The emphasis which modern criticism has very properly laid on the
prophetic books and the prophetic element generally in the Old
Testament, has had the effect of somewhat diverting popular
attention from the priestly contributions to the literature and
religion of Israel. From this neglect Leviticus has suffered most.
Yet for many reasons it is worthy of close attention; it is the
deliberate expression of the priestly mind of Israel at its best, and
it thus forms a welcome foil to the unattractive pictures of the
priests which confront us on the pages of the prophets during the
three centuries between Hosea and Malachi. And if we should be
inclined to deplore the excessively minute attention to ritual, and
the comparatively subordinate part played by ethical considerations
in this priestly manual, it is only fair to remember that the hymn-book
used by these scrupulous ministers of worship was the Psalter-enough
surely to show that the ethical and spiritual aspects of religion,
though not prominent, were very far from being forgotten. In xvii.-xxvi.
the ethical element receives a fine and almost surprising prominence:
the injunction to abstain from idolatry, e.g., is immediately preceded
by the injunction to reverence father and mother, xix. 3,4. Indeed,
ch. xix. is a good compendium of the ethics of ancient Israel; and,
while hardly to be compared with Job xxxi., still, in its care for the
resident alien, and in its insistence upon motives of benevolence and
humanity, it is an eloquent reminder of the moral elevation of Israel's
religion, and is peculiarly welcome in a book so largely devoted to the
externals of the cult.
The book of Leviticus illustrates the origin and growth of law.
Occasionally legislation is clothed in the form of narrative--the
law of blasphemy, e.g., xxiv. 10-23 (cf. x. 16-20)--thus suggesting
its origin in a particular historical incident (cf. I Sam. xxx. 25);
and traces of growth are numerous, notably in the differences
between the group xvii.-xxvi. and the rest of the book, and very
ancient heathen elements are still visible through the
transformations effected by the priests of Israel, as in the case of
Azazel xvi. 8,22, a demon of the wilderness, akin to the Arabic
jinns. Strictly speaking, though Leviticus is pervaded by a single
spirit, it is not quite homogeneous: the first group of laws, e.g.
(i.-vii.), expressly acknowledges different sources--certain laws
being given in the tent of meeting, i. 1, others on Mount Sinai,
vii. 38. The sections are well defined--note the subscriptions at
the end of vii. and xxvi.--and marked everywhere by the scrupulous
precision of the legal mind.
There is no trace in Leviticus of the prophetic document JE. That
the book is essentially a law book rather than a continuation of the
narrative of the Exodus is made plain by the fact that that
narrative (Ex. xl.) is not even formally resumed till ch. viii.