Leaving Egypt—as important and miraculous as that was—didn’t fully accomplish God’s purposes for the children of Israel. Even future prosperity in the promised land wasn’t God’s ultimate objective for them. These were only steps toward what God really wanted for His people: “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). How did God seek to make His people holy when they had known nothing but captivity for generations? He commanded them to create a place of holiness to the Lord—a tabernacle in the wilderness. He gave them covenants and laws to guide their actions and, ultimately, to change their hearts. And when they fell short in their efforts to keep those laws, He commanded them to make animal sacrifices to symbolize atonement for their sins. All of this was meant to point their minds, their hearts, and their lives toward the Savior and the redemption He offers. He is the true path to holiness, for the Israelites and for us. We have all spent some time in the captivity of sin, and we are all invited to repent—to leave sin behind and follow Jesus Christ, who has promised, “I am able to make you holy” (Doctrine and Covenants 60:7).
The Lord wants me to become holy as He is.
Exodus 25–31 records the Lord’s instructions to the Israelites about how to build a tabernacle, where sacred ordinances would help them become a holy people. Exodus 35–40describes the Israelites’ efforts to obey these instructions.
Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I can be forgiven.
Much of the book of Leviticus may seem strange to us—animal sacrifices, rituals involving blood and water, and laws governing minute details of life. But these rituals and laws were meant to teach principles that are familiar—repentance, holiness, and the Savior’s Atonement.
God can make us holy.
President Henry B. Eyring taught:
“Greater happiness comes from greater personal holiness. … The scriptures teach us that among other things, we can be sanctified or become more holy when we exercise faith in Christ, demonstrate our obedience, repent, sacrifice for Him, receive sacred ordinances, and keep our covenants with Him. …
“The hymn ‘More Holiness Give Me’ [Hymns, no. 131] suggests a way to pray for help in becoming more holy. The author wisely suggests that the holiness we seek is a gift from a loving God, granted over time, after all we can do” (“Holiness and the Plan of Happiness,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2019, 100–101, 103).
Leviticus is the third of the five books of Moses (see “The Books of Genesis, Moses, and Abraham,” p. 9). We assume that the instructions in Leviticus were revealed to Moses either while he was on Mount Sinai or sometime shortly after the events described in Exodus because part of the instructions deal with sacrifices to be offered in the tabernacle. Leviticus means “having to do with the Levites.” The Lord chose the tribe of Levi to take care of the tabernacle, work in it, and help the rest of the house of Israel perform ordinances in that sacred place. Much of Leviticus gives instructions concerning the ordinances to be performed in the tabernacle, the qualifications of the priesthood holders who would perform those ordinances, and the duties of the people with regard to the ordinances.
Because Leviticus is a “handbook” for the Levites serving in the tabernacle, it contains many detailed instructions concerning different kinds of sacrifices and religious practices that may seem strange or unfamiliar to the modern reader. If you look past these unfamiliar practices, you can learn important truths about sin, repentance, forgiveness, holiness, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Leviticus 1 gives instructions for a burnt offering. The priests made this offering twice a day. Individuals could also make a burnt offering to show their devotion and commitment to God. Many of the instructions concerning the burnt offering are the same as for other offerings explained in Leviticus. The biggest difference between the burnt offering and other offerings is that to make a burnt offering the entire animal was burned on the altar, symbolizing total commitment or surrender to God.
The Day of Atonement
The first fifteen chapters of Leviticus all have something to do with how individuals became “right” with God through sacrifice or how they become ceremonially “clean” before Him by obedience to His laws of cleanliness. Leviticus 15 contains further instructions about how human functions relate to being clean or unclean under the law of Moses. We must realize, however, that there is no real forgiveness of sins without sincere repentance and the Atonement of Christ. Leviticus 16 describes a sacred ceremony that the Lord commanded the Israelites to perform once a year at a specific time that symbolized how Jesus Christ would atone for the sins of all people. While the rites described in Leviticus 1–15 were individual in application, the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16 symbolized atonement for the sins of the whole Israelite nation and was a day when the entire house of Israel fasted and rested.
Leviticus 16. The Day of Atonement and Israel’s Forgiveness
“The Day of Atonement, which took place in the fall of the year, was the most sacred and solemn of all the Israelite festivals. In it we most clearly see the typology or symbolism of Christ’s work for Israel. It was a day of national fasting and one that signified that the sins of Israel had been atoned for and that the nation and its people were restored to a state of fellowship with God. The feast included the following major items (see Leviticus 16 where the details are given):
1. The high priest had to go through meticulous preparation to be worthy to act as the officiator for the rest of the house of Israel. This included sacrifices for himself and his house, as well as washing and purification through the sprinkling of sacrificial blood on various objects in the tabernacle.
2. The high priest put off the official robes he normally wore and clothed himself in simple, white linen garments. (See Revelation 19:8 for the significance of white linen garments.)
3. Two goats were chosen by lot. One was designated as the goat of the Lord, and one was designated as the scapegoat, or in Hebrew, the goat of Azazel. The goat of Jehovah was offered as a sin offering, and the high priest took its blood into the holy of holies of the tabernacle and sprinkled it on the lid of the ark of the covenant (called the ‘mercy seat’), thus making atonement for the sins of Israel.
4. The other goat, Azazel, was brought before the high priest, who laid his hands upon its head and symbolically transferred all of the sins of Israel to it. Then it was taken out into the wilderness and released where it would never be seen again. One commentator explained the significance of Azazel by saying that it represented ‘the devil himself, the head of the fallen angels, who was afterwards called Satan; for no subordinate evil spirit could have been placed in antithesis to Jehovah as Azazel is here, but only the ruler or head of the kingdom of demons.’ (C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, bk. 1: The Pentateuch, ‘The Third Book of Moses,’ 10 bks. [n.d.], p. 398.)
“… The book of Hebrews [draws] heavily on the typology of the Day of Atonement to teach the mission of Christ. In that epistle he made the following points:
a. Christ is the great high priest (Hebrews 3:1) who, unlike the high priest of the Aaronic Priesthood, was holy and without spot and did not need to make atonement for his own sins before he could be worthy to officiate for Israel and enter the holy of holies (Hebrews 7:26–27). His perfect life was the ultimate fulfillment of the symbol of wearing white garments.
b. The true tabernacle (or temple, or house of the Lord) is in heaven, and the earthly tabernacle made by Moses was to serve as a shadow or type of the heavenly one. (See Hebrews 8:2–5; 9:1–9.)
c. Christ is the Lamb of Jehovah as well as the High Priest. Through the shedding of his blood he became capable of entering the heavenly Holy of Holies where he offered his own blood as payment for the sins of those who would believe in him and obey his commandments. (See Hebrews 9:11–14, 24–28; 10:11–22; D&C 45:3–5.)” (Lund, “Old Testament Types and Symbols,” Symposium, 187–88.)
Notwithstanding the symbolic significance of the ritual of this holy day, the ritual did have the power to bring about a forgiveness of Israel’s sins. Elder James E. Talmage said:
“The sacred writings of ancient times, the inspired utterances of latter-day prophets, the traditions of mankind, the rites of sacrifice, and even the sacrileges of heathen idolatries, all involve the idea of vicarious atonement. God has never refused to accept an offering made by one who is authorized on behalf of those who are in any way incapable of doing the required service themselves. The scapegoat and the altar victim of ancient Israel, if offered with repentance and contrition,were accepted by the Lord in mitigation of the sins of the people.” (Articles of Faith, p. 77; emphasis added.)
"Be Holy for I Am Holy"
Leviticus 19–20 records the Lord’s emphasis on being holy. The word for holy in Hebrew is “qadash,” which means to be sanctified, consecrated, and dedicated or to be separated from the world and worldliness. Not only did the Lord command the Israelites to be holy, but in these two chapters He gave specific examples of things they could do in their daily lives to obey this commandment. Each of these specific practices helped remind the Israelites to separate themselves from the world and its ungodly practices. Jesus later explained the basic principle behind holiness when He taught His Apostles that He would not take them out of the world but would keep them from evil (see John 17:14–16).
Leviticus 19:2–18. “Ye Shall Be Holy: For I the Lord Your God Am Holy”
The last chapter examined in some detail the laws of cleanliness and uncleanliness in both their physical and spiritual senses. The closing chapters of Leviticus focus on laws that defined how one under the Mosaic law lived righteously and in a manner pleasing to God. Leviticus ends with essentially the same message with which it began, namely, the all-important admonition that men are to be holy, even as God is holy. The laws that follow this commandment may seem at first to be without logical arrangement or interconnection, but they are unified when one considers them in light of the injunction to be holy given in verse 2. Note also the strong relationship to the Ten Commandments in what immediately follows (see vv. 3–12). The fifth commandment (honoring parents) and the fourth commandment (keeping the Sabbath day holy) are joined in verse 3, followed immediately by the second commandment (no graven images). In verse 11 the eighth commandment (stealing) is joined with the ninth (bearing false witness), and then again is immediately connected to the third commandment (taking God’s name in vain) in verse 12. By this means the Lord seems to indicate that what follows the commandment to be holy is directly related to these fundamental principles of righteousness. The specific laws that follow the commandments define principles of righteousness that follow naturally from the Ten Commandments. For example, the commandment is not to steal, but these laws show that the commandment means far more than not robbing a man or burglarizing his home. One can steal through fraud or by withholding wages from a laborer (v. 13). The commandment is to honor one’s parents, but here the Lord used the word “fear” (v. 3), which connotes a deep respect, reverence, and awe, the same feelings one should have for God Himself. The example of the gossiping “talebearer” (v. 16) shows that there are ways to bear false witness other than under oath in court. And the concluding principle summarizes the whole purpose of the law. If one is truly holy, as God is holy, then he will love his neighbor as himself (see v. 18).
Leviticus 19:18. What Commandments Underlie All Others?
During His earthly ministry, the Master was asked by a scribe which of all the commandments was the greatest. The Savior’s reply is well known: Love God and love your neighbor. Then He said: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40; see also vv. 35–39). Or, to put it another way, those two principles are the foundation for all the writings of the Old Testament. All principles and commandments stem either from the need to love God or to love our neighbor.
Both of the laws cited by Jesus are found in the Old Testament, but not together. The first is found in Deuteronomy 6:5and the second in Leviticus 19:18. The wording of the second commandment is instructive. The statement that one is to love his neighbor as himself moves the idea of love in this case from a state of emotion to one of will. Love is that emotion which one naturally feels for oneself. Simply expressed, it is a desire one has for his own good. To love or care for oneself is natural and good, but in addition, one must feel this same emotion for others. Each must desire the good of others as well as his own. This desire is not innate but comes through a conscious act of will or agency. The commandment thus implies that one should work both for his own good and the good of others. He should not aggrandize himself at another’s expense. This commandment is at the heart of all social interaction and becomes the standard by which every act can be judged.
Any person who truly understands the implications for daily living that are part of the commandment to love God with all his heart, might, mind, and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, can function well with no additional laws. One does not need to warn a person who loves God properly about idolatry, for any act of worship not devoted to God would be naturally offensive to him. The prohibitions against stealing, adultery, murder, and so on are not required if a person truly loves his neighbor as himself, for to injure his neighbor in such ways would be unthinkable. But, of course, the vast majority of men fail to understand and keep these two commandments, and so the Lord has revealed many additional laws and rules to show specifically what the commandments require. But truly, all such commandments do nothing more than define and support the two basic principles:
Leviticus 19:23–25. What Is “Uncircumcised” Fruit?
“The metaphorical use of circumcision is thus explained by the text itself: it denotes the fruit as disqualified or unfit. In [Leviticus 26:41] the same metaphor is used for the heart which is stubborn or not ripe to listen to the Divine admonitions. And in other passages of Scripture it is used with reference to lips [Exodus 6:12, 30] and ears [Jeremiah 6:10] which do not perform their proper functions.” (C. D. Ginsburg, in Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 147–48.)
Exactly why the fruit produced for the first three years of the tree was to be treated as unfit is not clear, but in this context of laws of righteousness and sanctification, this prohibition could suggest that until the first-fruits of the tree were dedicated to God, just as the firstborn of animals and men were (see Exodus 13:1–2), the tree was not viewed as sanctified, or set apart, for use by God’s people. Because the ground had been cursed for man’s sake when Adam fell (see Genesis 3:17), this law could have served as a simple reminder that until dedicated to God and His purposes, all things remained unfit for use by God’s holy people.
Leviticus 19:26–31. Setting Israel Apart from the World
At first, the laws found in these verses may seem to have little application for the modern Saint, and may even seem puzzling as requirements for ancient Israel. What, for example, would the cutting of one’s hair and beard have to do with righteousness? But in the cultural surroundings of ancient Israel, these specific prohibitions taught a powerful lesson related to the practices of Israel’s heathen neighbors.
For example, the Hebrew word nachash, translated as “enchantment” (v. 26), meant “to practice divination,” and the phrase “observe times” (v. 26) comes from the Hebrew word meaning “to observe clouds” (Wilson, Old Testament Word Studies, s.v. “enchantment,” p. 144). In the ancient world, sorcerers and necromancers often claimed to read the future through various omens or objects. Their methods included watching the stars (astrology), observing the movements of clouds and certain animals, tying knots, casting lots, tossing arrows into the air and then reading the pattern of how they fell, and so on. (See Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. “magic, divination, and sorcery,” pp. 566–70.) Thus, verse 26 forbade any use of the occult to read the future.
Another Bible scholar gave an important insight about why cutting the hair and beard was forbidden.
“[Leviticus 19:27] and the following verse evidently refer to customs which must have existed among the Egyptians when the Israelites sojourned in Egypt; and what they were it is now difficult, even with any probability, to conjecture. Herodotus observes that the Arabs shave or cut their hair round,in honour of Bacchus [the god of wine] who, they say, had his hair cut in this way. … He says also that the Macians, a people of Libya, cut their hair round, so as to leave a tuft on the top of the head. … In this manner the Chinese cut their hair to the present day. This might have been in honour of some idol, and therefore forbidden to the Israelites.
“The hair was much used in divination among the ancients, and for purposes of religious superstition among the Greeks; and particularly about the time of the giving of this law, as this is supposed to have been the era of the Trojan war. We learn from Homer that it was customary for parents to dedicate the hair of their children to some god; which, when they came to manhood, they cut off and consecrated to the deity. Achilles, at the funeral of Patroclus, cut off his golden locks which his father had dedicated to the river god Sperchius, and threw them into the flood. …
“If the hair was rounded, and dedicated for purposes of this kind, it will at once account for the prohibition in this verse.” (Clarke, Bible Commentary, 1:575.)
In forbidding the cutting of the flesh and the tattooing of marks in the flesh, the Lord again clearly signaled that Israel was to be different from their heathen neighbors. Wounds were self-inflicted in times of grief for the dead and during worship (see 1 Kings 18:28). Also, “it was a very ancient and a very general custom to carry marks on the body in honour of the object of their worship. All the castes of the Hindoos bear on their foreheads or elsewhere what are called the sectarian marks, which distinguish them, not only in a civil but also in a religious point of view, from each other.
“Most of the barbarous nations lately discovered have their faces, arms, breasts, &c., curiously carved or tatooed, probably for superstitious purposes. Ancient writers abound with accounts of marks made on the face, arms, &c., in honour of different idols; and to this the inspired penman alludes [Revelation 13:16–17; 14:9, 11; 15:2; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4], where false worshippers are represented as receiving in their hands and in their forehead the marks of the beast.” (Clarke, Bible Commentary, 1:575.)
Sacred prostitution was a common practice among heathen worshipers, and often priestesses in the temples to such goddesses of love as Venus or Aphrodite were there only to satisfy and give religious sanction to immoral sexual desires. God strictly forbade these practices.
“Familiar spirits” (Leviticus 19:31) connoted those who today would be called spiritualists, or spirit mediums. They supposedly had the power to communicate through a seance with departed spirits. The Hebrew word for familiar spirit means “ventriloquist,” suggesting in the very name itself the fraudulent character of such people (see Wilson, Old Testament Word Studies, s.v. “ventriloquist,” p. 157).
Clearly, the laws prohibiting such idolatrous practices were designed to set Israel apart from the world and its false worship. And therein is an important lesson for modern Saints. The world has not changed, although the specific practices of evil and debauchery may be different. Today the Lord still directs His people through living prophets to avoid the customs and practices of the world. It should be no surprise, then, that prophets speak out against certain hair styles, fashions in clothing, passing fads, or such practices as sensitivity groups, gambling, couples living together without marriage, and so on.
Leviticus 19:35–36. What Are “Meteyards,” “Ephahs,” and “Hins”?
A meteyard signified such Hebrew measures of length as the reed, the span, and the cubit, while the ephah and the hin were measures of volume. By specifying both kinds of measures, the Lord clearly taught that honesty in all transactions was required. (See Bible Dictionary, s.v. “weights and measures”.)
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