Leviticus 17-18

1. Great Expectations
Sacrifice & Santification

2.  SERIOUS PUNISHMENT
 Direct divine destruction by God
 Execution by human agency
 Expelled from the nation

4.  Background:
 it was tempting for individuals to conduct these
sacrifices outside for convenience
 goat worship was rampant in the Eastern Delta of lower
Egypt
 Rationale
 meet needs of priests
 prevent sacrificing to goat idols
 what about wild animals?
 Punishment
 cut-off

5.  Definition:
 No consumption of blood for all animals
 Blood from wild animals must be drained out and
covered with earth
 Rationale:
 blood is life
 blood makes atonement
 Punishment
 cut-off

6.  Definition:
 Clean animal found dead or killed
 Wash clothes and bathe and wait until evening
 Rationale:
 Carcass would have blood everywhere
 Touching a carcass was polluting (Lev 11:39)
 Punishment
 “bear his iniquity”

7. 1) What, from these laws, can we still apply today?
2) What character traits or values of our Lawgiver can we
derive from these laws?
3) What was the significance of blood?

8. I am the Lord your God

9.  Incest:
 Brothers married sisters in the Egyptian royal family
 Homosexuality
 Canaan (Gen 19:5)
 Bestiality
 women and goats in the Eastern Delta
 God’s covenant with Israel
 integration of physical and spiritual laws
 obeying them will allow for happy and fulfilled lives

10.  Definition:
 Marriage was to be within the Israelites
 Preference was for marriages within tribes, and even
between cousins.
 Anyone more closely related was deemed out-of-
bounds.
 “to uncover the nakedness of” was a Moses-ism
 Rationale:
 then, sexual intercourse was marriage
 principle of “one flesh”

11.  Marrige with one’s daughter was not explicitly
prohibited :
 Probabaly because it was already marked as illicit in Gen
19:30

12.  Repercussions
 Leviticus 15:24
 seven day impurity
 Leviticus 20:18
 both man and woman shall be “cut-off”
 Rationale:
 sanitation
 increased risk of infection

13.  Bestiality:
 Men – not to have sex with animals
 Women – not to seduce a beast
 Homosexuality
 Rationale
 misuse of “seed”

14.  Definition:
 Molech – an ancient ammonite God
 Rationale:
 children should not be treated as objects
 not at the whim or fancies of their parents

15.  Becoming unclean
 God punished the iniquity
 Inhabitants were vomited out
 Cut-off
 Everyone who does any of these abominations shall be
cut-off (Lev 18:29)

16. 1) Which of these laws still apply today?
2) What can you learn about God’s character and values?