There’s a lot of talk about the holiness of God and being holy. But what does it mean? Thankfully, God tells us in Leviticus 19-20, the Torah reading appropriately called קדשים Kedoshim, or “holiness[es].”
The common accompanying readings from the Prophets are Ezek. 20:2–20 and Amos 9:7–15.
Kedoshim discussions
Toward a more relevant Torah for today’s world (Leviticus 16–20)
Yes, offering children to an idol is still a thing today. But it doesn’t have to be (Leviticus 20:2)
Don’t do dumb stuff, and don’t be like everyone else (Leviticus 16–20)
Yeshua took our sins away so we can enter God’s presence clean (Leviticus 16–20)
Leviticus 19: This is what holiness looks like and how the Messiah gets us there
In the Torah reading קדושים Kedoshim (“holiness(es),” Leviticus 19–20), we find “the second greatest commandment”: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This section also includes a reiterating of the 10 commandments. Holiness is not perfection. Holiness, per the Hebrew word קדש qadash (“to set aside”), means to separate, create a distinction from the world. Leviticus 16 shows us that we cannot reach holiness on our own. The High Priest has to do it for us in our stead, while we must have the right attitude. That pattern is lived out with the Mashiakh (Messiah, Christ), Yeshua (Jesus), Who with His own…
Leviticus 16; Hebrews 1–10: Heaven’s High Priest is ‘exact representation of His nature’
Leviticus 19
God teaches Israel how to be holy
Up to this point, most of Leviticus has described how the Levites were to serve God. Starting here, we now start to learn how God wants the people to serve him.
The LORD defines what is holy
Leviticus 19 is about God wanting us to be as holy as He is. If we couldn’t be holy as God is holy, God wouldn’t have told us to even try to be holy like Him. If it was utterly too difficult to do, He wouldn’t have told us to do it. This is not a random chapter, inserted out of the blue to dumbfound us. This isn’t merely a book of dos and don’ts.
Lessons from rules on bondservants, mixing of cloths and seeds
Lev. 19:19-34 may seem like a disjointed collection of rules about managing servants, textiles and crops. But when we see that these are used as symbols elsewhere for characteristics of people, we can learn God’s lessons that transcend culture and time.
Leviticus 20
Molekh vs. priesthood of Israel
The mysterious deity-king Molekh appears in the Bible for the first time. Canaanites and later Israelites sacrificed their babies in fire to Molekh. What power did this worship hold then and does it unsuspectingly hold now?
Being ‘cut off’ from Israel
There are different punishments mentioned in this chapter: death, “cutting off from the people” or childlessness. God is simply warning the Israelites that He will not tolerate these types of sins that are commonly committed in Canaan. He is throwing the Canaanites out because of these kinds of transgressions. He is educating the Israelites and doesn’t want them to commit the same sins that got the Canaanites kicked out of the land. God is telling them what is holy and what is unholy.