world. The individual family would have its own singular worship and gods
which represented their lars familiaris or familiar spirits (see Leviticus
20:27), the guiding divinities of ancestors dead.[1] By the Tower of Babel time
there was the beginning of all of the earth’s mythologies as,
after the dispersion of mankind at Babel, as men and women grew more distant
from the worship of the God who created them and they began to elevate
ancestors and mighty men to the level of gods. Respecting the dead and mourning
the dead easily devolved into worshipping the dead. I think it must be said
that without the religious impulse the modern fashion of body modification and
tattooing is nothing more than a trivial fad, so far. When your nephew in the
Navy got drunk on shore leave and had an anchor tattooed on his arm he was not
worshipping any pagan god. When your cousin got a butterfly tattooed on her
ankle Baal was not even in her mind. Don’t pollute Bible interpretation by
dumbing the commandments down from a condemnation of idolatry to a condemnation
of a hairstyle or a tattoo of a bald eagle on a soldier’s chest. Having a
conviction that tattoos are not a smart thing to put on your body should not
become another one of those Biblical doctrines we make up as we go along.
John
Gill wrote in his commentary quoting earlier rabbis (this is freely available
online so I am not including a formal citation):
Ye shall not make any
cuttings in your flesh for the dead,
&c.] Either with their nails, tearing their cheeks and other parts, or with
any instrument, knife, razor Jarchi says, it was the custom of the Amorites,
when anyone died, to cut their flesh, as it was of the Scythians, as
Herodotus relates, even those of the royal family; for a king they cut off
a part of the ear, shaved the hair round about, cut the arms about, wounded the
forehead and nose, and transfixed the left hand with arrows; and so the
Carthaginians, who might receive it from the Phoenicians, being a colony of
theirs, used to tear their hair and mouths in mourning, and beat their breasts;
and with the Romans the women used to tear their cheeks in such a manner that
it was forbid by the law of the twelve tables, which some have thought was
taken from hence: and all this was done to appease the infernal deities, and to
give them satisfaction for the deceased, and to make them propitious to them,
as Varro affirms; and here it is said to be made "for the soul",
for the soul of the departed, to the honour of it, and for its good, though the
word is often used for a dead body: now, according to the Jewish canons,
whosoever made but one cutting for a dead person was guilty, and to be
scourged; and he that made one for five dead men, or five cuttings for one dead
man, was obliged to scourging for everyone of them: nor print any marks
upon you; Aben Ezra observes, there are some that say this is in connection
with the preceding clause, for there were who marked their bodies with a known
figure, by burning, for the dead; and he adds, and there are to this day such,
who are marked in their youth in their faces, that they may be known; these
prints or marks were made with ink or black lead, or, however, the incisions in
the flesh were filled up therewith; but this was usually done as an idolatrous
practice; so says Ben Gersom, this was the custom of the Gentiles in ancient
times, to imprint upon themselves the mark of an idol, to show that they were
his servants; and the law cautions from doing this, as he adds, to the exalted
name (the name of God): in the Misnah it is said, a man is not guilty unless he
writes the name, as it is said, ( Leviticus 19:28 ) ; which the
Talmudists and the commentators interpret of the name of an idol, and
not of God: I [am] the Lord; who only is to be acknowledged as
such, obeyed and served, and not any strange god, whose mark should be
imprinted on them.
For
verse 29, in the context of the heathen world from which they came and into
which they were entering the Hebrews were forbidden to permit or require their
daughters to be temple prostitutes. The temples of Aphrodite or Venus, Greek
and Roman versions of Ishtar, even had schools for temple prostitutes. The
Greek historian, Herodotus, according to one source, wrote;
The foulest Babylonian
custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of
Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger once in her life. Many women
who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple
in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of
attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of
cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going;
passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass
and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go
away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had
intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must
say, “I invite you in the name of Mylitta” (that is the Assyrian name for
Aphrodite). It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never
refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So
she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their
intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to
her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So
then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely
have long to wait because they cannot fulfil the law; for some of them remain
for three years, or four. There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.[2]
Ancient religion
included sexual activity, both male and female.
Deuteronomy 23:17 There
shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. 18
Thou shalt not bring the hire
of a whore, or the price of a dog,
into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy
God.
Here, a dog is a
reference to a male temple prostitute, a sodomite.
Elsewhere, gentiles are referred to as dogs as in Matthew 15:26 and Mark 7:27.
Dogs refers to false male teachers elsewhere in the New Testament. Read the
entirety of 2Peter 2 for false teachers, males as dogs and females as sows,
swine. Also note;
Matthew 7:6 Give not that
which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their
feet, and turn again and rend you.
Philippians 3:2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware
of the concision.
Revelation 22:15 For
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers,
and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
[1] Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion,
Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (1864, repr. Mineola, NY: Dover
Publications, 2006), 134.
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