Holiness Reaches the Field, the Wage, and the Neighbor

The rabbinic commentary Sifra says this chapter was spoken to the whole assembly at once because most of the essentials of the Torah hang on it. The claim rests on the next verse, which names all the congregation where most chapters say only the children of Israel.

Qedoshim tihyu, ye shall be holy, gives the chapter its Jewish name, Kedoshim. The Hebrew form can be heard as a command or as a promise, you will be holy. The line first appeared at 11:44; here it heads a chapter rather than closing one.

Mother comes before father, the reverse of the Decalogue’s order (Exodus 20:12), and the verb is fear rather than honour. Sabbaths is plural, all of them. The two commands, family and sacred time, are joined in one sentence under one signature.

Idols is ’elilim, a scornful word meaning nothings or worthless things, which sounds like ’elohim, gods. Molten gods is the phrase of the golden calf, a molten calf (Exodus 32:4), cast in metal from Israel’s own earrings.

At your own will renders lirtsonkhem, which more exactly means for your acceptance: offer it so that you are accepted. The King James takes it as a freewill choice. The same root, ratson, returns in verse 7, where a mishandled offering shall not be accepted.

Two days to eat, and the remainder burned on the third. The rule repeats 7:16–17 for vowed and freewill peace offerings. The limit keeps a sacred meal from turning into stored provisions, since the meat must be shared out while fresh.

Abominable here is piggul, a technical term used only for sacrificial meat kept past its time; it appears in 7:18 and Ezekiel 4:14. It shall not be accepted answers verse 5: what should have secured acceptance now forfeits it.

Profaned is chillel, to make common, to treat a holy thing as ordinary. The same verb runs through this chapter: the name of God in verse 12, a daughter in verse 29. Eating on the third day turns the hallowed thing of the LORD into leftovers.

Corners is pe’ah, the edge of the field. The Mishnah tractate named after it sets no minimum, though one sixtieth became the custom. Gleanings, leqet, are the ears that drop from the reaper’s hand. Ruth went gleaning after the reapers in Boaz’s field (Ruth 2:2–3).

Glean thy vineyard is ‘olel, going back over the vines for the small clusters missed the first time. Every grape is peret, the fallen grapes on the ground. Deuteronomy 24:21 adds the fatherless and the widow to the poor and stranger named here.

Steal, deal falsely, lie: three verbs in the plural. One to another is literally a man against his ‘amith, his fellow, a word found almost only in Leviticus (5:21; 18:20; 19:15, 17; 25:14–17). It marks the person bound to you by common life.

Swearing falsely by the name echoes the third commandment (Exodus 20:7). To profane the name is again chillel, the verb of verse 8. A false oath treats God’s name as a tool to make a lie credible.

Defraud is ‘ashaq, to oppress or extort; rob is gazal, to seize by force. The day labourer lived on each day’s pay, and Deuteronomy 24:15 says he setteth his heart upon it. James 5:4 hears the hire of the labourers kept back by fraud crying out to God.

The deaf man cannot hear the curse; the blind man cannot see the obstacle. The rabbis extended stumblingblock to giving a person misleading advice, and Paul borrows it when he warns against putting a stumblingblock in a brother’s way (Romans 14:13).

Respect the person of the poor is literally lift up the face of the poor; honour the person of the mighty is to defer to the face of the great. Exodus 23:3 already said neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. Judgment tips neither way.

Talebearer is rakhil, from the root of rokhel, a travelling merchant: the gossip goes from house to house trading in rumours as a peddler trades goods. Ezekiel 22:9 speaks of men that carry tales to shed blood. Stand against the blood means stand idly by while a neighbour’s life is in danger.

In any wise rebuke is the doubled hokheach tokhiach, you shall surely reprove. Not suffer sin upon him is literally and not bear sin because of him: to stay silent would make the silent one share the guilt. Jesus gives the same order in Matthew 18:15, go and tell him his fault.

The line is quoted more often in the New Testament than any other verse of Leviticus: by Jesus (Mark 12:31), Paul (Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14) and James, who calls it the royal law (James 2:8). Rabbi Akiva named it the great principle of the Torah.

Diverse kinds are kil’ayim, mixtures. The mixed fabric is sha‘atnez, a foreign word found only here and in Deuteronomy 22:11. Yet the high priest’s ephod joined coloured wool with fine linen (Exodus 28:6), so the mixture forbidden to ordinary clothing was worn in the sanctuary.

She shall be scourged renders biqqoreth, a word found nowhere else, variously read as punishment, inquiry or compensation. The contrast is with Deuteronomy 22:23–24, where a free betrothed woman and the man are both put to death. Here no one dies, because she was not free.

The man, not the woman, brings the offering. A trespass offering, asham, is the sacrifice for violating what belongs to another (5:14–6:7). The ram was the most expensive animal of that kind, a real cost laid on the man alone.

The phrase the sin which he hath done appears twice in one verse. It shall be forgiven him is the promise attached to the sacrifices of chapters 4 to 6, here extended to a sexual wrong. Forgiveness follows the ram, through the priest, before the LORD.

Count the fruit as uncircumcised is ‘araltem ‘orlato, treat its fruit as its foreskin, the word used of uncircumcised lips in Exodus 6:12. Pruning the fruit of a young tree does strengthen it, though the verse itself gives no such reason.

To praise the LORD withal renders hillulim, a festive praise offering. The same word describes the vintage festival at Shechem in Judges 9:27, where they made merry. The fourth-year harvest is a celebration given to God.

That it may yield unto you the increase thereof: the waiting is tied to a promise of greater harvest to come. Five years from planting to eating is a long wait for a family; the purpose clause turns it into an investment.

With the blood is literally over the blood. 1 Samuel 14:32–33 shows Saul’s famished army slaughtering on the ground and eating with the blood. Enchantment is nachash, the word used of Joseph’s silver cup, whereby indeed he divineth (Genesis 44:5).

Corners of your heads uses pe’ah, the same word as the corners of the field in verse 9. The Orthodox Jewish side-locks, payot, are grown from this verse. Jeremiah 9:26 and 25:23 describe desert peoples who did cut the corners of their hair.

Marks is kethoveth qa‘aqa‘, a writing of incision, a tattoo; qa‘aqa‘ occurs nowhere else in the Bible. Cuttings for the dead were a mourning rite, and the prophets of Baal cut themselves with knives on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:28).

Prostitute renders chillel, profane, the verb of verses 8 and 12: a father who sells his daughter treats her as something common. The consequence spreads to the land, which in 18:25 could be defiled and vomit out its people.

The verse repeats word for word at 26:2. Reverence my sanctuary uses the same verb, yare’, as fear every man his mother in verse 3, so the same reverence owed to parents is owed to the holy place.

Familiar spirits is ’ovoth, those who call up the dead; wizards is yidde‘onim, the knowing ones. Saul drove them out of the land (1 Samuel 28:3) and then, in desperation, went to a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor (28:7).

The hoary head is sevah, grey hair. Rising is a physical act: getting to your feet when an old person enters. Proverbs 16:31 calls the hoary head a crown of glory, and fear thy God follows, since the elderly are easy to overlook without consequence.

Vex is tonu, to oppress or wrong, the verb of Exodus 22:21. In your land looks ahead to Israel settled as the host people, when for the first time the stranger will be the minority among them.

Thou shalt love him as thyself is the same Hebrew as verse 18, word for word, applied now to the foreigner. Exodus 23:9 gives the reason in other words: ye know the heart of a stranger. Deuteronomy 10:19 repeats the command.

Unrighteousness in judgment repeats the opening of verse 15, now applied to trade. Meteyard is the measuring rod for length, weight is for the scales, and measure for volume. The marketplace is treated as a court where false measure is false judgment.

Weights were stones, and the Hebrew says just stones. The ephah was a dry measure of about twenty-two litres, the hin a liquid measure of about four. Amos 8:5 attacks merchants for making the ephah small, and the shekel great. Honest trade is signed with the Exodus.

Observe and do, shamar and ‘asah, close the chapter as they opened the laws of chapter 18 (18:4–5). I am the LORD ends it, the fifteenth time the chapter has signed off a command with the divine name.