Chapter 22

Leviticus 22:3-9 - Here we have a warning issued by God: "that person shall be cut off from before Me" (NASB). It is a sad fact that modern doctrine has been so imprecise concerning salvation. The modern understanding of salvation leans two ways: Eternally secure and one can lose his salvation. So, when we come to a passage like this, the eternal security people don't know what to do but see discontinuity between Old and New Testament teaching. While those believing we are insecure rise up and say, "See! I told you!" The doctrine of salvation is too grand a subject to deal with thoroughly here, but suffice to say I believe in eternal security and passages like this are warnings. Those genuinely born again will never do anything to be "cut off." God will enable them to persevere in doing what is right. And where they sin, they will always repent. But not all Israel is truly Israel (Romans 9:6). So it is possible for men to be priests and not belong to the True Israel (such as Hophni and Phinehas, 1 Samuel 2:12ff). The warning was meant to preserve the true saints and to forewarn the reprobate. This understanding, I think, preserves the continuity of Scriptural teachings.

This particular warning is echoed in the New Testament when James says, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment" (NASB). It was no sin for non-priests to have such ailments described here. There was no punishment involved because they did not have Holy duties. For priests, however, there is punishment for violation. And when we ministers (even "Sunday School" teachers) handle the things of God wrongly, i.e., with some inner taint, we will be held more accountable than those who do the same things but are not in authority positions.

I like how Matthew Henry comments on this passage, so I've included it here: "The holy things were their [the priests] livelihood; if they might not eat of them, how must they subsist? The more we have to lose of comfort and honor by our defilement, the more careful we should be to preserve our purity. This impressed the people with a reverence for the holy things, when they saw the priests themselves separated from them (as the expression is, v. 2) so long as they were in their uncleanness. He is doubtless a God of infinite purity who kept his immediate attendants under so strict a discipline. This teaches us carefully to watch against all moral pollutions, because by them we are unfitted to receive the comfort of God's sanctuary."

Leviticus 22:17-25 - These are laws concerning the animal sacrifices themselves. They were to have no blemish. It is interesting that two times Jesus was pronounced faultless before He died. Once when Annas examined Him. Jesus calls on Annas to "bear witness" of any of His faults. Annas does not respond (John 18:23-24). Hence, Annas gives a tacit pronouncement of His faultlessness. (Annas is called the High Priest in vs. 22.)Then when Jesus is before Pilate, Pilate says, "I find no fault in Him" (John 18:28). Here two witnesses confirm the fact that Jesus was a faultless sacrifice.

Leviticus 22:24 - NASB reads, "anything with its testicles bruised or crushed etc." But the Hebrew does not specify testicles at all. It reads, "Anything bruised, crushed, etc." NASB makes an interpretive judgment here based on the Targum of Jonathan (a Jewish commentary) that Moses intended testicles. But the KJV does not read "testicles" in this verse either. Probably, the general reading is most accurate because the Lord does not want anything that is bruised, crushed, torn, etc.

Leviticus 22:25 - The foreigners were not corrupted or defiled, the offerings were. Notice that Moses teaches the Israelites were not to accept offerings that had any of the above problems, because the *offerings* were corrupted.

Leviticus 22:27 - I think that the Lord is instructing Israel to wait seven days so that the animal has an experience of life before it dies. If they sacrifice it right after birth, from the perspective of the animal, it knew no other life than immediate death. Thus, the "sacrifice" of the animal was less than if it had experienced some of the joys of life before being sacrificed. We relate this to the life of Jesus: If Jesus were "sacrificed" as a child, like Herod tried to do, His personal sacrifice would have been less, because He was not even cognizant at that point. He would be consciously giving up nothing of life to be sacrificed.

Leviticus 22:28 - This verse shows the respect God has not just for animals in general, but for *families* of all kinds. He does not want a mother and "kid" to be sacrificed in the same day. Previously, we saw that a man was not to have relations with a woman and also her mother. He is trying to protect the integrity of the family unit (Lev. 20:14). This makes God's prophesy against the High Priest Eli and his family even more striking: He and his sons died in the same day (1 Samuel 4:11-18), then soon after(could have been the same day, but it is not specified), even Phinehas's wife dies during child-bearing.

Leviticus 22:29 - This is a very difficult verse to translate. There are many variant translations. I think the proper understanding is according to Young's Literal Translation, "When you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, for your own pleasure you sacrifice." I.e., sacrifices of thanksgiving are not required. You offer them at your own pleasure or your own will. We can be thankful that God would not require us to be thankful, lest the day come when we are supposed to be thankful, and we are not. Then we would have to fake being thankful. God hates fake.

Leviticus 22:30 - He does offer some guidance about how to treat the offering of thanksgiving: None shall be left until morning. It is to be eaten the same day."

Leviticus 22:32 - "I am the Lord, the one making you holy." The second part of that sentence is a participle, which denotes an ongoing action. God is in the process of making them holy. These commandments are a part of that process. That process will continue forever until it is completed at the final Judgment, when we are purged by fire (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).