The Book of Leviticus

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The people were to bring "pure oil olive beaten for the light," the finest oil, hand-crushed rather than milled, so the flame would burn clean and bright. With it Aaron was to tend the golden lampstand "without the vail of the testimony," in the holy place, "from the evening unto the morning before the LORD continually." Every night the lamps were trimmed and filled so they never failed. It was "a statute for ever." In a windowless tent, this seven-branched lamp was the only light, and it was to shine unbroken before the presence of God. The care was constant: the oil supplied, the wicks tended, the flame kept alive through every dark hour until the morning.

Gospel Focus

The lamp burning continually points to Christ, "the light of the world," who said, "he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). He is the true Light shining in the holy place of God's presence. But the picture reaches His people too. In the Revelation the churches are shown as golden lampstands, and we are called to "shine as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:15). Notice what keeps the flame alive: pure oil, tended continually. Oil throughout Scripture is a figure of the Holy Spirit, and no lamp burns without it. A witness that shines does so not by its own strength but by the Spirit poured into it, and it must be kept full and tended, not left to gutter out. The Christian life is a lamp "continually" burning, fed by the oil of the Spirit, trimmed by daily care, refusing to let the darkness win. Keep the oil supplied, keep the flame lit, and shine before the LORD until the morning comes.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

On the golden table in the holy place stood twelve loaves of "fine flour," set "in two rows, six on a row." This is the shewbread, literally the "bread of the face" or bread of the presence, so called because it stood continually before the face of God. Twelve loaves for the twelve tribes: all Israel was represented there, held before the LORD without a break. Pure frankincense was placed on the rows "for a memorial," and "every sabbath" the bread was renewed, the old loaves given to Aaron and his sons to eat "in the holy place, for it is most holy." It was an "everlasting covenant." Fresh bread, week by week, spoke of a God who never forgets His people and who keeps them ever in His sight, provided for and remembered.

Gospel Focus

The bread of the presence carries two glorious truths. First, it pictures the people of God kept continually before Him. As the twelve loaves stood on the table for the twelve tribes, so we are never out of God's mind or sight; He holds His own before His face always, remembered and provided for. Second, and higher, it points to Jesus, who declared, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger" (John 6:35). The bread that fed the priests in the holy place foreshadowed the true Bread that feeds His people in the presence of God. There is a further beauty here: this most holy bread was eaten by the priests, and in Christ we are made "a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9) who feed on Him. Once David and his men, in their hunger, ate this very shewbread, and Jesus used it to teach that mercy and human need matter more than mere ritual (Matthew 12:3-8). The bread on the table says God remembers you, provides for you, and in Christ feeds you with Himself, the living Bread, in His own presence.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

A man of mixed parentage, "the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian," strove with another in the camp, and in the heat of the fight "blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed." This was no careless slip; it was a direct assault on the holy name of God. They held him "in ward" until the mind of the LORD was made known, and God's word came: "he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death." The sentence fell alike on "the stranger" and "he that is born in the land." To modern ears the penalty is severe, but it measures how seriously God takes reverence for His name. The name of the LORD was the most precious thing in Israel, the revelation of God Himself among them, and to drag it into cursing was to profane the holiest thing they had.

Gospel Focus

This chapter presses on us the holiness of the name of God, and for the Apostolic believer that carries the deepest weight, for the name of the LORD is fully revealed and given to us in Jesus. The one God who guarded His name in Leviticus has made that name known: "thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21), and "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). The very name once so sacred that Israel trembled to speak it carelessly is the name in which we are baptized, in which we pray, and by which we are saved. So the third commandment still stands, "thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain" (Exodus 20:7); we are never to use that holy name lightly, in cursing or in careless speech. Yet see the grace: the name this man blasphemed and died for is the very name that now saves the guilty. The sinner who once cursed it may call upon it and live, for "whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved" (Romans 10:13). Reverence the name; and rejoice that it is a name of salvation.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Woven around the account of the blasphemer are the laws of just penalty. "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death"; one who killed an animal was to "make it good; beast for beast"; and injury was answered by measured recompense, "breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth." Far from licensing cruelty, this famous law of exact proportion restrained it: the punishment could not exceed the crime, cutting off the blood feuds and runaway revenge of the ancient world. Justice was to be measured, not savage. And crowning it all is the rule of equality: "ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country." The foreigner in Israel stood under the same justice and the same protection as the native. God's law showed no partiality, "for I am the LORD your God."

Gospel Focus

Two lights shine from these laws. The first is the impartial justice of God, who is "no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). One law for stranger and native says that every life bears the same worth before God, and it foreshadows the gospel that breaks down every wall, so that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek... for ye are all one" (Galatians 3:28). The mercy that reached the mixed-blood stranger under one law reaches every nation under one Saviour. The second light falls on the law of "eye for eye." It set a righteous limit on vengeance, but Jesus lifted His people higher still: "ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye... but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil" (Matthew 5:38-39). The law restrained revenge; grace overcomes it with love. And at the cross the perfect justice of God and His boundless mercy met: the full measure that our sin deserved fell not on us but on Christ, who bore it in our place, so that God might be "just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). Justice satisfied, mercy poured out, one law and one Lord for all.