- In chapters 1-7, the process of bringing gifts to the altar is outlined, affirming that sins and defilements require atonement. The body of the sacrificed animal, to whom the covenant is extended, is cast as a microcosm of the tabernacle and Sinai - "further up and further in" equals closer proximity to the divine.
- Chapters 8-10 recount the first narrative and the consequences of approaching the presence of YHWH on inappropriate terms. This warning acts as a "screen," separating the outer court from the holy place by reminding the worshipper what - or who - it is that they are approaching.
- Chapters 11-15 stand opposite chapters 1-7, contrasting the sacrificial animal with the zoo of animals that are not to be eaten or touched, and then the body of the Israelite. This second half thus expands and completes the first half.
I. "Yom Kippur" - Jewish and Christian Take-Aways
The once-yearly process of purification described in chapter 16 carries a bi-focal emphasis, as evidenced in the differences between Jewish and Christian interpretation of this event. In the Jewish tradition, Yom Kippur is a day of fasting, prayer, conversation and sermons - with a clear theological emphasis on purity. For Christian theology however, the fundamental presupposition is that blood is effective in atoning for sins. The reasons for this will be clarified in a moment. For our purposes, we must keep in mind that favoring one interpretation to the exclusion of the other is somewhat thin - we would do well to hold them both in tension, asking how they deepen and complement one another.
Similarly, Jacob Milgrom argues that rather than the "purity vs. atonement" question, the great antithesis in Leviticus is that purity/holiness = life, and impurity = death. Cast in this light, purity and atonement are two sides of the same coin.
II. Purification and Atonement - Why Blood?
Why, though, is blood sacrifice acceptable at all? If the sacrificial system is meant symbolically to restore life, why does it require the taking of a life? First, note the direct contradiction that the Israelite sacrificial system posed to the common view of the ancient Near East, that sacrifice was food for the gods:
Ut-napishtim, from the Babylonian
flood narrative
Then
I let out [all the animals] to the four winds, offered a sacrifice, and
poured a drink offering on the summit of the mountain. Seven and seven vessels of incense I
set up and filled them with cane, cedarwood and myrtle. The gods smelled the savor, the gods
smelled the sweet savor, like flies the gods crowded round the sacrificer....
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Psalm 50
El, the God Lord, He
spoke and called to the earth from the sun’s rising-place to its setting;
from Zion, the zenith of beauty, God shone forth. Let our God come and not be silent. Before Him fire
consumes, and round about Him – great storming.
“Hear, O my people,
that I may speak, Israel that I witness to you. God your God am I … I shall not take from your house a
bull, nor goats from your pens.
For Mine are all beasts of the forest, the herds on a thousand
mountains. I know every bird of
the mountains, creatures of the field are with Me. Should I hunger, I would not say to you, for Mine is the
world and its fullness. Would I eat the flesh of fat bulls, would I drink the
blood of goats? Sacrifice to God
a thanksgiving, and pay to the High One your vows, and call on Me in the day
of distress – I will free you and you shall revere me.”
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In contrast to these gods sniffing around for food "like flies," the God of Leviticus is utterly sublime; sacrifice is burned or taken outside the camp and not offered to God or the priests as food. Yet this same God is really present, as we are reminded in 16.2-4 with the mention of Nadav and Avihu; even though chapters 16-17 lead us back towards the literary entrance of the outer court, the process of atonement is described as the steps that direct us back to the screen of chapters 8-10 and make entrance into the Holy Place possible.
Second, if impurities are conceived of as something like a physical substance adhering to the bodies of the Israelites and the walls of the tabernacle, Yom Kippur is a sort of major "house cleaning" in which blood is the "priestly detergent." Like (yet unlike) water, blood is the ultimate purifying agent.
Nonetheless, these two observations are not wholly satisfactory. The closest we get to an explanation to the "why blood?" question from within Leviticus itself is this: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I myself have given it to you on the altar, to atone for/effect ransom for/wipe over your lives. For the blood - for life it atones!" (17.11, 14). The idea is that blood somehow makes creaturely life compatible with God's holiness; an idea which persists into the Gospel. More on that in a bit.
III. Blood and Covenant
As Protestants reading scripture from back to front as we are prone to do - that is, the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament - we might be tempted to focus on a single highlight of blood atonement from each: the sacrificial system and Christ's death on the cross. At best, this is very boring. At worst, I find myself wondering, "Is that really the best God could do? Why pick blood sacrifice as the way that Christ rewrites the covenant - was there no other way?" But if we look more carefully, we find that (to use Ellen Davis' elegant summary) "the entire history of the covenant relationship is written in blood - traced through the testaments, from Mt. Ararat to Mt. Sinai, to the tabernacle and temple mount, to Golgotha to the heavenly place where Jesus offers his blood, and to the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation." If you find lists of scripture references tedious (as I do), I apologize for what's about to happen. But this is very important:
- Gen. 9.1-4 - God initiates covenant with Noah; for the first time, permission is given to shed animal blood, but only for eating meat.
- Gen. 17.10-14 - circumcision/blood rite is essential for every male, marking inclusion as God's covenant people and maintaining God's covenant with Abraham.
- Ex. 4.24-26 - the "bridegroom of blood" passage, involving Moses
- Ex. 12.21-23 - blood on the lintel marks the Israelites as exempt from the death of their firstborns.
- Ex. 24.6-8 - the sealing of the Sinai covenant - "the blood of the covenant which the Lord has cut with you concerning all these matters" - resonates with eucharistic theology: the phrase "blood of the covenant" occurs in the OT only here and in Zechariah 9.11, creating a direct tie between Sinai and the Last Supper (Mt. 26.28)
- Hebrews 12.24 - Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant whose "sprinkled blood" (cf. the sprinkled blood of Lev. 16) speaks a better word than the word of Abel and marks a new and eternal covenant (Heb. 13.20)
- And implicitly ... Rev. 7.9-14 - the multitude sealed in the eternal covenant has washed their robes "in the blood of the Lamb" - sound like priestly detergent to you?
IV. Three Observations - how can this understanding of purity and atonement, blood and covenant, deepen our understanding of what it means when Jesus says, "the blood of my covenant"?
First, blood stands for life, not death - we ought to associate sacrifice not with the taking of a life but the gift of life. The offering of a life is indissolubly connected with covenant, the tie that binds Israel's life with God's own life.
Second, blood is somehow effective in wiping away and covering the effect of human sinfulness. "Robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb" stands in direct contrast to the story of Cain and Abel, where the shedding of blood is an expression of human violence. This only makes sense through an understanding of the ways that the sacrificial system acted as a limit to human violence and an affirmation that all life belongs to and is protected by YHWH.
Third, a speculation: is it possible that shed blood is a symbol of covenant binding precisely because it is counter-intuitive? After all, is it logical that Israel be chosen as God's covenant people? Is it logical that the divine should co-exist with sinful humans? In the same way, it is counter-logical (but not illogical) that Jesus should make peace between God and humans through the blood of the cross (Col. 1.20), which Paul knew quite well (1 Cor. 1.18).
Finally, chapter 17 acts as the latch on the entrance of chapter 1 by reiterating that sacrificial animals must be brought to the entrance of the tabernacle to be slaughtered. If there was any doubt that this entire section was a literary tour of the outer court and what goes on within it, there ought to be no question by this point. Now its time to trace our steps back (through chapter 16) through the screen and into the center of the sanctuary: chapters 18-20, Righteousness in Relationships.
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