Aaron
First high priestMoses' older brother and spokesman, and the head of Israel's priesthood. He also made the golden calf while his brother was on the mountain, which the text reports without softening.
Exodus 4:14-16Exodus 32Leviticus 8
Old Testament · The Law
Leviticus
וַיִּקְרָא
The holiness handbook, offerings, priests, clean and unclean, and the Day of Atonement.
The book people abandon their reading plans in, and the one the New Testament assumes you know. Leviticus answers a question Exodus leaves open: God has moved into the camp, so how do you live next door to him without being destroyed? Its answer is a system of offerings, a priesthood, and a long taxonomy of clean and unclean. Two things usually go unnoticed. First, the categories are not about hygiene or morality but about wholeness and boundaries, which is why a mildewed wall and a grieving widow occupy the same conceptual space. Second, the heart of the book is not the sacrifices but chapter nineteen, where holiness turns out to mean paying wages on time, leaving your field's edges for the poor, not gossiping, and loving your neighbour as yourself, a verse Jesus lifts straight out of here. The Day of Atonement sits at the exact centre, and Hebrews spends chapters on it.
If you remember one thing
Most of Leviticus answers one question: how can people this ordinary live next door to God without being destroyed? The answer is a system of substitution and cleansing that the New Testament says has been fulfilled.
Who, when, and why
- Written
- Traditionally Moses, set at Sinai.
- First readers
- Priests first, and then everyone the priests served.
- Why it was written
- A holy God had moved into the middle of an unholy camp. Leviticus is the manual for how that could be survivable.
How it is shaped
- 1 to 7The offerings
- 8 to 10The priesthood installed
- 11 to 15Clean and unclean
- 16The Day of Atonement
- 17 to 27The holiness code
What it keeps coming back to
HolinessAtonementBlood as lifeClean and uncleanThe cost of nearness
A verse to carry
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.”
Leviticus 19:18
Passages that trouble readers
Leviticus 10:1-3
Nadab and Abihu killed for unauthorized fire, immediately after their ordination. The text offers no softening.
Leviticus 18 and 20
The sexual laws, including verses at the center of modern disagreement among Christians. Traditions differ on how the holiness code applies now, and the differences are real.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
Nadab
Aaron's eldest sonsAaron's two eldest sons, ordained as priests and among the seventy who went up the mountain and saw the God of Israel. Days after the tabernacle was consecrated they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, and fire came out and consumed them.
Exodus 6:23Exodus 24:1-11Leviticus 10:1-7
Eleazar
Aaron's surviving sonsAaron's third and fourth sons, who inherited the priesthood after the older two, Nadab and Abihu, were killed offering unauthorized fire. Eleazar succeeded Aaron as high priest and stood with Joshua to divide the land.
Exodus 6:23-25Leviticus 10:1-7Numbers 20:25-28
Moses
Prophet and lawgiverRaised in Pharaoh's household, exiled for forty years as a shepherd, then sent back to demand Israel's release. He led the nation out of Egypt, received the law at Sinai, and led them forty years through the wilderness, but died on Mount Nebo within sight of the land he never entered.
Exodus 2-40NumbersDeuteronomy 34
A quiz for Leviticus is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.