Leviticus 24
17 Aug 2026 - Theology
The Spiritual and the Physical
The first part of Leviticus 24 gives rules for caring for the holy items inside the Tabernacle. These items include the pure olive oil needed to keep the golden lampstand burning and the special showbread set out every week.
Leviticus 24:2 - “Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamps to burn continually.”
Aaron and his sons (meaning, the priests) had to tend the lamps from evening until morning so that the light stayed on all the time (3). We saw this instruction earlier in Exodus 27:
Exodus 27:21 - “In the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the Lord: it shall be a statute for ever unto their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.”
Leviticus 24:5,8 - “And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake… Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.”
Every Sabbath day, fresh bread replaced the old loaves, and the old bread was to be eaten by the priests: “for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord made by fire by a perpetual statute.” (9)
The second half of the chapter contains an incident where a person of mixed race (Israelite and Egyptian) blasphemes the name of the Lord.
Leviticus 24:11 - “And the Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:)”
The people did not know what to do, so they put him in custody until the will of the Lord would be made clear to them (12). Taking God’s name in vain had already been forbidden in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
What the people were unsure of is whether the law applies to someone of mixed parentage. That much is clear from the answer God eventually gave:
Leviticus 24:16 - “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”
However, as Maimonides notes, this punishment is the only instance where the witnesses of the sin lay their hands on the head of the blasphemer before he is put to death. (14)
This episode raises many questions. What is the story doing here? There is only on other story in Leviticus: the story of the death of two of Aaron’s sons, which is found in Leviticus 10. However, that story has to do with the subject at hand, the Tabernacle, while this story does not seem to relate to the rest of Leviticus at all. So why is this story here?
And what do the laws from verses 17-21 have to do with this? The blasphemer has committed a sin against God, yet the laws that immediately follow the story are about crimes against people or property.
Leviticus 24:17-21 - “And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.”
Yet these laws, which seem to be unnecessarily repeated from Exodus 21, are presented seamlessly in the chapter as part of a single narrative. According to most commentators, the remaining chapters (25-27) of Leviticus were actually recorded earlier, before the creation of the Tabernacle. So this chapter would be the final chapter in the chronological order of Leviticus. Why end the book of Leviticus, which stands at the center of the Torah, with so negative a note?
Perhaps to understand the end, we must go back to the beginning. In Genesis 3, we read about Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit. This was not a physical crime, but a spiritual transgression of a command from the Lord. But small acts have large consequences, and in Genesis 4, their son Cain murders Abel. The reason for the placement of the story and the laws here is that spiritual offences against God and physical crimes against human beings are connected. Lose one, and you will eventually lose the other. When human beings lose respect for God, they eventually lose respect for humanity. Therefore, the way to defend humanity is to make sure people never lose their respect for God.
References
- The Hebrew - Greek Key Study Bible (KJV Version)
- Covenant & Conversation, Volume 3: Leviticus, the Book of Holiness