Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Leviticus · About this commentary
You Shall Be Holy
Leviticus 19:1-18
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
Holiness is spelled out as unharvested field corners, wages paid the same day, and loving a neighbor as oneself.
The chapter opens with the command the whole book is built on, and it is addressed to everyone: speak to all the congregation... you shall be holy; for I, Yahweh your God, am holy Leviticus 19:2.
What follows is the answer to the obvious question, and it is startlingly ordinary.
The first item is farming. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings Leviticus 19:9. The vineyard is not stripped either, and what is left is for the poor and for the foreigner Leviticus 19:10.
Deliberate inefficiency, written into the harvest. And the mechanism is dignity as much as provision: nobody queues at a door. The poor go into the field and gather for themselves, which is how a Moabite widow fed her mother-in-law without asking anyone for anything Ruth 2:2–3.
Then a run of commands that work out the Ten in practice. Not stealing, not lying, not swearing falsely Leviticus 19:11–12. And then wages: the wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning Leviticus 19:13.
A day laborer is paid the day he works. His family eats tonight, and the employer's convenience does not enter into it.
Verse 14 is the one that gives the chapter its character. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall fear your God Leviticus 19:14.
Both crimes are undetectable to the victim. A deaf man does not hear the insult and a blind man does not see who put the obstacle there. The only sanction available is the one named — fearing God — and the law addresses exactly the space where nothing else reaches.
Justice is then required in both directions: you shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great Leviticus 19:15. Sympathy for the weak is as corrupting in a court as deference to the strong.
And the sequence ends in the sentence the Lord names the second great commandment Matthew 22:39: you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself Leviticus 19:18.
It is preceded by the practical form of it: you shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him Leviticus 19:17. Speaking to a man about what he is doing is listed as an alternative to hating him quietly.
settled What this mark means