Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 22-23.

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When I started reading this I struggled with seeing meaning in it for me and other Christians today.  Then I was struck by a phrase that is repeated throughout the passage, “I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”  The first couple of times it says “them” instead of “you”, but the message is the same to me.  That led me to look to the context for those phrases, and each time I saw one of its variants, I saw God commanded the people to not do something so as to not profane that which is holy.  In order to gain meaning from that we need to make sure we understand what the word “holy” means.  So, here is the definition which I found for holy: “Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power.”  As a Christian, the only divine power which I recognize is YHWH (I will usually say God, but for this context I thought it was important to specify).  At the end of chapter 22, the passage reads, “you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you,  who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord.”  This references the most important holy thing which we should not profane, God’s name.  However, as I read this I realize there is another holy thing which we should not profane, which almost all of the laws were given in order to keep us from profaning.  That things is ourselves, and our fellow human beings.  Each and every human has been made in the image of God.  This means that they are, in principle, holy.  We should treat ourselves, and our fellow human beings as holy.  Jesus died on the cross in order to restore the holiness which we profaned by the sins we have committed.  Jesus died on the cross to sanctify us, and our fellow human beings.  Let us not once more profane ourselves, nor let us profane others by treating them, or viewing them, as less than holy. 

I want to make a note that I have found one thing which the ESV does that I disagree with.  They translate the Hebrew normally translated as “fast” (that is to abstain from food) as “afflict”.  So, in chapter 23 verse 27 it says, “and you shall afflict yourselves” rather than, “and you shall fast”.  Then in verse 29 it says, “For whoever is not afflicted”, rather than, “whoever does not fast”.  I understand that they are trying to reach the deeper meaning of humbling oneself and one’s dependence on God, but I think that this fails to accomplish that.  The fact that in our society we fail to view a fast with the spiritual attitude implied in these verses (and others which refer to fasting) cannot be fixed by using a word which does not include the idea of abstaining.  I want to add, that since most other translations use the English word “fast”, people will probably make the proper connections.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.