For Teaching

Leviticus 22: What the Passage Says

91 claims across 33 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Leviticus 22 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD tells Moses to instruct Aaron and his sons about the holy offerings: a priest who is unclean must not eat them or approach them, and only certain members of a priest's household may share that food. The LORD then gives rules for animals brought to him for vows, freewill offerings, and peace offerings, which must be without any defect, and a burnt offering which must be male, and animals with listed flaws are refused. Further rules cover how old a newborn animal must be before it can be offered, not killing a mother animal and its young on the same day, and eating a thank offering the same day. The chapter closes with the command to keep his commandments and not to treat his holy name as common.

Claim by Claim

22:1
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to say the following.
22:2
- The LORD told Moses to speak to Aaron and to Aaron's sons.
- Aaron and his sons are to hold themselves back from the holy offerings of the Israelites.
- Aaron and his sons are not to profane the LORD's holy name.
- The Israelites consecrate these holy offerings to the LORD.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD.
22:3
- The LORD told Moses to say this to them for all their generations.
- Any man of their descendants who approaches the holy offerings while his uncleanness is on him is to be cut off from the LORD's presence.
- The Israelites consecrate those holy offerings to the LORD.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD.
22:4
- Any man of Aaron's descendants who has a skin disease is not to eat of the holy offerings until he is clean.
- Any man of Aaron's descendants who has a bodily discharge is not to eat of the holy offerings until he is clean.
- The ruling also covers whoever touches anything made unclean by a corpse.
- The ruling also covers whoever touches a man from whom semen has gone out.
22:5
- The ruling also covers a man who touches any swarming creature by which he becomes unclean.
- The ruling also covers a man who touches a person by whom he becomes unclean.
- This applies whatever the uncleanness of that person may be.
22:6
- The person who touches any such thing is unclean until evening.
- That person is not to eat of the holy offerings unless he washes his body with water.
22:7
- When the sun has set, that person is clean.
- After sunset he may eat of the holy offerings.
- The holy offerings are his food.
22:8
- A priest is not to eat an animal that died of itself.
- A priest is not to eat an animal torn by beasts.
- Eating such an animal would make him unclean.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD.
22:9
- They are to keep the LORD's charge.
- If they do not, they will bear sin for it.
- If they profane it, they will die because of it.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD who sanctifies them.
22:10
- No outsider outside the priesthood may eat the holy thing.
- A priest's resident guest may not eat the holy thing.
- A priest's hired servant may not eat the holy thing.
22:11
- If a priest buys a person with his money, that person may eat of the holy thing.
- Those born in the priest's house may eat of the priest's food.
22:12
- If a priest's daughter is married to a man outside the priesthood, she may not eat of the contribution of the holy things.
22:13
- If a priest's daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, and has no child, and returns to her father's house as in her youth, she may eat of her father's food.
- No outsider may eat of it.
22:14
- If a man eats a holy thing unintentionally, he is to add a fifth to its value.
- He is to give the holy thing to the priest.
22:15
- The priests are not to profane the holy offerings of the Israelites.
- The Israelites lift these offerings up to the LORD.
22:16
- The priests are not to cause the people to bear the iniquity of guilt by eating their holy things.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD who sanctifies them.
22:17
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to say the following.
22:18
- The LORD told Moses to speak to Aaron, to Aaron's sons, and to all the Israelites.
- The ruling applies to any man of the house of Israel.
- The ruling applies to any foreigner residing in Israel.
- The ruling concerns one who presents his offering for any of his vows or any of his freewill offerings.
- These are offerings presented to the LORD as a burnt offering.
22:19
- For the offering to be accepted for them, it must be a male without blemish.
- The animal must be from the cattle, the sheep, or the goats.
22:20
- They are not to offer anything that has a blemish.
- A blemished animal will not be accepted for them.
22:21
- If a man presents a peace offering to the LORD to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, it must be without blemish to be accepted.
- There is to be no blemish in it.
22:22
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal that is blind.
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal that is broken.
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal that is maimed.
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal with a running sore.
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal with a festering skin eruption.
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal with a scab.
- They are not to place any of these on the altar as an offering made by fire to the LORD.
22:23
- An ox or a sheep with a limb overgrown or stunted may be offered as a freewill offering.
- Such an animal is not accepted in fulfillment of a vow.
22:24
- They are not to offer to the LORD an animal whose testicles are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut.
- They are not to do this in their land.
22:25
- They are not to offer the bread of their God from any such animals received from a foreigner's hand.
- Such animals are corrupt.
- Such animals have blemishes in them.
- Such animals will not be accepted for them.
22:26
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to say the following.
22:27
- When an ox, a sheep, or a goat is born, it is to remain with its mother seven days.
- From the eighth day onward it is accepted as an offering made by fire to the LORD.
22:28
- An ox or a sheep and its young are not to be slaughtered on the same day.
22:29
- When they sacrifice a thanksgiving sacrifice to the LORD, they are to sacrifice it so that it is accepted for them.
22:30
- The thanksgiving sacrifice is to be eaten on that same day.
- They are to leave none of it until morning.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD.
22:31
- They are to keep the LORD's commandments.
- They are to do them.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD.
22:32
- They are not to profane the LORD's holy name.
- The LORD will be hallowed among the Israelites.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
22:33
- The LORD brought them out of the land of Egypt.
- The LORD brought them out in order to be their God.
- The LORD said, I am the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

22:1: Where the King James prints LORD in capital letters, the Hebrew has the personal name of God, four consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish practice from ancient times was to avoid saying it aloud and to read "Lord" in its place; English Bibles follow that custom with the capitalized form.
22:2: "Holy gifts" are the offerings brought to the sanctuary. Part of most offerings was burned on the altar; the rest became food for the priests and their households, and that food is what this chapter is about. To "treat as common" (King James "profane") is the exact opposite of "set apart": to handle something reserved for God as if it were ordinary property.
22:3: "Cut off from my presence" is a fixed formula in these laws, and the texts never define it. It has been understood as expulsion from the community, as the ending of a person's family line, and as death at God's own hand rather than by a human court; the wording leaves it open. "Unclean" does not mean dirty or sinful. It is a ritual condition picked up from ordinary events (childbirth, sex, illness, touching a corpse) that temporarily bars a person from the sanctuary until it is removed by washing and the passing of time.
22:4: The Hebrew word behind "spreading skin disease" is tsara'at, which covers several scaly or discolored conditions and is also used of mildew in cloth and houses. It is not modern leprosy (Hansen's disease). The "discharge" is an abnormal flow from the genitals, described at length in Leviticus 15.
22:5: "Crawling creature" renders a Hebrew term for small swarming animals (lizards, mice, and the like) listed in Leviticus 11, whose carcasses transmitted uncleanness by touch.
22:6: Washing and then waiting for sunset is the standard remedy for the lesser kinds of uncleanness. The Israelite day changed at evening, so sundown ended the period of impurity.
22:7: The priestly families held no farmland of their own. Their livelihood was these portions of the offerings, which is why the text calls the holy gifts "his food", the rule about eating them is also a rule about eating at all.
22:8: An animal that died by itself or was killed by predators had not been slaughtered properly and its blood had not been drained, which Israelite law required. Eating it made a person unclean and so unfit to handle the offerings.
22:9: "Die because of it" points to death coming from God rather than a sentence handed down by a court; no human penalty is prescribed here.
22:10: The Hebrew word is simply "a stranger," meaning anyone outside the priesthood, including ordinary Israelites. The verses that follow work out exactly who counted as part of a priest's household and who did not.
22:11: A slave bought with a priest's money, or born to slaves already in his house, was a permanent member of that household and ate from its food. A hired worker or a guest staying temporarily belonged to some other household and did not.
22:12: Marriage moved a woman into her husband's household. A priest's daughter who married a non-priest ate from her husband's table thereafter, not from the sanctuary portions that supported her father's house.
22:13: The childlessness matters for household membership: a child would have kept her attached to her husband's family, and the child would have supported her. With no child and no husband, she reverts to being a dependent of her father's house and eats what it eats.
22:14: "A fifth" is twenty percent of the value, added on top of full replacement. It is the standard compensation elsewhere in these laws for accidentally using up something that belonged to the sanctuary.
22:18: A vow offering is one promised in advance, often in connection with a request made of God; a freewill offering is given spontaneously, under no obligation. A burnt offering is consumed entirely on the altar, nobody eats any of it. The "foreigner living in Israel" is a resident outsider settled permanently among Israelites, who could take part in the sacrificial system, unlike a passing traveler or trader.
22:19: "Accepted for you" means accepted on the offerer's behalf, counted in his favor by God. The phrase recurs through the chapter as the test of whether an offering has done what it was brought to do.
22:21: A peace offering was shared out: some burned on the altar, some given to the priests, and the rest eaten by the person who brought it, together with family and guests. It was the one kind of sacrifice that produced a meal for the worshiper.
22:22: The Hebrew names for several of these defects occur rarely and their exact meaning is uncertain, which is why translations differ over "wen," "scurvy," "running sore" and "festering rash." The common thread is a visible, disabling injury or growth.
22:23: The distinction is between a gift and a debt. A freewill offering is brought by someone under no obligation, so a slightly deformed animal is tolerated; a vow is a payment already promised, so it must meet the full standard.
22:24: The four words describe ways of destroying an animal's testicles, the language of castration, which was common practice for working and food animals. The last clause is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: it may forbid offering such animals anywhere in the land, or forbid the practice of castrating animals in the land at all.
22:25: "Food for your God" translates a Hebrew idiom, literally "the bread of your God," used throughout these laws for what is placed on the altar. The verse addresses animals obtained from foreign traders or given by outsiders: their origin is not the problem, their condition is.
22:27: A newborn animal had to survive a full week before it counted as a viable animal fit to be given; the eighth day is the same reckoning used for circumcising a child.
22:28: This belongs with a small group of related laws, including the ban on taking a mother bird together with her young and the ban on boiling a young goat in its mother's milk. All of them keep the killing of an animal separate from its bond with its offspring.
22:29: The thank offering (Hebrew todah) is a kind of peace offering, brought in response to a rescue or a benefit already received.
22:30: Other peace offerings could be eaten on the following day as well; the thank offering could not. Since a whole ox or sheep cannot be eaten by one family in a day, the rule effectively required the giver to invite others to share it.
22:32: "Profane" and "hallow" are the two poles of this whole chapter: to hallow is to treat something as set apart and belonging to God, to profane is to treat it as ordinary. A person's name in this culture stands for their reputation and standing, so how the priests handled these offerings in public was understood to affect God's.
22:33: The reminder about Egypt is the standard closing formula attached to laws throughout Leviticus. It presents the rules not as free floating regulations but as the terms of a relationship that began when Israel was brought out of slavery.

Read Leviticus 22