Torah reading Kedoshim (קדשים): Leviticus 19-20

Readings

• Leviticus 19–20
• Ezekiel 20:2–20
• Ezekiel 22:1–19
• Matthew 5:43–48
• Matthew 18

Studies

Ancient wisdom for modern boundaries: Immigration, identity and loving your neighbor (Leviticus 19; Matthew 18)

Jeff May 11, 2024

Though 3,500 years separates us from the instructions of Heaven to Israel in the Torah reading קְדֹשִׁים Kedoshim/Qedoshim (Leviticus 19:1–20:26) and 2,000 years from Messiah Yeshua’s (Christ Jesus’) counsel in Matthew 18, the message is the same today as before: respect God and others. This study explores the surprisingly relevant principles for today’s society include the dangers of Moloch worship, which at its core is the pursuit of personal benefit at the expense of future generations (infants presented as offerings). Among the parallels between the Ten Commandments and the “Holiness Code” of Leviticus 19 is the tie between the…

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Toward a more relevant Torah for today’s world (Leviticus 16–20)

Jeff April 29, 2023

Some are concerned about making the Bible more relevant to modern society, by playing down or sidestepping the “icky” or seemingly backward depictions and instructions in it. However, among the key lessons from the dual Torah reading אחרי מות Acharei Mot (“after the deaths”) and קדושים Kedoshim (“holies/holy”) (Leviticus 16–20) is that the what seems obsolete is anything but that — especially for how they undergird the gospel of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus).

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Yes, offering children to an idol is still a thing today. But it doesn’t have to be (Leviticus 20:2)

Daniel May 7, 2022

If you faithfully follow the news, you have heard that an early draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the media, which has created a firestorm of media attention. A 1973 Supreme Court decision that created a “right” to abortion, Roe was contentious at the time, and the prospect of its overturn is equally contentious. In our day, we pretend that we are more sophisticated than our ancestors millennia ago, because we kill our children while they are yet unborn, in the privacy of a clinic. Medical personnel dispatch the unborn modern sophistication. In…

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Don’t do dumb stuff, and don’t be like everyone else (Leviticus 16–20)

Daniel April 24, 2021

There’s an old saying that is common among parents who are trying to teach their children to resist the temptation to follow their peers into making disastrous life-changing mistakes: “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”  God was preparing the children of Israel to enter the Promised Land, a land where the Canaanites who, by God’s account, lived immoral or amoral lives. Underlying the lessons in the Torah passages אחרי מות Acharei Mot and קדושים Kedoshim (“after (the) death” and “holiness,” Leviticus 16–20) on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and morality is that God did not want the…

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Yeshua took our sins away so we can enter God’s presence clean (Leviticus 16–20)

Jeff May 2, 2020

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in the Bible, is a really good illustration of Heaven’s love for humanity. When we’re cleansed, we leave what it is we’re cleansed of behind. Just as ancient Israel was to leave Egypt and the practices of Egypt behind, we are to leave behind our old “chains” when Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) has cleansed us of behaviors that keep us in bondage. Learn more through this study of the Bible passage Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20) and its close connection to Hebrews 3-10.

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Leviticus 19: This is what holiness looks like and how the Messiah gets us there

Jeff May 11, 2019

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…

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Leviticus 16; Hebrews 1–10: Heaven’s High Priest is ‘exact representation of His nature’

Jeff April 28, 2018

Forgetting that the high point of God’s calendar — יום הכפרים Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement) — is all about the work of the High Priest and not of the congregant leaves one with the impossible, “terrifying” task of being his own sin sacrifice (Heb. 10:26–27). This study takes a whirlwind tour of the Letter to the Hebrews and what it tells us how Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ) is the embodiment of the lessons and message of the “Day of Coverings.”

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Leviticus 16; Hebrews 4–10: ‘Because we have a great High Priest…’

Jeff May 6, 2017

Here’s the lesson of Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement): The LORD wants us to enter His “rest.” He wants our old way of life to be covered over and the guilt taken away, so we can enter His presence. This study of the combined Torah reading אחרי מות Acharei Mot (“after the death”) and קדושים Kedoshim (“holinesses”), covering Leviticus 16–20, will be focusing on Hebrews 4:14–10:39. This which dives deep into the role of Yeshua (Jesus) as our High Priest, so we can learn Heaven’s lessons in the parables of the Tabernacle and Yom haKippurim.

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Real meaning of ‘eye for an eye’: God’s lessons in peace-making

Jeff August 2, 2014

Last time, we discussed lashon ha-ra (evil tongue, i.e., gossip, slander and divisiveness) and how it is one of the latter-day plagues among God’s people. In this excursus, we will explore a related principle taught in Torah by Yeshua and His apostles: proportionality. A number of Christians often consider “eye for an eye and tooth for tooth” an example of the “old covenant” not to live by anymore and quote Yeshua to that effect. Rather, we’ll see that “eye for an eye” is a Bible parabolic idiom teaching proportionality. The point of justice is to restore the offender to the community,…

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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.