Leviticus 25-27, pt. 2

0:00All right, welcome to this session of the listeners commentary on the book of Leviticus. This recording will be our final recording of our walk through Leviticus. We will look at chapters 26 and 27 in our last recording we began looking at this final section that includes chapter 25. So 25, 26, 27 is the final section of the book of Leviticus. We gave an introduction to that and walk through chapter 25 in our last recording. Here we will conclude the book and this final section by looking at chapters 26 and 27 and we said this whole final section of these three chapters can be thought of as being about holiness in the land. They've been camped at Mount Sinai for almost a year. They're about ready to move out of Sinai and head towards the Promised Land. So when they move into the land of promise and settle there and build houses and have land to farm,

1:00what does it look like then and there to live as God's holy people? That is really the big theme of this final section of Leviticus. And so here we're going to be looking at chapter 26 which focuses on covenant blessings and curses and then chapter 27 which focuses on instructions for dedicating people, houses and animals to the Lord. So let's begin with a little overview or introduction to chapter 26 which is about blessings for keeping the covenant and curses for breaking the covenant. And so as they prepare to leave Mount Sinai head towards the Promised Land they are now God's covenant people. They have entered into that covenant and we have to keep that in mind. All these instructions and Exodus and Leviticus are part of a covenant. And recognizing that we should pay attention as we read chapter 26 to all the uses of the word

2:04covenant in Leviticus 26 because that's what it's really about. You have entered into a covenant and you're either going to keep the covenant or break the covenant. And these curses and these blessings will their expressions of God's covenant with Israel. He's their king. They're his people and these are the things they need to do as part of his covenant and therefore if they keep the covenant there will be blessings for that. If they break the covenant there will be consequences for that. And in the ancient near east the original world setting for the book of Leviticus and for the whole Pentateuch, covenants were standard ways that kings entered into relationships with peoples. And the king would be the one that's in charge. He would set the terms of the covenant. The people then would have to agree to that covenant and if they agreed to that covenant they then would be obligated to do what the covenant said. And if they

3:07didn't do that then that king would bring all sorts of disaster on their land. That's just the way the world of the ancient Near East operated. The standard kind of technical language for that is a suzerain vassal covenant. You can find all sorts of literature on that. But the idea is the kings in charge it's not a two-way negotiated contract. He states the terms and he's going to bless them and he'll bring good things to their land if they keep it and there will be consequences if they don't. Well in the case of Leviticus 26 we can read it and we think man God is being harsh but it's not God being harsh. It's God being a king. This is what kings did. This is what they would have expected as God as their king and he is their covenant king. And so what we have in Leviticus 26 are promises or blessings for keeping the covenant and then pronouncements of curses or consequences for breaking the covenant. Recognizing

4:12that such blessings and curses were standard fair in covenants of the ancient Near East also explains why this chapter comes at this point in the book of Leviticus. They typically came at the end of covenant documents. So kings would enter into covenants with nations and they would have covenant documents that would state the terms of the covenant and then at the end they would have blessings and curses of keeping them and that's exactly what we have here in the book of Leviticus. Finally one of the things you need to make sure that you're looking for is you read Leviticus 26 is how these blessings and curses are tied to the land. This is for two reasons. The land is stated as being a gift from God. It's the promised land. He's promised to give it to them and that gift comes with covenant responsibilities and if you fulfill those responsibilities then there will be blessings on the land. However if you fail to keep those

5:16responsibilities well then the land will be cursed. Not only that Israel's land the second reason why this is tied to the land. Israel's land is meant to be like an echo of the Garden of Eden and after the fall the land was cursed Genesis chapter 3 but if Israel will be loyal to Yahweh then God will bless. Yahweh will bless the land so that it'll be fruitful and productive rather than cursed but if they are unfaithful well then the land just like the rest of the earth will be under a curse and it will fail to be fruitful. So let's begin with Leviticus chapter 26 the first chunk of the chapter is the blessings for faithfulness to the covenant and so listen to these words Leviticus 26 verse 1 through 3 says you shall not make for yourselves idols nor shall you set up for yourselves a carved image or a memorial stone nor shall you place a

6:18figured stone in your land to bow down to it for I am the Lord your God you can recognize in what that verse has just said the 10 commandments no graved images no other gods I am the Lord your God not only that you shall keep my Sabbath and revere my sanctuary that is you shall honor the tabernacle I am the Lord if you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments so as to carry them out then he begins to list off in verse 4 and following the blessings all of this in verses 1 through 3 is essentially to say if you are loyal to God and to the covenant that he has made with him then then verse 4 says I shall give you rains in their seasons so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit indeed your threshing seasons will last for you until grape gathering and grape gathering will last until so in time in other words you're going to be so fruitful that you'll you'll barely finish

7:23threshing and will be time to harvest grapes and then you'll barely harvest harvesting grapes and it'll be time to start planting again why because you're producing so much fruit and that's what these blessings are and so verse 5 ends by saying you will eat your food to the full and live securely in your land you're going to have peace in your land there won't be any harmful animals to destroy anything when enemies threaten you will chase them away there are going to be it's going to be a land of peace and security in fact verse 9 I will turn towards you and make you fruitful and multiply you again you hear the echo of Eden in that when God said be fruitful and multiply what God says I'm gonna do that for you I will confirm my covenant with you and you will have more than enough and then it ends in verses 12 and 13 by saying I also will walk among you

8:23and be your God and you shall be my people I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt so notice how that that sweet line in verse 12 that says I will walk among you and be your God and you shall be my people again this is what God did with Adam and Eve he walked with him in the garden and so as an Eden it will be for you in the land and it will be like a signpost pointing forward to the final Eden when earth is restored in fact Chris right in his notes on this verse says it's an unusual form of the verb that really has the sense in rights words to stroll around for one's own pleasure so God's gonna stroll around among them and with them in the land he'll be their God dubious people and they'll live in unity and really this communicates one of God's own aims and desires is to walk around with them as his people and this is

9:26one of the main themes of Leviticus how can they be a people who lives and walks with God who is holy and then they out of that are holy and that's ultimately what Leviticus is about and so verses one through thirteen is all about this blessing of them and their life in the land and then God walking with them as the blessings of the covenant if they'll be faithful to it then in chapter 26 verses 14 through 39 you get the curses or the consequences for breaking the covenant and again these curses and consequences are tied to the land and remember even though it sounds harsh it's not arbitrary it's covenantal this is what what israel would have expected when they enter it into a covenant with God as their king and this is typical of the kind of language for these kinds of covenants and what we see here in this section Leviticus 26 14

10:28through 39 are just a few key curses of the covenant so for example let me just highlight a few instead of reading that whole section God says in verse 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated before your enemies and those who hate you will rule over you so rather than having peace and security and being able to chase enemies away the enemies are going to win the day not only that the land won't produce crops verse 20 says your strength will be consumed uselessly for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit not only that there won't be any protection from wild animals that will ruin crops kill their animals and their children verse 22 says I will also let loose among you the animals of the field which will deprive you of your children and eliminate your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads become deserted and finally in verse 33

11:28it notes kind of like the climactic curse that is being scattered among the nations that is being kicked out of the land if you if you're so unfaithful the Yahweh then then he's going to revoke your privilege of living in the land that he has blessed you with and so verse 33 says you however I will scatter among the nations and I will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities become ruins and so as you read the rest of the Old Testament from the end of Leviticus on and you see these kinds of things happening to Israel where they're struggling with enemies attacking them they're struggling with drought and not having rain their lands not fruitful all these things happen to them recognize that what you're reading in the rest of the Old Testament are simply the curses of the covenant Israel is suffering the specified consequences of their disloyalty to God as their king they've

12:29broken the covenant and they're suffering its curses and that's what you get in the rest of the Old Testament and yet in the end God is merciful and God will be merciful so look at the end of chapter 26 verses 40 through 46 but if they that is if Israel confesses their wrongdoing and the wrongdoing of their forefathers in their unfaithfulness which they committed against me and also in their acting with hostility against me I also was acting in a still against them to bring them into the land of their enemies or if their uncircumcised heart is humbled so then they will make amends for their wrongdoing then God promises I will remember my covenant with Jacob and I will remember the land for the land will be abandoned by them and will restore its Sabbath while it is made desolate without them they meanwhile will be making amends for their wrong

13:31doing because they rejected my ordinances and they're so low my statutes yet in spite of this when they are in the land of their enemies they've been exiled and scattered among the nations right when that happens I will not reject them nor will I so loath them as to destroy them breaking my covenant with them for I am the Lord their God I'm not going to be unfaithful to them as my people but I will remember for the sake of my covenant with their ancestors who might brought out of the land of Egypt in the side of the nations so that I might be their God I am the Lord and what God is essentially saying is if they make amends then I will remember them and I will restore the covenant and I will bring them back and we'll see that same sort of promise in the book of Deuteronomy and we can read the rest of the Old Testament and we watch all of these curses play out in the nation of Israel and so what we really see is that Israel in the land is supposed to be like a little microcosm

14:35of Adam and Eve in the garden and in a very real sense they kind of replay what happened in the garden in their unfaithfulness to Yahweh and so when Israel goes into exile towards the end of the Old Testament story well that's one of the curses of the covenant and it is a microcosm of the curse that fell on all humanity in Genesis chapter 3 and all of that gives depth and richness and significance to what said in Galatians chapter 3 when it says that Jesus became a curse for us he took on the curses of the covenant that fell upon Israel he took on the curse that fell upon all humanity so that we might be delivered from the curse and become God's people a new again as we wait for the final great Eden when all things are restored earthen heaven are one and we live

15:36together with God forever in a restored creation now one last chapter remains in the book of Leviticus chapter 27 and that chapter can be pretty confusing until we understand what it's all about so to help you read it well and to read it accurately you need to understand what kind of vows it's talking about so it says speak to the sons of Israel when someone makes an explicit vow and then it goes on to talk about that well what kind of vow is it talking about well vows in the ancient near east were voluntary agreements made with a deity made with a God in Israel's case Yahweh is their God and so what you have in chapter 27 are vows to Yahweh voluntary vows voluntary agreements made with Yahweh and specifically for a good chunk of chapter 27 the really

16:37confusing part is it's a vow about pledging a person to the Lord pledging your son or your daughter to the Lord and that would normally mean giving them up to permanent work or permanent service in the tabernacle such as happen in the case of like Samuel in the Old Testament or such as what I think happened with Jeopardhys daughter where she was given over to tabernacle service for the rest of her life that is normally what this voluntary agreement would be if you will give me a son I will dedicate him to you but here in Leviticus 27 what we are given are instructions that explain how someone can make a voluntary vow like that and instead of giving their son or their daughter permanently to the tabernacle they can make this pledge based on their work value the amount of work they are able to produce and then instead of giving the person they can give that

17:40amount of money to the tabernacle and then after that in chapter 27 you get instructions for pledging animals and then pledging houses and even pledging plots of land to the Lord as well that's what chapter 27 is all about so the first section is about pledging a person to dedicate a person to the Lord with a voluntary vow which you do you pledge them to the Lord and then essentially you would redeem them by giving to the tabernacle or later the temple their labor value so that's what this first section is about so it says again the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the sons of Israel and say to them when someone makes an explicit vow a voluntary vow he shall be valued according to your assessment of persons belonging to the Lord and so if it's a male from 20 to 60 years and the prime of their work life then your assessment shall be 50

18:40shekels of silver according to the sanctuary shekel if the person is a female well then your assessment shall be 30 shekels based on their work value what they're going to be able to work right for person is from five years to 20 years so if they're younger your assessment for a male shall be 20 if female 10 because of their work value their labor value if the person is from a month to five years then your assessment shall be five shekels of silver for a male or it shall be three shekels for a female all this has to do with labor value of essentially pledging someone to the Lord and then redeeming them with their labor value now the second section is about pledging animals if it's an animal that someone offers as a voluntary vow to the Lord any such animal that one gives to the Lord shall be holy that is consecrated and now moved into the ritual category of holy he shall not replace it or exchange it

19:45good for bad or bad for good yet if he does exchange animal for animal then both it and the substitute shall become holy they can't be used for common purposes anymore now if it's an unclean animal a donkey say for example that can't be given as a sacrifice or an offering to the Lord well then he shall place the animal before the priest the priest shall assess it as either a useful good animal or not right you're going to do evaluation of the animal and he then will redeem it and add a fifth of its value to your assessment the next categories houses or land so if you're going to pledge a house or pledge a plot of a land you're going to do essentially the same thing you're going to have a priest assess it so we can determine its value then you will essentially redeem the house by taking the value of its worth adding a fifth of them out to it giving it to the tabernacle all of this is an expression of your devotion and

20:45dedication to the Lord your worship to the Lord so one does the same thing with a field of his property well you're going to do the same thing you're going to assess it based on essentially its crop production value and then you're going to redeem it every assessment of yours moreover shall be by the shackle of the sanctuary the shackle shall be 20 garras so there's the math amount that's the going to be the amount of funds then what you get in the next part of chapter 27 is further stipulations and qualifications on dedicating things to the Lord and essentially beginning in verse 26 you get instructions that pertain to non-voluntary or non-redeemable offerings to the Lord so in one through 25 it was voluntary vows made to God as an expression of your worship sometimes there's non-voluntary or non-redeemable offerings so the first

21:46born for example that's what we get at the very beginning recall that as a reminder of and thanksgiving for God's sparing Israel's firstborn during the Exodus while all the firstborn are required to be given to the Lord however verse 26 says a firstborn among animals which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord no one may consecrate whether ox or sheep it is the Lord so you can't keep it for yourself but if it's an unclean animal well then you're going to redeem it because you can't give it to the Lord because it's unclean and you'll add a fifth of the value to it there are also some items that are like permanently irrevocably dedicated to the Lord they the Hebrew word is harem and there are two cases listed here and it's this nevertheless anything which someone sets apart to the Lord for destruction that is for harem out of all that he has man or animal or field of his property shall not be sold nor redeemed it is set apart

22:52for destruction as most holy to the Lord and so there are things that are set apart for destruction to the Lord and at that point they can't be used for any other purpose they have been dedicated to the Lord or no one who may have been set apart among mankind as harem shall be ransom he must be put to death think of aiken during the conquest who violated the ban on goods from AI and he and his family were stoned to death well this is exactly why because those things were not to be taken and now he has taken banned items and he must be put to death and then the chapter ends then with instructions for required ties now all the tie of the land of the seed of the land of the fruit tree of the land is the Lord it's holy to the Lord and so you give it over to the Lord and it belongs to him if therefore someone should ever want to redeem part of his

23:54tithe well then he needs to add a fifth of the value to it and then give that as money to the temple or the tabernacle and so chapter 27 is all about dedicating your property or possessions to the Lord or what you need to do with your property and possessions and the fruit that your property produces in order to honor the Lord this is all about as they enter into the land how then do you handle vows of property and possessions and even people as an expression of your your devotion and worship of the Lord now as we wrap up this section we really need ultimately to wrap up the book of Leviticus this is our final recording of Leviticus and the first thing we need to keep in mind in order to wrap up Leviticus is the narrative flow Israel has been redeemed out of Egypt and God has led them to himself at his dwelling place on Mount Sinai there they

25:00have entered into a covenant relationship with God and they will be his people and he will be their king and they specifically will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation we saw that next to this 194 through 6 so all of the instructions that we have here in Leviticus are part of that covenant with God and they're about how Israel can live in God's presence that is how they can draw near to God at his dwelling place now the tabernacle Exodus ended with no one being able to draw near well Leviticus has told us how they can draw near to him at his tabernacle and then how they will live out that calling as a kingdom of priests and holy nation as a people living in the land so Leviticus is teaching Israel how they should live as a holy nation a people set apart for God and different from the nation's around them so all this stuff about ritual holiness and social and moral holiness and holiness concerning the land

26:05well it's all so they can honor God as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation and by the time we get to the end of Leviticus Israel has been camped there at Mount Sinai for almost a year and it's time for Israel to move out and head to the Promised Land and that's where the book of numbers will pick up and so as we leave Leviticus God's covenant with mankind is now made in Christ so those of us in Christ in Messiah well we are the ones who now have taken on this same identity and have this same calling so Peter echoing this the very language of Exodus and Leviticus says you writing to Christians you are chosen people you're a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness

27:07and into his marvelous light and so we now bear that calling of being a royal priesthood and a holy nation we now exist to be a light to the nations and that's why Peter applies the very words of Leviticus that show up over and over again in Leviticus he applies those words to us when he says in 1 Peter 1 15 and 16 but like the holy one who has called you be holy yourselves in all your behavior because it's written you shall be holy for I am holy that was the calling for Israel in the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai it is now the calling for us as God's people in Christ you shall be holy for I am holy all right thanks for tuning into the listeners commentary on the book of Leviticus the listeners commentary is a listener supported crowdfunded

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