Deeper Commentary
Lev 19:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying-
This section develops the theme of holiness and what it means in practice.
Holiness means both separation from
and also separation unto. We are separated from the things of the
flesh and this world, but that is not a negative, onerous burden. For
thereby are we separated unto the positive things of God's service.
Lev 19:2 Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and tell
them, ‘You shall be holy; for I Yahweh your God am holy-
Holiness in the sense of separation from the unclean had been a major
theme in the Mosaic Law, and it figured largely in the theology of the
Pharisees. But the Lord quoted “Be holy because I, Yahweh your God am
holy” (Lev. 19:2) as “Be you therefore merciful, even as your father in
heaven is merciful” (Lk. 6:36). To be merciful to those who sin is now the
true holiness- not merely separation from them and condemnation of their
ways. Note, too, how He invites us to interpret the Yahweh as “father”,
rather than transliterating the Name.
Lev 19:3 Each one of you shall respect his mother and his father-
We have to read this in the context of the preceding chapter which
has forbidden idolatrous rites involving sexual activity with parents and
siblings. The contemporary Near Eastern legal codes
prescribed the most severe penalties for crimes against the wealthy and
their property. Rich people were given lesser punishments than poor people
for the same crime. The value of persons reflected in Yahweh's law meant
that all people were judged equally before the law, and truly there was no
respect of persons with the true God. Both father and mother are placed
together as worthy of equal honour (Lev. 19:3; Ex. 20:12)- whereas the
contemporary laws were oriented towards respect of the male rather than
females.
You
shall keep My Sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God-
The two laws repeated here, about honouring parents and keeping the
Sabbath, are the only two positive commandments in the ten commandments.
The others are all "You shall not...". So this confirms the impression
that now having read so much negative, about separation from sin, we are
being encouraged to focus upon what we are separated unto, positively.
Lev 19:4 Don’t turn to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I am
Yahweh your God-
This clearly alludes to the golden calf which they had made. They
were not to ever do this again. And yet we know from Ez. 20:7,8 that they
took the idols of Egypt with them through the Red Sea, and carried the
tabernacle and star of their idols throughout the wilderness journey. Even
by Joshua's time, he had to urge them to cast away the idols of Egypt.
Perhaps they justified them by arguing that they had not cast them
themselves. Our flesh is so able to justify sin. And we must beware of
that.
Lev 19:5 When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh, you
shall offer it voluntarily-
The Mosaic law was in fact geared against mere legalism and symbolic
offerings for the sake of discharging religious conscience. Voluntary
offerings must indeed be just that- from the heart. Freewill offerings such as the peace offering must
really be of our free will. We mustn’t feel any sense of obligation to
others, doing voluntary things to be seen of them, but any act of freewill
devotion must be genuine, motivated by our personal desire to devote our
time or resources to God.
Lev 19:6 It shall be eaten the same day you offer it, and on the next day:
and if anything remains until the third day-
The law of the peace offerings was designed so as to encourage the
person who decided to make such a freewill offering to execute it
immediately- they were to eat it the same day they offered it, and the
sacrifice would be totally unacceptable if it was killed but left for some
days (Lev. 19:5-7). If we have an impulse to respond to the Lord, we
should respond to it immediately. This isn’t mere impetuosity. It’s a
spirit of always having an immediacy of response, which empowers us to
overcome the procrastination which holds us back so much.
It shall be burned with fire-
Lev 19:7 If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is an abomination. It
will not be accepted-
We cannot be passive on receiving the opportunity to serve God. We
will urgently seek to do something with what we have been enabled to do
for the Lord: “The servant who got five bags went quickly to
invest the money and earned five more bags” (Mt. 25:16 NCV). The law of
the peace offerings was designed so as to encourage the person who decided
to make such a freewill offering to execute immediately- they were to eat
it the same day they offered it, and the sacrifice would be totally
unacceptable if it was killed but left for some days (Lev. 19:5-7). If we
have an impulse to respond to the Lord, we should respond to it
immediately. This isn’t mere impetuosity. It’s a spirit of always having
an immediacy of response, which empowers us to overcome the
procrastination which holds us back so much.
If we think our freewill devotions to be God can be
done as we wish without regard for His principles, then what we do is
obnoxious to Him. The Hebrew word translated “abomination” is often used
about idol worship; we will not be worshipping Him, but the idols of our
own image and standing in the eyes of people.
Lev 19:8 but everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity, because he has
profaned the holy thing of Yahweh, and that soul shall be cut off from his
people-
Lev 19:9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap
the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your
harvest-
This doesn't make allowing gleaning a binding law upon landowners.
The text simply states that "When you reap your harvest in your field and
have forgotten a sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it. It shall be
for the foreigner, for the fatherless and for the widow" (Dt. 24:19). By
allowing gleaners to come and pick up dropped grain, Boaz's grace was
going far beyond the letter of the law. This was taking that law way
beyond what it said, in a spirit of grace. This would account for the hint
in Ruth 2:22 that not every landowner allowed such gleaning in their
fields. Likewise he extrapolates from the law of Levirate marriage to
marry Ruth. So we see that the law of Moses was not a chain, a leash binding and tethering man to
reluctant obedience; for Israel is God's partner, not His dog. But rather was
it designed as a springboard towards a
culture of grace, kindness and taking initiatives of grace in practice.
Lev 19:10 You shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather the
fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for
the foreigner. I am Yahweh your God-
If all Israel were obedient to the Law of Moses,
there wouldn’t have been any poor in Israelite society (Dt. 15:4). But the
same Law of Moses repeatedly instructed Israel to be generous and
sensitive to the poor; it tacitly recognized, as did Jesus, that there
would always be poor within Israel, for the Law would never be fully kept
(Mt. 26:11). We see in the structure of the Law the recognition of human
failure in a way which no other law has ever equaled. There’s a tendency
to assume that the poor are poor because of their own poor decision making
and therefore we have no responsibility to help them- although we are all
poor decision makers in various ways, especially in spiritual matters. The
Law taught a principle we need to learn also- that even if folk have dug a
whole and fallen into it, we are still to assist them and be sensitive to
their situation.
Lev 19:11 You shall not steal, nor lie, nor shall you deceive one another-
The command not to steal is associated with not
deceiving others nor lying to them. Dishonesty, even if it’s unrelated to
material gain at another’s expense, is a form of theft; we are taking from
another wrongfully.
Lev 19:12 You shall not swear by My name falsely, and profane the name of
your God. I am Yahweh-
Ex. 20:7 phrases this in terms of not taking God's Name in vain. But the idea of not taking Yahweh's Name "in vain", 'vanity', is often
associated with idolatry. Israel never formerly rejected Yahweh, and never
became atheists. They mixed Yahweh worship with idolatry on the basis that
they claimed that they worshipped Yahweh through worshipping the idols.
This is what emboldened them to later place idols in Yahweh's temple. They
were taking Yahweh's Name as a form of vanity, "in vain", a kind of idol.
Thus their relationship with Yahweh was not to be a "vain thing" (Dt.
32:47).
The vulnerability and sensitivity of God is reflected in the way that He is concerned that His covenant people, His wife, who bears His Name, might profane His Name (Lev. 19:12; Ex. 20:7; Dt. 5:11). His repeated concern that His Name be taken in vain doesn't simply refer to the casual use of the word "God" as an expression of exasperation. God is concerned about His people taking His Name upon themselves (Num. 6:27) in vain- i.e., marrying Him, entering covenant relationship with Him, taking on His Name (which we do through baptism)- but not being serious about that relationship, taking it on as a vain thing, like a woman who casually marries a man who loves her at the very core of his being, when for her, it's just a casual thing and she lives a profligate and adulterous life as his wife. When God revealed His Name to His people, opening up the very essence of His character to them, He was making Himself vulnerable. We reveal ourselves intimately to another because we wish for them to make a response to us, to love us for what we revealed to them. God revealed Himself to Israel, He sought for intimacy in the covenant relationship, and therefore was and is all the more hurt when His people turn away from Him, after having revealed to them all the wonders of His word (Hos. 8:12). See on Lev. 5:16.
Lev 19:13 You shall not oppress your neighbour, nor rob him-
The oppression in view is things like not paying him his hire every
day (Dt. 24:14,15; Lev. 19:13). The ethnic background of the man was
irrelevant; he was to be treated as a person and not in any way abused
because of his weak economic position. "Oppress" is the same word
translated "deceive"; to not oppress others through deceiving them would
elicit the heaviest judgment from God, when the person realized the
deception and cried to God because of it (Dt. 24:15). Deceiving /
oppressing a neighbour was a sin against Yahweh (Lev. 6:2 s.w.), because
He has a special interest in the poor. And His law reflects that.
The wages of a hired servant shall not remain
with you all night until the morning-
Dt. 24:15 adds: "Each day you must give him his hire. The sun must
not go down on it for he is poor and sets his heart on it, lest he cry
against you to Yahweh and it be sin to you". This is one of many examples of the utter inversion of values to be
found in the sphere of God's dealings with men: The rich are to almost
fear the landless poor labourer, in case he feels hard done by and prays
to God against the rich. The power, in ultimate and spiritual terms, is
with the poor- and the balance of power is against the wealthy.
Lev 19:14 You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before
the blind; but you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh’-
As if God is especially sensitive to our abusing
others’ disadvantages in whatever form, and His wrath about this is to be
feared.
Lev 19:15 ’You shall do no injustice in judgment: you shall not be partial
to the poor, nor show favouritism to the great; but you shall judge your
neighbour in righteousness-
We are not to judge in the sense of condemn others,
but it’s inevitable in daily life that we have to form opinions. But we
must always remember that the person we are judging is in fact our
neighbour, our brother, our equal; our judgment shouldn’t be rooted in any
sense of feeling inherently superior over him or her, spiritually or
otherwise.
Lev 19:16 You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people.
You shall not endanger the life of your neighbour. I am Yahweh-
Unless we talk frankly to our brother about issues (:17)
between us alone, then we will end up hating him in our heart (even
though it may not feel like that) and we will gossip about him. The frank
raising of the issue with our brother is associated with loving our
neighbour as ourselves. This is actually the opposite to what we would
think; we would imagine that it would be more 'loving' to say nothing to
our brother. But in this case, we will inevitably gossip about him and be
bitter against him. The practice of true love will result in an open
community in which we can frankly discuss with each other the issues which
concern us, with love and not hatred in our hearts. This is the teaching
of Lev. 19:16-18. No wonder the Proverbs expand upon it so much. And no
wonder the Lord appropriated it as a ground rule for His ecclesia- there
must be no gossip in the church (Mt. 18:15).
Lev 19:17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely
rebuke your neighbour, and not bear sin because of him-
The implication
is that if we don’t have transparency with our neighbour, if we don’t
rebuke them openly and specifically, then we will end up hating them. Just
saying nothing about those situations calling for rebuke will only drive
you to hate the person in the end.
"You
shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your
neighbour" (Lev. 19:17,18). Unless there is direct, one on one dialogue, the
hatred born of misunderstanding will develop. But reasoning together is
something only possible if we perceive the value of persons. By not rebuking our brother, by saying nothing and
not engaging with the issues when we need to, we are likely to breed anger
in our hearts against him or her.
Lev 19:18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the
children of your people; but you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I
am Yahweh-
One reason we fail to love others as ourselves is
because we may in fact not love ourselves in the sense of perceiving our
own value before God.
Proverbs is often a commentary upon the Law. The
many passages there about gossiping are based upon this passage, in Lev.
19:16-18. The fact this passage is expanded upon so many times in Proverbs
would indicate that gossip was as major a problem among the old Israel as
it is among the new. But notice the fine psychology of the Spirit here:
gossip in the church is related to having a grudge, to hating your
neighbour in your heart, to not loving your neighbour as you love yourself
(and we are very conservative about our own failings). When the Lord spoke
about hating your brother being the same as murdering him (Mt. 5:22; 1 Jn.
3:15), he may well have been thinking of this passage in Leviticus. To
hate your brother in your heart, to gossip about him, was and is as bad as
murdering him. And this same connection between gossip and murder is made
in the prophets (Ez. 22:9 cp. Prov. 26:22). But the Law provided a way
out. If you had something against your brother, frankly tell him about his
failure, so that you would not hate him in your heart. If we don't do
this, or try to get someone else to do it, we will end up hating our
brother in our heart and we will gossip about him.
Lev 19:19 You shall keep my statutes-
It could be argued that the following commandments in this verse were
hedges around the law to assist obedience- rather than addressing issues
which were immoral in themselves.
You shall not crossbreed different
kinds of animals-
The first mention of mules in the Bible is when Absalom murders his
brother Amnon (2 Sam. 13:29). They were cross bred in disobedience to this
command. We get the impression that a generally slack attitude to what
might have been considered minor matters of the law was associated with
the major sin of murder. This is the problem when we start to think that
some parts of God's laws can just be ignored.
You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed-
The commandments about not inappropriately mixing things in Dt. 22
are sandwiched between commandments about avoiding sexual perversion and
inappropriate bonding, such as adultery, sex with a father's wife (Dt.
22:30), and the perversion of Dt. 22:5, which is also about inappropriate
mixture of sexual behaviours. There is a similar sexual context here in
:20. The idea of these commands about not mixing seed and animals may be
as it were a fence around these laws. The fear was that this was going to
be a subliminal temptation towards sin. Rather like the command not to
plant trees near an altar of Yahweh, lest this lead to the subliminal
temptation to worship the trees like an asherah grove.
Neither shall there come upon you a garment made of two kinds of material-
Again, as discussed above, there is nothing intrinsically sinful
about this. Rather the idea was that in daily life, there was to be the
lesson of separation and avoidance of inappropriate bonding. Dt. 22:11
speaks specifically of not mixing linen and wool. It could be argued that
"linen" came from Egypt (1 Kings 10:28; Prov. 7:16; Ez. 27:7), whilst wool
was the classic produce of Israel.
Mal. 2:11-15 shows that the sin of marriage out of the faith is because it is a denial of God's principles regarding children; He instituted marriage to create “a Godly seed". It stands to reason that marrying an unbeliever (or an uncommitted believer, for that matter) cannot very easily produce a Godly seed. Israel were not to sow "mingled seed" in their fields, or make clothes of "mingled" materials (Lev. 19:19). The materials would, as the Lord Himself mentioned, tear apart. The garment wouldn't last. And sowing different seeds together likewise would bring no fruit to perfection. But the LXX in these passages is quoted in one place only in the NT: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). If we are, the relationship can't work. So don't think that if we marry out of the Faith, it will all work out OK. Unless there is serious repentance (and even then, not always), it won't work. It will be a garment patched up with two different materials.
Lev 19:20 If a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave girl, pledged
to be married to another man, and not ransomed, or given her freedom; they
shall be punished. They shall not be put to death, because she was not
free-
See on :19. The Mosaic law appears to take into account that slavery
is indeed slavery, and this does make a difference (also Ex. 21:20,21).
The toleration of slavery was a concession to their weakness, but having
made the concession, God shows integrity in to some extent accepting the
status of the slave and the diminished rights which go with that.
Lev 19:21 He shall bring his trespass offering to Yahweh, to the door of
the Tent of Meeting, even a ram for a trespass offering-
Nothing is said about payment of recompense to the intended
bridegroom of the woman, perhaps because the idea is that he was also a
slave and didn't have full rights; see on :20.
Lev 19:22 The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the
trespass offering before Yahweh for his sin which he has committed; and
the sin which he has committed shall be forgiven him-
It is commonly stated in
the Mosaic law that the priest made atonement. Any thoughtful person would
have soon concluded that indeed the blood of bulls and goats could not of
itself atone for sin (Heb. 10:4). The role of the priest in bringing about
the atonement was therefore critical. And yet they too were flawed. So
this invited the spiritually minded to look forward to the coming of an
ideal priest, the Lord Jesus.
Lev 19:23 When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees
for food, then you shall count their fruit as forbidden. Three years shall
they be forbidden to you. It shall not be eaten-
Forbidden fruit naturally recalls the forbidden fruit
on the tree in Eden. To grab as much as we can immediately without working
for it nor recognizing that the firstfruits of all human endeavour must be
given to the Lord- is all very human and common. But to do so is painted
as being as bad as taking the forbidden fruit of Eden, with all the long
term suffering which came as a result of short-termism.
Lev 19:24 But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, for giving a
praise offering to Yahweh-
This was all designed to teach self control. For three years the
fruit couldn't be eaten, on the fourth year the fruit must be offered to
God, and only on the fifth year could the fruit be eaten (:25). Self
control, delayed gratification, looking to the long term rather than the
short term, is what spiritual life is all about. And such things are
increasingly in deficit in secular society.
Lev 19:25 In the fifth year you shall eat its fruit, that it may yield its
increase to you. I am Yahweh your God-
The implication could be that if the required self control discussed
on :24 was not followed, then the tree would not "yield its increase"- a
phrase often used about how God would make the plants of the land yield
their increase abundantly to an obedient Israel.
Lev 19:26 You shall not eat any meat with the blood still in it; neither
shall you use enchantments, nor practise sorcery-
These two commandments are put together because drinking blood was
part of many idol worshipping rituals. Hence LXX speaks of eating blood
"upon the mountains". One practical consequence of this was that
obedience would have meant social separation from the Canaanites; for none
of them observed these positions on blood, indeed eating blood or meat
with much blood in it was a delicacy. Blood represents life; to take life
to ourselves rather than recognize it is God’s results in us losing our
lives (Lev. 17:14). Just as simply as the blood was to be given to God, so
we are to give our lives to God. To take the blood to themselves is in
fact spoken of as being as bad as murder (Lev. 17:4). This seems extreme
language, but it underlines how important to God is this principle- that
life is His and we are to give it to Him rather than live or take it to
ourselves. In baptism, we give our lives to God and figuratively die and
are buried with Christ (Rom. 6:1-10). We are to live life in this spirit
that life is not ours but to be given to God. This frees us from all the
manic human concern to live life to the full for ourselves. We no longer
have this concern if we continually accept the principle that life is not
ours, but God's.
AV "observe times" is literally "exercise the evil eye". They were to reject pagan notions of a cosmic Satan and demons, and believe instead that good and evil come from God, not the evil eye (Is. 45:5-7).
Lev 19:27 You shall not cut the hair on the
sides of your heads, neither shall you clip off the edge of your beard-
This was the style of mourning in the surrounding world. And it had
some hints of idolatry. We could take this as meaning 'Don't follow the fashions of the world
when they are allusive to idolatry and sinful ways'. And that has abiding
relevance. The spiritual way of life seeks to cut off all opportunities
for the flesh; all subliminal encouragements to sin are to be rooted out
of our lives, rather than seeing how close we can sail to the wind.
Lev 19:28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor
tattoo any marks on you. I am Yahweh-
The context refers to such marks as showed loyalty to an idol or to
the dead who were thought to be still alive. Whereas the Bible teaches
that death is unconsciousness. Whilst there is nothing morally wrong with
cutting the skin, the idea was that Israel weren’t to even appear
associated with pagan rituals for the dead. We likewise should naturally
not want to even appear like worshippers of any other god (of whatever
kind) when Yahweh is our only God.
Lev 19:29 Don’t profane your daughter, to make her a prostitute; lest the
land fall to prostitution, and the land become full of wickedness-
Sexual misbehaviour sets an example which spreads so
easily. Thus if a very poor man discreetly prostituted his daughter out of
financial desperation, the whole land would fall to whoredom and sexual
abandon.
Lev 19:30 You shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am
Yahweh-
The stress may be upon the word "My". The systems of idol
worships also required days to be kept as holy to them, and their
sanctuaries to be reverenced. For the context here is all about avoiding
idolatry. Yahweh's claims upon His people are supreme. There is no way we
can worship both Yahweh and idols; the Sabbath was to kept exclusively for
Him rather than also to the other gods who also demanded that a Sabbath be
kept to them. Perhaps this was one reason for the Sabbath legislation at
this time- to preclude keeping Sabbath to any other god. But Israel as so
many today sought to worship Yahweh through idol worship. The church at
Corinth made the same mistake.
Lev 19:31 Don’t turn to those who are mediums, nor to the wizards-
The Bible is written in terms which the surrounding people would have
understood; therefore it sometimes speaks of how things appear to be
as if this really is the case. God warns against dabbling with “them
that have familiar spirits” (Lev. 19:31 AV); not ‘those who think
they’ve got access to the supposed spirit world which, of course, doesn’t
exist’. This is the same approach the New Testament adopts to the demons
issue.
Don’t seek them out, to be defiled by them. I
am Yahweh your God-
This is exactly what Saul did in seeking out the witch of Endor. He
thereby showed that Yahweh was not his God, and yet he went to the witch
because he wanted to find connection with Yahweh.
Lev 19:32 You shall rise up before the gray head, and honour the face of
an old man, and you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh-
"Fear the Lord your God" of Ex. 9:30; Lev. 19:14,32; 25:17
becomes "love the Lord your God" in the greater maturity of Deuteronomy,
the second law (Dt. 6:5; 7:9; 10:12; 11:1; 19:9; 30:6,16,20). Some time,
read through the book of Deuteronomy in one or two sessions. You'll see
many themes of Moses in Deuteronomy. It really shows how Moses felt
towards Israel, and how the Lord Jesus feels towards us, and especially
how he felt towards us just before his death. For this is what the whole
book prefigures. "Love" and the idea of love occurs far more in
Deuteronomy than in the other books of the Law. There are 23 references to not hating in Deuteronomy,
compared to only 5 in Ex. - Num.; Moses saw the danger of bitterness and
lack of love. He saw these things as the spiritual cancer they are, in his
time of maturity he warned his beloved people against them. His mind was
full of them. The LXX uses the word ekklesia eight times in Deuteronomy,
but not once in Moses' other words (Dt. 4:10; 9:10; 18:16; 23:1,2,3,8;
32:1). Responsibility for the whole family God had redeemed was a mark of
Moses; maturity at the end of his life, at the time of Deuteronomy. It is
observable that both as a community and as individuals, this will be a
sign of our maturity too.
Lev 19:33 If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you
shall not do him wrong-
Israel were to be motivated in kindness to others by the recollection
that they had been redeemed from Egypt; the memory of our redemption
through the waters of baptism [cp. the Red Sea] should have the same
effect upon us. Deceiving / oppressing a neighbour was a sin against
Yahweh (Dt. 24:14; Lev. 6:2 s.w.), because He has a special interest in
the poor. And His law reflects that.
Lev 19:34 The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you
as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you
lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God-
Try to see the historical events which occurred to Israel as relevant
to you personally. They were "types of us". Note how 1 Cor. 10:1 speaks of
"our fathers"- even when Paul is writing to Gentiles. He intended
them to see in the Jewish fathers a type of themselves. Israel's keeping
of the Passover implied that each subsequent Israelite had personally been
redeemed that night. All down the years, they were to treat the stranger
fairly: "for you know the heart of an alien" (Ex. 23:9). The body of
believers, the body of Christ, is not only world-wide geographically at
this point in time; it stretches back over time as well as distance, to
include all those who have truly believed. This is why David found such
inspiration from the history of Israel in his own crises (e.g. Ps. 77).
The law of Moses often seems to allude back to the weaknesses of the patriarchs. Lev. 19:34 warns about mistreating the hagger living amongst God's people- the stranger, refugee, foreigner. This is a related word to 'Hagar'- it has the same consonants. Clearly the message to Israel was to not treat foreigners as Sarah had treated Hagar.
Lev 19:35 You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of
length, of weight, or of quantity-
The Hebrew mishpat, "judgment", s.w.
"ordinances", has a wide range of meaning. The idea is of judgment, as if
God and His Angels gave these laws as their considered judgment after
considering the human condition, and Israel were to abide by them. But the
word also the idea of a right or privilege; and that is how we should see
God's laws. They are only felt as a burden because of human hardness of
neck towards God's ways. His laws are not of themselves burdensome, but
rather a privilege and blessing. The law was indeed "holy, just and good"
(Rom. 7:12), designed to inculcate a holy, just and good life (Tit. 1:8),
a way in which a man should "walk" in daily life (Lev. 18:4), a culture of
kindness and grace to others which reflected God's grace to man. If we
dwell upon the idea of "rights" carried within the word mishpat,
we note that the law begins in Ex. 21:1,2 (also Dt. 15:12-18) with the
rights of a slave- those considered to have no rights in the society of
that day. The "rights" to be afforded by us to others are the essence of
God's rightness / justice.
Lev 19:36 You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a
just hin. I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt-
Israel's deliverance from Egypt was by grace, not justice. They
worshipped idols there and took them with them through the Red Sea (Ez.
20:7,8). Their salvation was by grace and not by justice, for their just
desert was to be abandoned there. Our salvation is likewise only "just"
because we are in Christ, on a personal level we are saved despite our
unworthiness. One response to this is to seek to be just in all our
dealings.
Deuteronomy, the second law, stresses these things.
Dt. 25:13 says that "You must not have in your bag different weights, a
great and a small". Deceitful traders still use balancing weights (Heb.
"stones") of different weights, the lighter to sell with, the heavier to
buy with. But the reference to the bag suggests that this command strikes
at the forethought before the action. Don't go to market having prepared
such weights in your bag. Any human legal code would focus just upon the
act of using deceitful weights, whereas God foresees the planning and
thought process behind the act of sin. Dt. 25:14 goes further: "You must
not have in your house different measures, a great and a small". To avoid
temptation it’s best to not even possess things which we may be tempted to
misuse.
Lev 19:37 You shall observe all my statutes, and all my ordinances, and do
them. I am Yahweh’-
The word so often used for "diligently observing" Yahweh's
commandments is from the word meaning a thorn hedge; the idea originally
was to hedge in. Taking this too literally led Judaism to all their
endless fences around the law, i.e. forbidding this or that because it
might lead to doing that or this, which in turn would then lead to
breaking an actual commandment. And those various fences become elevated
to the level of commandments. But this is not the idea. We are indeed to
hedge ourselves in ("take heed to yourself", Dt. 11:16; 12:13,19,30,32
s.w.), so that we may keep / hedge ourselves in to keep the commandments
of God (Lev. 18:4,5,26,30; 19:19,37; 20:8,22; 22:9,31; 25:18; 26:3; Num.
28:2; Dt. 7:11,12; 8:1,11 [s.w. "beware"]; 10:13;
11:1,8,22,32; 12:1; 13:4,18; ; 15:5,9 ["beware"]; 17:19; 19:9; 23:9
["keep yourself"]; 24:8; 26:16-18; 27:1; 28:1,9,13; 29:9; 30:10,16; 31:12;
32:46). And without falling into the legalism of Judaism, self discipline
does require a degree of fencing ourselves in to the one way. Thus the man
struggling with alcoholism avoids the supermarket where alcohol is pushed
in front of the eyes of the shoppers; the married woman struggling with
attraction to another man makes little laws for herself about avoiding his
company. And if we do this, then the Lord will "keep" us, will hedge us in
to keeping His way (s.w. Num. 6:24).
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