The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series provides students, pastors, and laypeople with up-to-date, accessible evangelical scholarship on the Old and New Testaments. Presenting the message for each passage, as well as an overview of other issues relevant to the text, each volume equips pastors and Christian leaders with exegetical and theological knowledge so they can better understand and apply God's Word. This volume includes the entire NLT text of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Other features: Provides pastors, teachers, and students with up-to-date evangelical scholarship. Both exegetical and translation commentary. Part of an 18-volume collection. Features New Living Translation Text.
David Baker, Ph.D., University of London, is professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio. He serves as editor for the Evangelical Theological Society's Dissertation series and Studies series. He has authored several articles/books, including the NIV Application Commentary on Joel, Obadiah, and Malachi and The Face of Old Testament Studies: A Survey of Contemporary Approaches. Dr. Baker served as a Leviticus reviewer for the New Living Translation.
Dale Brueggemann, Ph.D., Westminster Theological Seminary, pastored in Idaho throughout the 1970s. He has taught at Valley Forge Christian College in Philadelphia, and at Central Bible College in Missouri.
Eugene H. Merrill, Ph.D., Columbia University, is Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas and Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky. He is currently director of Eurasia education services for Assemblies of God World Missions, and he has been heavily involved in ministry in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He is the author of several articles/books, including a commentary on Deuteronomy in the New American Commentary series and the Deuteronomy study notes for the NLT Study Bible. He also served as a Deuteronomy reviewer for the New Living Translation.
CORNERSTONE BIBLICAL COMMENTARY
By David W. BakerTYNDALE HOUSE PUBLISHERS, INC.
Copyright © 2008 David W. Baker
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8423-3428-0Contents
Contributors to Volume 2.................................viGeneral Editor's Preface.................................viiAbbreviations............................................ixTransliteration and Numbering System.....................xiiiLEVITICUS................................................1NUMBERS..................................................215DEUTERONOMY..............................................445
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION TO
Leviticus
When people open their Bibles to read, or even for serious study, Leviticus is not usually the first place to which they turn. In fact, it is often the last. If any other biblical book is more removed from our experience, more different and even strange to twenty-first-century readers, it is hard to decide which book that might be. Therefore, before beginning to interpret Leviticus, it is necessary to think about why we should even bother in the first place. What actually makes Leviticus worth reading at all? There are three primary reasons to study Leviticus:
1. Theological reasons. Israel was not simply another people; they were the people of the First Testament (from among whom came Jesus and his disciples, who gave us the Second Testament). In order to appreciate and understand the latter, it is necessary to understand the former. Meaning comes from context, and the First Testament, including Leviticus, is the context of the latter. Various concepts and terms familiar to Jesus and his contemporaries were only familiar because they were introduced in Leviticus and have their background there. They were part of the cultural literacy of the period and formed an element of the knowledge reservoir upon which Jesus and the Gospel writers drew in their preaching, teaching, and writing. For example, the identification of Jesus as the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) would be incomprehensible without Leviticus 4:32-35. And the unspeakable condition of a hemorrhaging woman coming into a crowd and touching someone (Mark 5:25-34) is not understood apart from Leviticus 15:25-27.
2. Religious reasons. Worship is an important matter of discussion in today's church, which is divided on this issue as well as many others concerning theology and practice. Questions are raised as to the how, who, where, when, and even the why of worship. There is also the question of whether worship must be a corporate, group exercise or whether it can equally, or even preferably, be individual, something between a person and God alone. Even more fundamentally, there is disagreement over what, in fact, worship is and what it is not.
For our purposes, we will understand worship to be service for God done by his people, since this reflects most accurately both the Hebrew and Greek terms that lie behind our English translations. This understanding as service is undoubtedly broader than what we usually assign to worship, but it is important since it highlights what we are called upon to do-namely to serve and to work-and not just how we should feel about God.
This background should shed some light on understanding the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Most Christians do not spend more time here than they have to, since the book appears distant, foreign to anything in our daily lives. Seeing it as a handbook for worship might make it a bit more understandable. For the ancient Israelite, including the Israelite priest, who instructed the people, Leviticus was the worship manual that answered many of the questions I have mentioned, especially those of who could worship, when, in what manner, and how people made themselves worthy or at least acceptable in God's sight so that they could worship. Rather than being a dead book of dead sacrifices, Leviticus is a living book of instruction about how to worship the living God and how to act as his living people. While we do not follow the same "how" in our worship procedures today, God still expects our worship to be holy and done on his terms. Thus, we can learn that much of Leviticus is applicable or adaptable to our own situation.
3. Historical reasons. Leviticus is a historical artifact, the product of a people who played a significant role in the history and religion of the ancient Near East. As historical evidence of who these people were and what they believed, Leviticus is worth studying. This is a subdiscipline of the study of history per se, namely the field of history of religion. Leviticus is a necessary source for understanding Israel, as the Qur'an is for understanding Iraq and the Gitas for appreciating India. All these are windows into other peoples, their culture, beliefs, and existence.
AUTHOR
The Hebrew title and the first verse of the book reflect the Israelite understanding that the primary author of Leviticus was the Lord himself. The first verse also names the recipient of the message: Moses. In the ancient Near Eastern context of the Old Testament, especially in Mesopotamia but also among the neighboring Canaanites, many written documents concluded with a colophon. This included material that we find near the front of our books today. These colophons could include the name of the composition, a summary of contents, the source of the copy, the scribe who copied the text, and the date when the copy was made. There are possibly two or three of these colophons in Leviticus, which will be discussed later (see comments at 7:35-36, 37-38; 27:34). For example, one includes a composition name ("instructions"), contents summary with the various sacrifice types (7:37), source (the Lord), scribe or transmitter (Moses), and date ("when he commanded," 7:38). In these biblical "colophons," we can see that Moses was functioning in the place of the scribe, accurately transmitting for the reader material from God, his source.
Mosaic authorship has been traditionally accepted for Leviticus and the entire Pentateuch. Unlike some of the other Pentateuchal books, Moses is never said to have written any of the material in Leviticus (see Exod 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Deut 10:1; 31:9, 24); rather, throughout the book he receives God's oral revelation (1:1; 4:1; 5:14; 6:1, 8, 19, 24). Since the Enlightenment, people have questioned Mosaic involvement. Looking at Israelite history in conjunction with the contents of Leviticus, they have noted the particular relevance of the book to the priests. The most common argument has been that these functionaries came into their strongest period of authority in the Exile, and especially after the return from Babylonia. Since there was then no king to rule Israel, the priests were able to assume secular as well as civil authority. It was then, it has been argued, that the material most specifically relevant to them, called the "Priestly Document" (or "P" for short), was collected. Among numerous other problems with this proposal, it excludes any involvement of Moses in the affairs of the book.
A counter-swell of opinion has pointed out the antiquity of the laws and rituals found in this supposed P document, material which seems to have greatly predated the time of the Restoration and even the Exile. I have argued that the canonical character of the laws and rituals would point logically toward a life-setting back in the period of the wilderness wanderings, the picture of their composition as it is found in the biblical text itself...
