Religious and Social Regulations, 1-4
19:1 The LORD spoke to Moses: 19:2 “Speak to the whole congregation of the Israelites and tell them, ‘You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. 19:3 Each of you must respect his mother and his father, and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God. 19:4 Do not turn to idols, and you must not make for yourselves gods of cast metal. I am the LORD your God.
Eating the Peace Offering, 5-8
19:5 “ ‘When you sacrifice a peace offering sacrifice to the LORD, you must sacrifice it so that it is accepted for you. 19:6 It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice and on the following day, but what is left over until the third day must be burned up. 19:7 If, however, it is eaten on the third day, it is spoiled, it will not be accepted, 19:8 and the one who eats it will bear his punishment for iniquity because he has profaned what is holy to the LORD. That person will be cut off from his people.
Leaving the Gleanings, 9-10
19:9 “ ‘When you gather in the harvest of your land, you must not completely harvest the corner of your field, and you must not gather up the gleanings of your harvest. 19:10 You must not pick your vineyard bare, and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.
Dealing Honestly, 11-14
19:11 “ ‘You must not steal, you must not tell lies, and you must not deal falsely with your fellow citizen. 19:12 You must not swear falsely in my name, so that you do not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. 19:13 You must not oppress your neighbor or commit robbery against him. You must not withhold the wages of the hired laborer overnight until morning. 19:14 You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. You must fear your God; I am the LORD.
v13 ‘It was not just Jesus who showed the deeper relevance of the law. The eighth, ninth and third commandments are compressed into vs 11–12, and then shown to be relevant to all forms of cheating or deception in general, and to employment relations in particular.’ (NBC)
Justice, Love, and Propriety, 15-19
19:15 “ ‘You must not deal unjustly in judgment: you must neither show partiality to the poor nor honor the rich. You must judge your fellow citizen fairly. 19:16 You must not go about as a slanderer among your people. You must not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the LORD. 19:17 You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him. 19:18 You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people, but you must love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. 19:19 You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed, you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed, and you must not wear a garment made of two different kinds of fabric.
v16 The picture here is of the tale-bearer going ‘up and down’, spreading malicious gossip.
Cf. Psa 15:3.
v17 ‘If we apprehend that our neighbour has any way wronged us, we must not conceive a secret grudge against him, and estrange ourselves from him, speaking to him neither bad nor good, as the manner of some is, who have the art of concealing their displeasure till they have an opportunity of a full revenge (2 Sa. 13:22); but we must rather give vent to our resentments with the meekness of wisdom, endeavour to convince our brother of the injury, reason the case fairly with him, and so put an end to the disgust conceived: this is the rule our Saviour gives in this case, Lk 17:3.’ (MHC)
‘Friendly reproof is a duty we owe to one another, and we ought both to give it and take it in love.’ (MHC)
Love your neighbor as yourself – In modern ‘pop’ psychology, this is taken to mean (or at to imply) that we we cannot love our ‘neighbour’ unless we first love ourselves. There may be a germ of truth in the assertion (the Bible does not teach us to hate ourselves). But it is not taught or implied by this command. It is better to understand it to mean, ‘Love your neighbour as you do, in fact, love yourself’, or ‘Love your neighbour as if he were you’. If the latter sense is to be taken, then this is close in meaning to the ‘Golden Rule’ – ‘Treat others as you would want them to treat you’ (Mt 7:12). See longer note following.
‘A “neighbor” was anyone with whom there was contact, whether Israelite (v. 17) or alien (v. 34; cf. Matt. 22:39, 40; Rom. 13:9).’ (Reformation Study Bible)
A unique sentiment:
‘The law of love for one’s fellows is enunciated only here and in verse 34, and appears to embrace members of the covenant community (‘sons of your own people’) along with aliens and strangers who lived among them. Indeed, the terms ‘love’ and ‘neighbour’ seem to have been as comprehensive in scope then as now. This so-called ‘golden rule’ was quoted by Christ (Matt. 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27, etc.) as an ideal of altruistic behaviour in society. The sentiment underlying this aphorism was unique in the ancient world, and represents one of the Old Testament’s most outstanding moral precepts.’ (Harrison)
A usual, Jesus both intensifies and internalises the command:
‘The great parable on this verse is the story of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30–37). Its usual interpretation is that to love your neighbor is to help the unfortunate as the Good Samaritan did. Another view notes that the Good Samaritan is the hero of the story. Jesus asked who had become neighbor to the wounded man. The obvious answer is, the Samaritan. Then, Jesus implies, “Love the Samaritan.” This the lawyer never did. He did not really keep the law and thus needed God’s grace. This is somewhat more limited than the Levitical law that forbids revenge and anger against any “one of your people.”‘ (EBC)
If only we loved our neighbour as generously as we love ourselves! –
‘We often wrong ourselves, but we soon forgive ourselves those wrongs, and they do not at all lessen our love to ourselves; and in like manner we should love our neighbour. Our Saviour has made this the second great commandment of the law (Mt. 22:39), and the apostle shows how it is the summary of all the laws of the second table, Rom. 13:9, 10; Gal. 5:14. We must love our neighbour as truly as we love ourselves, and without dissimulation; we must evidence our love to our neighbour in the same way as that by which we evidence our love to ourselves, preventing his hurt, and procuring his good, to the utmost of our power. We must do to our neighbour as we would be done to ourselves (Mt. 7:12), putting our souls into his soul’s stead, Job 16:4, 5. Nay, we must in many cases deny ourselves for the good of our neighbour, as Paul, 1 Cor 9:19, etc. Herein the gospel goes beyond even that excellent precept of the law; for Christ, by laying down his life for us, has taught us even to lay down our lives for the brethren, in some cases (1 Jn. 3:16), and so to love our neighbour better than ourselves.’ (MHC)
The importance of this command is underscored by our Lord himself (Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31), along with Paul (Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14) and James (Jas 2:8).
Love for neighbour is presented in Leviticus 19 as highly practical, and covers five areas of everyday life.
1. Loving others with our possessions, Lev 19:9-11.
The practice of gleaning requires not only generosity on the part of the landowner but industry on the part of the poor. But,
‘The main lesson to be learned is that God’s people are to be generous. The principle for us is this: We must deliberately plan our financial lives so that we have extra left over to give to those in need. Don’t reap to the edge of your fields. And don’t spend all your money on yourself. Think of those who have less than you, and let some of your wealth slip through your fingers. In other words, don’t be stingy. Don’t get every last grape off the vine for yourself. Let others benefit from your harvests. As Paul puts it in the New Testament, we should work hard so that we “may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4: 28).’
2. Loving others with our words, Lev 19:11-12.
Two areas of life – business and the law courts – are picked out for special mention, because they are two areas where truthfulness are likely to be at a premium. The first command here prohibits stealing:
‘But the context suggests that the stealing is taking place by lying, people dealing falsely with each other, as in a business setting. By contrast, God’s people love others by telling the truth in their transactions. No cheating scales, weights, or measurements (vv. 35– 36).’
As for the law courts:
‘Especially in a day without surveillance cameras or DNA testing or tape recording, everything depended on witnesses. That’s why bearing false witness is such a serious crime in the Bible. Someone’s life could literally be ruined by a simple lie. Love— whether for our neighbors or for our enemies— demands that we are careful with our words.’
3. Loving others by our actions, Lev 19:13-14.
In a culture where one’s daily food was often earned on a day-by-day basis, is was vital that a worker received his proper wage at the end of the day. James 5:1-6 picks up this theme:
‘The rich, James says, were living in self-indulgent luxury. These were not the sorts of riches that they plowed back into the company in order to hire more workers. These riches were the ill-gotten kind. The rich had kept back by fraud the wages of the laborers. The injustice James rails against was not because of a relatively low wage or because there was a disparity between rich and poor. The injustice was that the rich had hired help for the harvest, but refused to pay them (v. 4).’
There is, of course, a wider principle that is taught by these two verses in Leviticus: God’s people must not take advantage of the weak, the vulnerable, the disadvantaged:
‘Don’t curse the deaf, even if they can’t hear you. Don’t put a stumbling block before the blind, even if they won’t know who did it. God knows. If others don’t know the language in your country, or don’t understand the system, or don’t have the connections, they should elicit our compassion and generosity, not our desire to make a buck at their expense.’
4. Loving others in our judgments, Leviticus 19:15-16.
We should apply the law (and, more widely, moral principles) without partiality. In church life, we should not defer to the wealthy and influential for fear of losing their support. Nor should we defer, in a dispute about money, to the less well-off because they are in greater need. Charity and generosity are certainly called for, but not at the expense of what is just and fair. Justice calls for
‘equal treatment and a fair process. No bribes. No backroom deals. No slanderous judgments. No breaking your promises. No taking advantage of the weak. That’s what the Bible means by social justice…Justice means there should be one standard, one law, for anyone and everyone, not different rules for different kinds of people.’
5. Loving others in our attitude, Lev 19:17-18.
Love is practical, but it also has an affective dimension. ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart.’ Love should be heartfelt, not a pretence. If we are angry with a brother, we should face up to our feelings and try to work things out with him.
‘We are responsible not just to treat our neighbors rightly, but to take the necessary steps so that our hearts can feel rightly toward them as well.’
To summarise:
‘this great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself— this commandment quoted in the New Testament more than any other— boils down to five very elementary, everyday, ordinary commands: share, tell the truth, don’t take advantage of the weak, be fair, talk it out. Simpler than you might think. But still easier said than done.’
Kevin DeYoung, Greg Gilbert. What Is the Mission of the Church? Crossway. Kindle Edition.
v19 These commands seem to be about the risk of spoiling a good product through adulteration. Planting a field with wheat and barley, for example, would make harvesting difficult, because the two crops would ripen at different times. Weaving flax and wool together would lead to unequal shrinkage and take-up of dye.
The command against the mating of different kinds of animals is more problematic. In the parallel passage in Deut 22:9-11 the prohibition is against yoking an ox and a donkey together. It may be that both passage are, in fact, about the mismatching, rather than the mismating, of animals. After all, horses and donkeys were regularly mated (to produce sterile mules) without any adverse comment. It may be that the NIV translation is incorrect. The word translated ‘mate’ actually means ‘lie down’:
‘Possibly the figure in Lev 19:19 is not sexual at all but more naturally would forbid causing different animals to bear a load in such a way that it would be an unequal load under which they would fall. If this interpretation is adopted, the law would fit beautifully its parallel in Deuteronomy. Indeed, the LXX on Lev 19:19 can be read, “You shall not hold down your animals with an unequal yoke.” The word “hold down” is rare and is translated here sexually by some, but its derivatives usually refer to “restraint” in general. We suggest, therefore, something like, “Do not make your animals fall down with an unequal yoke.”‘ (EBC)
Lying with a Slave Woman, 20-22
19:20 “ ‘When a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, although she is a slave woman designated for another man and she has not yet been ransomed, or freedom has not been granted to her, there will be an obligation to pay compensation. They must not be put to death, because she was not free. 19:21 He must bring his guilt offering to the LORD at the entrance of the Meeting Tent, a guilt offering ram, 19:22 and the priest is to make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin that he has committed, and he will be forgiven of his sin that he has committed.
This law ‘requires from the seducer no more than the sacrifice of a ram as a guilt-offering, whereas his life and hers would have been forfeit had she been a free woman. At first sight this suggests a contemptuous valuation of the slave girl; but in fact it reflects an appreciation of her weak position, for she was spared her life, and indeed any penalty at all, “because she was not free”. The requirement of no more than a guilt offering from the man was therefore an adjustment, it seems, to bring his sentence and her exemption into some kind of compatibility.’ (Kidner, Hard Sayings, p32)
The Produce of Fruit Trees, 23-25
19:23 “ ‘When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, you must consider its fruit to be forbidden. Three years it will be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 19:24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, praise offerings to the LORD. 19:25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest. I am the LORD your God.
Blood, Hair, and Body, 26-29
19:26 “ ‘You must not eat anything with the blood still in it. You must not practice either divination or soothsaying. 19:27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard. 19:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person or incise a tattoo on yourself. I am the LORD. 19:29 Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land does not practice prostitution and become full of lewdness.
You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard – ‘The prohibitions about reshaping beards and hair (Lev 19:26–28), e.g., probably relate to practices designed to avoid recognition by evil spirits who supposedly hover around a dead body and operate only in the context of such beliefs.’ (Thiselton, on 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)