Like...I think we covered most of these rules in Exodus. We get it. God likes rules. And doling random cruel punishments. His character is very much established. I miss reading about brothers getting into fights and running across the country and other brothers selling brothers into slavery and other brothers murdering their brothers then getting sassy about it. I even miss the sodomy. I especially miss the sodomy.
I'm trying to hold out but I don't know how much longer I can push through this. I didn't think I'd ever actually say this about anything, but this section of the book has less of a plot than TWILIGHT. Get it together Jesus and James. Who is Leviticus anyway?
Chapter 20 Executions:
Basically all the rules are repeated and God mentions that he would kindly appreciate it if all those rules breakers were executed via being stoned to death or maybe burned to death. God has unaddressed OCD issues about "cleanliness."
Worthy rule mentions:
"If someone, whether male or female, is a medium with the dead or a diviner, they must be executed. They will be stoned; their blood is on their own head."
"If anyone curses their father or mother, they must be executed."
Don't talk back to your parents.
Other reasons to be burned or stoned as a COI (Child of Israel): if you're a man and somehow manage to have sex with a man in the same way you would with a woman (clearly because you'd then be a sorcerer and as mentioned earlier, sorcerers must also be put to death), if you have sex with a daughter in law, your father's wife, have sex with a married woman, if you marry a woman and her mother, if you have sex with an animal, if you're a woman who even attempts to have sex with an animal.
Luckily if you have sex with a woman on her menstrual cycle, marry your sister, sleep with your aunt, or marry your brother's wife, you'll only be shunned and who'd want to hang out with these guys anyway?
The big takeaway here: Marrying your sister is slightly less offensive to God than sleeping with your daughter in law, father's wife, or some other married woman who isn't your sister...
Chapter 21 Priest Rules:
"None of you are allowed to make yourselves unclean by any dead person among your community except for your closest relatives: for your mother, father, son, daughter, brother; also for your unmarried sister, who is close to you because she isn't married-you may be polluted for her sake. You must not make yourself unclean for in-laws, defiling yourself by doing so."
Don't mourn your dead unless it's someone close like your mother, father, son, daughter or brother. But never mind non-virgin sisters, wives, or in-laws.
"Priests must not marry a woman who is promiscuous and defiled, nor can they marry a woman divorced from her husband, because priests must be holy to their God." ... "The high priests must marry a woman who is a virgin. He cannot marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a woman defiled by promiscuity. He can only marry a virgin from his own people so that he doesn't make his children impure among his people"
Priests can't hook up with women who've been "defiled" even if they were married and their husband died...even widows create impure children. You know...there seems to be a lot of hate toward vaginas and how "unclean" they mustn't be but the thing that's keeps making them unclean is when they encounter a penis. So the real question here is, what's wrong with the COI penises eh? There's no mention of divorced, widowed or defiled men being impure because they encountered vaginas. So really it's the penises fault. Maybe they should clean their penises up and they wouldn't have these problems.
"If a daughter of a priests defiles herself by being promiscuous, she defiles her father. She must be burned with fire."
This is exactly what I'm talking about guys. You know what the solution is? The COI ladies should just be lesbians. No rule here mentions anything against it. It's only sodomy if there's a penis involved.
"None of your future descendants who have some kind of imperfection are allowed to offer their God's food. No one who has a imperfection will be allowed to make an offering: this includes anyone who is blind, crippled, disfigured, or deformed; anyone who has a broken foot or hand; anyone who is a hunchback or too small; anyone who has an eye disease, a rash, scabs, or a crushed testicle."
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| You must be this tall for God's love. |
Chapter 22 If you have to keep saying it:
"I am the LORD." You must keep my commands and do them; I am the LORD. You must not make my holy name impure so that I will be treated as holy by the Israelites. I am the LORD--the one who makes you holy and who is bringing you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the LORD."
Chapter 23 Sacred Times:
Sabbath and Passover rules AGAIN.
Chapter 24 Something actually happens:
Oh wait...what's that...a thing happens?
A boy got in a fight and used some naughty words while doing it so the Israelites stone him to death.
The lessen here. When you say bad words, you should be stoned to death.
Then there's an ominous section about not hurting or murdering others, just after the town stones a boy to death:
"If anyone kills another person, they must be executed." . . . "If someone injures a fellow citizen, they will suffer the same injury they inflicted: broken bone for broken bone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
Chapter 25 Slavery's cool so long as you don't do it to your own race:
"If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty with you and sells themselves to you, you must not make him work as a slave. Instead, they will be like a hired laborer or foreign guest to you. They will work for you until the Jubilee year, at which point the poor Israelite along with their children will be released from you" . . . "You must do this because these people are my servants--I brought them out of Egypt's land. They must not be sold as slaves." . . . "Regarding male or female slaves that you are allowed to have: You can buy a male or a female slave from the nations that are around you. You can also buy them from the foreign guests who live with you" . . . "These can belong to you as property. You can pass them on to your children as inheritance that they can own as permanent property. You can make these people work as slaves, but you must not rule harshly over your own people."
It's not cool that you guys were owned as slaves based on your race but it's totally cool for you to own foreigners as slaves and mistreat them all you want. Knock yourself out. 2 wrongs do make a right.
Chapter 26 Covenant Blessings:
God gets all jealous boyfriend again. In the first section, he says if the COI listen to him they'll live in a paradise with rain and fruit and butterflies but if they don't listen...
"I will bring horrific things: wasting diseases and fevers that make the eyes fail and drain life away" . . . "I will turn your sky to iron and your land to bronze" . . . "I will send wild animals against you, and they will kill your children" . .. "You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. I will eliminate your shrines, chop down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on the dead bodies of your idols."
It goes on like that for awhile...
Chapter 27 Dedications:
God talks about the value of people, animals, and land that are dedicated to God. It goes without saying that women are worth less than men.
END OF LEVITICUS
Next week we read a section called "Numbers."
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