Leviticus 22

Today’s reading continues to reinforce the reverence with which we should treat God and His commandments. Specific to the priests, they were to abstain from anything that would prevent them from partaking of “the holy things of the people of Israel” (v. 1). That is, if the priests and their families wished to eat of the sacrificial offerings that God designated to sustain and nourish them physically, they would need to be careful not to defile themselves. Matthew Henry asserts the following regarding these laws from God: “The holy things were their livelihood; if they might not eat of them, how must they subsist? The more we have to lose of comfort and honour by our defilement, the more careful we should be to preserve our purity.”[i]

Granted, for most of us, our livelihood is not based on our own level of purity, but I wonder how much nourishment from the Bread of Life that we are missing out on because we are not guarding ourselves from the defiled ways of this world. “Taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8), and once you feast on Him, I am confident that what once tempted you to stray from God’s good design for your life will not seem nearly as attractive. 

The latter half of Leviticus 22 outlines several commands regarding acceptable sacrifices, all of which were to be presented without blemish. Anything less than perfect would not be deemed as appropriate by God. Again from Matthew Henry: “This law made all the legal sacrifices the fitter to be types of Christ, the great sacrifice from which all these derived their virtue…When Pilate declared, I find no fault in this man, he did thereby in effect pronounce the sacrifice without blemish.”[ii]

Interestingly, Jewish tradition also held that the Sagan (i.e., the priest who served as “the right-hand man” of the high priest) would examine the sacrifices to determine whether the offerings were acceptable. Keep that in mind as you read this account of Jesus’s arrest, with the knowledge that Annas was the Sagan to the high priest, Caiaphas, at the time: [iii]

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First they led him to Annas…Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest (John 18:12-13, 24). 

The very people who led the efforts to convict Jesus were the ones who were helping the unblemished Sacrifice fulfill the Law. What irony, and what providence from a sovereign God! 

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Journal responses to the following prompts:

·       What are some things of this world that you need to abstain from so you may feast on the Bread of Life? 

·       Is your faith strengthened when you read about these subtle (and not so subtle) ways that Jesus fulfilled the entirety of the Law? 

[i] Henry, M. (2014). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible. (Vol. 1). Hendrickson Publishers. p. 417.

[ii] ibid, p. 419.

[iii] ibid