Biblion Bible Commentary
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Without Defect, to Be Accepted
Leviticus 22:17-33
17 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
Nothing damaged may be offered, and the standard is applied identically to Israelites and to foreigners bringing gifts.
The requirement is stated in a clause that gives the purpose before the rule: that you may be accepted, you shall offer a male without defect Leviticus 22:19.
Acceptance is the aim, and the animal is the means. The list of disqualifications that follows is unsparing — blind, is injured, is maimed, has a wart, is festering, or has a running sore Leviticus 22:22.
These are the animals a farmer would be glad to see leave the flock. The law names them precisely so that a gift cannot double as a disposal, and centuries later a prophet is still charging the priests with accepting exactly these — the blind, the lame, the sick, offered to God and to nobody's inconvenience Malachi 1:8.
One distinction is finely drawn. An animal with a limb deformity or lacking in his parts may be brought as a freewill offering but not for a vow Leviticus 22:23. A vow was a promise made in trouble, and a man discharging one may not do it with a substandard animal; a spontaneous gift is judged more gently.
The standard is then applied without regard to nationality. The chapter opens by addressing the house of Israel, or of the foreigners in Israel Leviticus 22:18, and closes the same way: nothing defective may be accepted from the hand of a foreigner either Leviticus 22:25.
A foreigner may bring an offering — which is worth noticing in itself — and he is held to the same rule. Nobody's gift is graded on a curve.
Two provisions about animals close the section, and both are about not being brutal in the middle of religion. A newborn stays with its mother seven days before it may be offered Leviticus 22:27. And you shall not kill it and its young both in one day Leviticus 22:28 — a mother and her offspring are not slaughtered together, even for the altar.
The chapter ends with the formula that has been running since chapter 11, and it is stated in both directions. You shall not profane my holy name, but I will be made holy among the children of Israel. I am Yahweh who makes you holy Leviticus 22:32.
They are told not to profane, and told that he is the one who sanctifies. The book never assigns holiness wholly to either party.
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