Chapter 1
Instructions on how to make burnt offering to the Lord. The burnt offering is a sacrifice made for atonement (Lv 1:4).
Analogical sense:
- The sacrifice of Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. The laws concerning sacrifice in Leviticus is continued in the new testament through the Church’s liturgy, that has strict rules on how the sacrifice is represented to God, through the Mass.
Chapter 2-3
Rules about cereal offerings and peace offerings.
Chapter 4
Rules on sin offerings. Lev 4:28 talks about one of the requirements for mortal sin: full knowledge (“when the sin which he has committed is made known to him”).
Chapter 5
When a person sins and knows about it, they need to confess their sin and bring and offering so that a priest makes atonement for their sin. (Lv 5:5, Lv 5:6)
Allegorical sense:
- The New Testament continues this practice, when Jesus gives the apostles the authority to be mediators and to forgive and retain sins.
- Lv 5:7 Lv 5:11 In the same way God allows for those who can’t afford a lamb to bring two turtledoves/young pigeons, and for those who can’t even afford that to bring fine flour, God accepts our imperfect contrition in the Sacrament of Confession. By his infinite mercy, He meets us in the midst of our misery and imperfection, He just asks to offer what we have, whatever he have, even if it is almost nothing at all.
Chapter 6
Key themes:
- Faith is trust, and a sin against your neighbor is a sin against God. Thus, sins like deception or robbery are breaches of faith against the Lord. (Lv 6:2)
- Repent requires the intention of amending the negative effects of your sin. (Lv 6:4-5)
Chapter 7
Allegorical sense: 3. Lv 7:19-21 Prefigures the eating of the flesh of the ultimate sacrifice, the Eucharist, and how it is a sacrilege to commune while carrying mortal sins. 4. Moreover, holy things are separated, dedicated for special uses and should be approached with purity.
Chapter 8
Key themes:
- Ordination offerings of Aaron and his sons. Profound and extended/long ritual.
Chapter 9
Key themes: 2. Consecration of Aaron as priest, and his offering of sacrifices for him and for the people.
Chapter 10
Key themes: 3. Separation of what is holy and common or unholy. Holy things are set apart from the rest. The punishment is great if holy things are mixed with unholy things: the fire of the Lord consumes Nadab and Abihu after they offered unholy fire.
Moral sense: 4. When you mix holy things with unholy things, you make the holy unholy. 5. To keep things holy, you need to set them apart, and protect them, and not make them common. 6. There is a danger in approaching the Divine things, as we can turn them into “routine” and lose the sense of profound mystery.
Chapter 11
Key themes: 7. Laws for unclean and clean animals, and what actions related to animals make you unclean.
Moral sense: 8. Still teaching/preparing the people about holiness. 9. Natural insight: unclean animals are more dangerous and transmit more diseases. Also teaches quarantine and washing when you touch animal carcass.
Allegorical sense: 10. Lv 11:45 For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. 11. Matthew 5:48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Chapter 12
Key themes: 12. Laws for unclean and clean states regarding giving birth, menstruation, and circumcision.
Allegorical sense:
- The Holy Family offers two young pigeons in Jesus’ presentation in the temple, as the law requires.
Chapter 13
Key themes: 2. Ritual cleanliness laws and procedures for quarantine regarding skin diseases and leprosy.
Chapter 14
Key themes: 3. Continues the law on leprosy, on what to do with garments and the house.
Lev 14:34 “When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession,” 4. Same question with “I hardened the Pharaoh’s heart”. God allows leprosy to happen, but because of God’s sovereignty, His allowance is portrayed as active cause.
Chapter 15
Key themes: 5. Ritual cleanliness laws and procedures for “bodily discharges”, menstruation, and semen emissions.
Questions: 6. What are these bodily discharges that are referred?
Chapter 16
Key themes: 7. God establishes a once-a-year ritual for washing the sins away of the people. This is the Yom Kippur, a solemn festival. The consecrated priests offer sacrifices for atonement for him and fot all the people, wearing the holy linen garments.
Lv 16:22-23 Aaron must put upon a goat all the transgressions and iniquity of Israel, and then the goat bears their iniquities and is let go into the wilderness (to die basically), carrying away the sins of the people. This is the scapegoat. Is this a type of Christ? That bears our iniquities for us, cleaning us of our sins?
The procedures with well-defined garments, rituals, and the figure of the priest making sacrifices for himself and the whole people is very similar to how the apostolic churches (Catholic/Orthodox) conduct their liturgical rites today.
Questions:
- Veil? Mercy seat?
Chapter 17
Key themes:
- Forbids the offering of sacrifices in open field and not for the Lord. Sacrifices should happen at the tent of meeting with a Priest.
- Forbids eating blood, as blood is the life of the flesh. Blood was given to make atonement for the souls. (Lv 17:11)
Allegorical sense:
- The priesthood offers sacrifices, and the priest is the one who, consecrated to God, is the mediator of sacrifices.
Chapter 18
Key themes:
- Israel should not do as the people of Egypt and Canaan do, they should keep the Lord’s statues.
- God establishes rules concerning sexuality, prohibiting:
- Incest (Lv 18:6-18): “near of kin”, father, mother, sister, half-sister, granddaughter, aunt, uncle, sister-in-law.
- Sex during menstruation. (Lv 18:19)
- Adultery (sex with your neighbor’s wife). (Lv 18:20)
- Homosexuality. (Lv 18:22)
- Bestiality. (Lv 18:23)
Exegesis: 3. “Uncover the nakedness” = having sexual relationship.
Moral sense:
- A man is kept on the way of life by keeping the Lord’s commandments. (Lv 18:5)
Questions:
- Lv 18:21 “to devote them by fire to Molech” what does that mean? Human sacrifice to an idol?
Chapter 19
Key themes:
- Recapitulates the Decalogue and the ordinances of the Covenant.
Literal sense:
- Some sacrifices/offerings are and must be eaten (Lv 19:5).
Allegorical sense:
- It is an abomination to eat the offering of a sacrifice outside of the stipulated rules (Lv 19:8), it is an abomination and his offering shall not be accepted. Just as it is a grave sacrilege to commune carrying mortal sins.
Chapter 20
Key themes: 2. Punishments for crimes in Chapter 18, basically, death penalty to all of them. 3. All the ritual laws have the purpose of making Israel Holy, not only in the sense of sacredness and sanctity, but to the most basic, that is, separated, set apart (Ex 20:26).
Chapter 21
Key themes:
- Priests are specially holy (set apart), because of their unique status of being consecrated to the LORD. Thus, they have stricter rule on ritual uncleanliness.
- The High Priest have stricter rules. The High Priest shall only marry a woman who is virgin, so that he doesn’t mix his bloodline with the common people. (Lv 21:15)
Analogical sense:
- Lv 21:15 points to Mary’s perpetual virginity. God chooses the Blessed Virgin Mary to be His spouse and she remains pure and virgin and her lineage remains clean.
Chapter 22
Key themes:
- No one while in a state of ritual uncleanliness shall eat of the holy offerings, it is a profanity. Sacrifices to God must be of animals without blemish.
Moral sense:
- Offer what is best to the Lord, not what is left.
References
Lv 5:5-6 When a man is guilty in any of these, he shall confess the sin he has committed, and he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord for the sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.
Lv 5:7,11 But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring, as his guilt offering to the Lord for the sin which he has committed, two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. But if he cannot afford two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he shall bring, as his offering for the sin which he has committed, a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; he shall put no oil upon it, and shall put no frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering.
Lv 7:19b-21 All who are clean may eat flesh, but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord’s peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. And if any one touches an unclean thing, whether the uncleanness of man or an unclean beast or any unclean abomination, and then eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.
Lv 10:10 You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean;
Lv 18:6-8 “None of you shall approach any one near of kin to him to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.”
Lv 20:17 “If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a shameful thing, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people; he has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his iniquity.”
Lv 20:26 “You shall be holy to me; for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”
Lv 21:14-15 “A widow, or one divorced, or a woman who has been defiled, or a harlot, these he shall not marry; but he shall take to wife a virgin of his own people, that he may not profane his children among his people; for I am the Lord who sanctify him”