Levite
Introduction
Levite priests produced a collection of rules for their priesthood and for Israelites in general that appears as the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Torah or the Christian Old Testament. The rules deal with religious, ethical, and legal matters, and were probably set down between 1,000 and 500 BCE, receiving later editing. The main divisions of this work are the laws of sacrifice, the laws of purification, and the laws of holiness.
The laws of purification include material on hygienic and medical matters. There is, for example, an extensive description of how to examine the symptoms and course of skin diseases to determine whether the condition is malignant. If the disease is malignant, the individual is declared to be unclean and must stay outside the settlement. He must wear his clothes torn, his hair disheveled, and must cry "Unclean, unclean".
In the laws of holiness (Chapters 17-26 in Leviticus), there are rules for behavior towards one’s family, members of one’s tribe, and strangers. These contain prescriptions for honest dealing and compassion. There are also descriptions of forbidden activities and the penalties to be imposed. As a whole, the material represents a somewhat partial set of recommendations that appears to be directed to the concerns of the priesthood.
As some of this material is quoted today in justification of certain types of prejudices and brutality, it is important to recognize the circumstances surrounding these edicts. An essential point being made comes in the statement attributed to Yaweh, the Israelite god: "You shall not do as they do in Egypt where you once dwelt, nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you; you shall not conform to their institutions". Most of Canaan, at one time an Egyptian colony, was inland from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and was influenced by the civilizations and religions of Babylon and Sumer. Philistia and Phonecia occupied much of the coast.
Egypt was a theocracy in which the ruling family had divine status and interbred to preserve this. The Levite priests did not want such features to enter Israelite religion and social structure. They therefore strengthened the role of the priesthood and laid down a lengthy list of prohibitions and penalties against sexual intercourse between blood relations. The land of Canaan entered by the Israelites included agrarian religions based on the belief that the fecund power of semen extended far beyond human conception. Male and female priests collected it for various kinds of anointing ceremonies and for improving the fertility of the soil and animals. These priests have come to be called temple prostitutes. The Levite priests took pains to protect their religion from such practices by edicts against homosexuality and bestiality, and by discouraging the sale of daughters into prostitution. The penalty for transgression was usually death.
The rules of the Levite priests generally enlarge on what are referred to as the Ten Commandments in the Biblical book of Exodus. For example, the Commandments state simply "You shall not commit murder", whereas the Levite priests also indicate the penalty: "When one man strikes another and kills him, he shall be put to death". The priests do not enlarge on the stricture on covetousness, which is presumably specific enough: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, his slave, his slave-girl, his ox, his ass, or anything that belongs to him." They are somewhat tolerant of sex with the slave girl of a neighbor, the penalty being a sheep to be given to the priest.
Like the Ten Commandments, the laws given in Leviticus are presented as the words of Yaweh. In the following extracts, the constant repetitions identifying this source are omitted. The extracts are also grouped by category and are thus not in the original sequence. The location of the extract in the original is indicated by the Leviticus chapter and verse in parenthesis.
Behave Justly Towards Others
1 You shall love your neighbor as yourself . . . (19: 18)
2 When a stranger settles with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who settles with you shall be treated by you as native born among you, and you shall love him as a man like yourself. (19:33-34)
3 You shall not steal, nor cheat, nor lie to one another. (19:11)
4 You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. (19:13)
5 You shall not treat the deaf with contempt, nor put an obstruction in the way of the blind. . . (19: 14)
6 You shall not nurse hatred against your fellow countryman. (19:17)
7 You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people. (19:18)
8 You shall reprove your fellow countryman frankly so you will have no share in his guilt. (19:17)
Respect The Family and the Old
9 Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father. . .(19,3)
10 When any man curses his father or his mother he shall be put to death . . . (20:9)
11 You shall rise up in the presence of gray hairs, give honor to the aged. (19:32)
12 You shall not go about spreading slander among your father’s relatives. (19:16)
13 Do not prostitute your daughter by making her a whore, lest the land fall into harlotry and become full of wickedness. (19:29)
Have Compassion
14 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien . . .(19:9-10)
15 And if your brother Israelite is reduced to poverty, and cannot support himself in the community, you shall assist him as you would an alien or stranger, and he shall live with you. You shall not charge him interest on a loan, either by deducting it in advance from the capital sum, or by adding it on to the repayment. 25: 35-36
16 When you brother-Israelite is reduced to poverty and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave. His status will be that of a hired man or a stranger lodging with you . . . You shall not rule over him with harshness. . . (25:39-43)
17 You shall not keep back a hired man’s wages until the next morning. (19:13)
Observe Tribal Justice
18 You shall not pervert justice in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have balanced scales, true weights, true dry and liquid measures. . . (19:35-36)
19 You shall not pervert justice, either by favoring the poor or by subservience to the great. You shall judge your fellow countryman with strict justice. (19:15)
20 . . . Do not take sides against your neighbor on a capital charge. (19:16)
21 You shall have one penalty for alien and native alike. (24:22)
22 Whoever strikes a beast and kills it shall make restitution, life for life. (24:18)
23 When a man strikes and disfigures his neighbor, what he has done shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The injury he has inflicted on another shall in turn be inflicted on him. (24:19-20)
24 When one man strikes another and kills him, he shall be put to death. (24:17)
25 If a man commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both adulterer and adulteress shall be put to death. (20:10)
Limit Slavery
26 Such male and female slaves as you may have shall come from among the nations that are round about you. From them you may buy slaves. (25:44)
27 You may also buy the children of those who have settled and lodge with you and such of their family as are born in the land. These may become your property, and you may bequeath them to your sons after you. (25:45)
28 When a man has intercourse with a slave-girl who has been assigned to another man and neither ransomed nor given her freedom, inquiry shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she has not been freed. The man shall bring his guilt-offering, a ram, to the Lord . . . (19:20-22)
Avoid Superstition
29 Do not resort to ghosts and spirits; nor make yourself unclean by seeking them out. (19:31)
30 You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. (19:26)
Banned Sexual Practices
31 You shall not do as they do in Egypt where you once dwelt, nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you; you shall not conform to their institutions. (18:3-4)
32 No man shall approach a blood-relation for intercourse. (18:6)
33 You shall not lie with a man as with a woman: that is an abomination. (18:22)
34 You shall not have sexual intercourse with any beast to make yourself unclean with it, nor shall a woman submit herself to intercourse with a beast: that is a violation of nature. (18:23)
Sources
Adapted from "Leviticus", The New English Bible, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1970, and from The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1952.
Last modified 04/12/05