Laws deep in Leviticus highlight social-justice aspects of ancient commands
Listing offers practical ways of loving our neighbors
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The Old Testament book of Leviticus is almost entirely a list of laws, most of which Christians pay little to no attention to these days. Many of them, such as those involving the rituals of animal sacrifice, obviously are irrelevant to modern Christian worship practices, even if there may be timeless principles behind them. Some involve regulations pertaining to practices that are seen as wrong today, particularly slavery. And still others, such as the extensive dietary codes, are generally seen by Christians as superseded by the teachings of the New Testament.
But buried within the 250 or so commandments in Leviticus are several that are surprisingly relevant to modern concepts of social justice. Among them is a commandment that Jesus saw as a linchpin of moral behavior.
Most of the commandments of Leviticus related to social justice can be found in a group of five in 19:9-18:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am Yahweh your God.
You shall not steal. You shall not lie. You shall not deceive one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.
You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh.
You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people. You shall not endanger the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.
Others can be found soon after, in verses 33 and 34:
If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.
You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of length, of weight, or of quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin.1 I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
We often talk about loving others in broad generalities. But these verses in Leviticus are both practical and specific. And they are among the clearest principles for living that can be found in the Christian scriptures.
Although these words were written initially for a pre-industrial society, they remain fully relevant today. Most of us today don’t harvest crops, but the principle behind gleaning still makes sense: It is an easy and painless step to freely share what we have that we don’t need. And in our modern culture, those of us who are employers generally don’t hand over cash to employees at the end of every workday, but we can still be fair in how we set wages and in how we financially honor what workers have done for us. Very few of us would deliberately try to trip a blind person, but we can follow the principle here by accommodating the many around us who face physical and mental challenges.
While these verses don’t explicitly include the Golden Rule, that principle is still there. Even when people are different than we are, we don’t have to treat then in any inferior way. Foreigners — and that includes anyone who doesn’t belong to our own tribe, however we define that — should always be treated as one of us.
Jesus saw the importance of these sections when he was asked, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”2 Jesus answered with a commandment in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength,” and then added Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
And then, in Mark’s account, Jesus says: “There is no other commandment greater than these.” Note that Jesus used the singular “commandment” here: To love neighbor and to love God are the same commandment; we can’t honor one commandment while dishonoring the other.
These verses in Leviticus give us practical, easy-to-understand ways to follow what Jesus called the greatest commandments of all. They provide us a way to truly live as God’s people in a way that justly structures society and meets individual needs.
This commentary on Leviticus is part of our Bible for Modern-day Saints series. Biblical quotations are adapted from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain.
The ephah and hin are solid and liquid measures, respectively, equal to about 22 liters and 6.5 liters.
See Mark 12:28ff.