The Book of Leviticus

Leviticus is the book most readers of the Bible are tempted to skip, and the one the Fathers would least have us skip. Its twenty-seven chapters take up exactly where Exodus leaves off: the tabernacle has just been raised, the glory of the Lord fills it, and from that tent God now teaches His people how sinful men may approach Him and live. St Jerome, writing to Paulinus, says that while the meaning of Leviticus is plain, every sacrifice it describes, nay more every word it contains, the vestments of Aaron and all the Levitical order, are "symbols of things heavenly." Every one of its chapters can be read here in the Latin Vulgate beside the Douay-Rheims.

Who wrote the Book of Leviticus?

The Church has always received Leviticus as the work of Moses, the third book of the Pentateuch. The book itself makes this claim more insistently than any other part of the Law. It opens with "And the Lord called Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of the testimony" (1:1); the formula "the Lord spoke to Moses" returns more than thirty times; and it closes, "These are the precepts which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai" (Leviticus 27). Chapter 26 ends in the same way: these are the laws given "in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."

The New Testament speaks the same way. St Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5 with the words "For Moses wrote, that the justice which is of the law, the man that shall do it, shall live by it" (Romans 10:5). Our Lord sends the cleansed leper to "offer the gift which Moses commanded" (Matthew 8:4), the offering laid down in Leviticus 14. The Jewish tradition and the Fathers speak with one voice.

On 27 June 1906 the Pontifical Biblical Commission answered that the arguments of the critics do not overturn the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. It allowed that Moses may have used written or oral sources, may have entrusted the writing to secretaries under his direction, and that the text may have received later additions or small changes, so long as the work remains substantially his. Many modern scholars attribute Leviticus instead to a "Priestly" school writing centuries later; we mention the view but hold with the Church's tradition.

When was it written?

Leviticus belongs to the stay of Israel at Sinai. The tabernacle was set up "in the first month of the second year" after the Exodus (Exodus 40:15, Vulgate numbering), and the Book of Numbers opens "the first day of the second month, the second year of their going out of Egypt." Everything in Leviticus is therefore set within about a month at the foot of the mountain. As to the year, the Scripture places the Exodus 480 years before Solomon began the Temple (3 Kings 6:1), which the traditional chronology puts in the fifteenth century before Christ.

What is the Book of Leviticus about? A summary

The name comes through the Latin Leviticus from the Greek of the Septuagint: the book of the Levites, "so called because it treats of the offices, ministries, rites, and ceremonies of the priests and Levites" (Catholic Encyclopedia). The Hebrews call it Wayyiqra, "And He called," from its first word. Its theme is one sentence spoken by God: "Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2).

The law of sacrifice (chapters 1–7)

Chapters 1–7 lay down the five kinds of offering: the holocaust or whole burnt offering, wholly consumed for God's glory; the offering of fine flour; the peace offering, shared between altar, priest and offerer; the sin offering for faults of ignorance (chapter 4); and the trespass offering, with restitution for wrongs done. The offerer lays his hand on the victim's head, "and it shall be acceptable, and help to its expiation." Chapter 6 gives the rule of the altar fire: "This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar."

The priesthood consecrated (chapters 8–10)

In chapters 8–10 Moses vests and anoints Aaron and his sons, pouring the oil on Aaron's head, and for seven days they are consecrated. On the eighth day Aaron offers his first sacrifices, and "a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust". The joy is broken at once: Nadab and Abiu offer "strange fire, which was not commanded them," and fire from the Lord destroys them. God's word to Aaron sums up the whole book: "I will be sanctified in them that approach to me" (Leviticus 10:3).

Clean and unclean (chapters 11–15)

Chapters 11–15 treat legal purity: clean and unclean animals, the purification of a mother after childbirth, leprosy in men, garments and houses (chapters 13–14), and bodily uncleannesses. Challoner's note explains why: to train the people in obedience and temperance, to keep them from the vices these creatures signified, and "that the people of God, by being obliged to abstain from things corporally unclean, might be trained up to seek a spiritual cleanness."

The Day of Atonement (chapter 16)

Chapter 16, the heart of the book, is "the feast of expiation." Once a year the high priest alone passes within the veil before the propitiatory with the blood of the sin offering. Two goats are chosen by lot: one is sacrificed, and over the other, the "emissary goat" (the scapegoat), he confesses "all the iniquities of the children of Israel" and sends it into the desert. "Upon this day shall be the expiation for you, and the cleansing from all your sins."

The law of holiness (chapters 17–22)

Chapters 17–22 apply holiness to all of life. Sacrifice is to be offered only at the tabernacle, and blood may not be eaten, "because the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11). Chapter 18 forbids marriage within close degrees of kindred and every unnatural lust; chapter 19 mixes moral, ceremonial and judicial precepts, from honesty in weights to care of the poor and the stranger; chapter 20 sets the penalties; chapters 21–22 require of the priests a greater holiness, "for they offer the burnt offering of the Lord, and the bread of their God."

Feasts, the sabbatical year and the jubilee (chapters 23–25)

Chapter 23 is Israel's calendar: the sabbath, the Pasch and the unleavened bread, the sheaf of firstfruits, the feast fifty days later, the trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the feast of tabernacles. Chapter 24 orders the lamp of the sanctuary and the loaves of proposition, and records the stoning of a blasphemer. Chapter 25 gives the seventh year of rest for the land and the fiftieth year of jubilee, when "every man shall return to his possession."

Blessings, curses, vows and tithes (chapters 26–27)

Chapter 26 sets before Israel the blessings of fidelity ("I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people") and the chastisements of apostasy, yet ends with God's promise not to make void His covenant. Chapter 27, an appendix on vows, ends with the law of tithes: "All tithes of the land... are the Lord's."

Christ in Leviticus: the Catholic reading

The Epistle to the Hebrews is the inspired commentary on Leviticus. "The law having a shadow of the good things to come," it says, "can never make the comers thereunto perfect," for "it is impossible that with the blood of oxen and goats sin should be taken away" (Hebrews 10:1, 4). The Day of Atonement is fulfilled on Calvary: "Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come... neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:11–12). The victims burned "without the camp" figure Jesus, who "suffered without the gate" (Hebrews 13:12). The Baptist's cry, "Behold the Lamb of God" (John 1:29), takes its sense from these altars.

The sacrifices and the Mass. Challoner notes on Leviticus 1 that the old sacrifices served four ends, adoration, thanksgiving, pardon and petition, and that "in the New Law we have but one sacrifice, viz., that of the body and blood of Christ," which "perfectly answers all these four ends." The Council of Trent teaches the same of the Mass: it is the oblation "prefigured by various types of sacrifices, during the period of nature, and of the law," comprising all the good those sacrifices signified, "as being the consummation and perfection of them all" (Sess. XXII, ch. 1). The perpetual fire, the loaves set before the Lord every sabbath and the priest's share in the victim all point to the Holy Eucharist.

The priesthood. The anointing of Aaron, and the holiness required of those who "offer the bread of their God," foreshadow the priesthood of the New Law, a theme we develop in Holy Orders: the Catholic priesthood.

Leprosy and Confession. The leper "shall be brought to the priest" to be declared clean (Leviticus 14). Origen, in his Homilies on Leviticus (II, 4), names among the ways of remission the hard way of penance, when the sinner does not shrink from declaring his sin to the priest of the Lord and seeking a remedy. We set out the doctrine in why Catholics confess to a priest.

Our Lady and the Purification. The law of Leviticus 12 is why Mary, "after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses," came to the Temple offering "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons," the gift of the poor (Luke 2:22–24). The Church keeps this on 2 February, Candlemas.

The Old Law and the New. The Church distinguishes, with St Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I-II, qq. 99–105), three kinds of precepts in the Old Law: moral, ceremonial and judicial. The ceremonies were figures; the Council of Florence (Bull Cantate Domino, 1442) teaches that, once their meaning was fulfilled in Christ, they ceased. That is why Christians eat pork and offer no animal sacrifices. The moral precepts, which belong to the natural law summed up in the Ten Commandments, bind for ever. St Paul calls the Law "our pedagogue in Christ" (Galatians 3:24), and St Augustine, against Faustus the Manichaean, defends the Old Law as holy because it prophesied Christ.

Famous verses and chapters of Leviticus

Leviticus 19:18. "Seek not revenge, nor be mindful of the injury of thy citizens. Thou shalt love thy friend as thyself. I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19). Our Lord names it the second great commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 22:39).

Leviticus 11:7–8. "And the swine, which, though it divideth the hoof, cheweth not the cud. The flesh of these you shall not eat" (Leviticus 11). Near its close the chapter commands, "be holy because I am holy" (11:44), words St Peter repeats to Christians (1 Peter 1:16).

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18). The prohibition belongs to the moral law, reaffirmed in the New Testament, while the civil penalty belonged to Israel's judicial law; see what God says about homosexuality.

Leviticus 19:28. "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead, neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks: I am the Lord." On its force for Catholics, see what the Bible says about tattoos.

Leviticus 25:10. "And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee" (Leviticus 25), the origin of the word for the Church's Holy Years.

Leviticus 27:30. "All tithes of the land, whether of corn, or of the fruits of trees, are the Lord's, and are sanctified to him"; the Catholic sense is explained in what the Bible says about tithing.

Its place in the canon and in the liturgy

Leviticus is the third book of the Old Testament and of the Pentateuch, between Genesis and Exodus before it and Numbers and Deuteronomy after. Its canonicity has never been questioned, and the name is the same in Catholic and Protestant Bibles. On the translation itself, see the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Latin Vulgate.

In the 1962 Missal, the Mass of Ember Saturday in September reads two lessons from Leviticus 23: verses 26–32 on the Day of Atonement and 39–43 on the feast of tabernacles. Its Epistle, Hebrews 9:2–12, shows Christ entering the true sanctuary. On 2 February the Gospel of the Purification recalls the law of Leviticus 12. The feasts can be followed in our liturgical calendar.

How to read Leviticus

Read it after Exodus, in order, with the Epistle to the Hebrews open beside it. Take the first seven chapters slowly, asking at each offering what it shows of Christ's Sacrifice and of the Mass; read chapter 16 with Hebrews 9, and chapter 19 as an examination of conscience. Where the Latin repays attention (holocaustum, propitiatorium), the Vulgate column is on every chapter page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Book of Leviticus about?

Leviticus is the law of Israel's worship given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai. It covers the sacrifices (chapters 1–7), the consecration of Aaron and the priests (8–10), clean and unclean (11–15), the Day of Atonement (16), the law of holiness (17–22), the feasts and the jubilee (23–25), blessings and curses (26), and vows and tithes (27). Its theme is God's command, "Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy."

Who wrote the Book of Leviticus?

The Church teaches that Moses wrote Leviticus, as the third book of the Pentateuch. The book repeatedly says the Lord spoke these laws to Moses, the New Testament quotes it as what "Moses wrote" (Romans 10:5), and the Pontifical Biblical Commission upheld Mosaic authorship in 1906, while allowing for sources, secretaries and later minor additions.

When was the Book of Leviticus written?

Its laws were given at Sinai during roughly one month, between the raising of the tabernacle in the first month of the second year after the Exodus and the census that opens Numbers. Moses set them down during the forty years in the desert, which traditional chronology, following 3 Kings 6:1, places in the fifteenth century before Christ.

How many chapters are in the Book of Leviticus?

Leviticus has 27 chapters in the Douay-Rheims, the Latin Vulgate and all other Bibles. Every chapter can be read on its own page from Leviticus 1 to Leviticus 27.

How many laws are in the Book of Leviticus?

Scripture does not number them. The rabbinic tradition counts 613 commandments in the whole Law of Moses, many of them in Leviticus. Catholic theology, following St Thomas Aquinas, divides them into moral, ceremonial and judicial precepts, of which only the moral still bind Christians.

What does the Book of Leviticus teach us?

It teaches that God is holy, that sin separates man from Him, and that only a sacrifice offered by a consecrated priest can reconcile sinners. Its rites are figures of Christ, the true Priest and Victim, whose Sacrifice is renewed in the Mass. It also commands love of neighbour (Leviticus 19:18).

Does the Book of Leviticus apply today?

Its moral commandments still bind, because they belong to the natural law. Its ceremonial laws (sacrifices, food laws, ritual purity) were figures fulfilled in Christ and ceased with Him, as the Council of Florence taught, and its civil penalties belonged to ancient Israel.

How is Jesus revealed in the Book of Leviticus?

Jesus is the true High Priest who enters the heavenly sanctuary with His own blood, fulfilling the Day of Atonement (Hebrews 9:11–12). He is the spotless victim of every offering, the Lamb of God, and the one Sacrifice that, as the Council of Trent teaches, perfects all the sacrifices of the Law.

Read the whole Book of Leviticus verse by verse, in Latin and English side by side, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. Holy Scripture (Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision): Leviticus 1–27; Exodus 40; Numbers 1; 3 Kings 6:1; Matthew 8:4, 22:39; Luke 2:22–24; John 1:29; Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:24; Hebrews 9–10, 13:11–12; 1 Peter 1:16. Bishop Richard Challoner, notes to the Douay-Rheims on Leviticus 1 and 11. St Jerome, Letter 53 to Paulinus, 8. Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, II, 4. St Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, qq. 99–105. Council of Florence, Bull Cantate Domino (1442). Council of Trent, Session XXII, chapter 1. Pontifical Biblical Commission, response on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (27 June 1906). The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), "Leviticus." Missale Romanum (1962), Ember Saturday of September and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.