Day 38. Leviticus 25-27

Leviticus 25-27

Leviticus 25

¹And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

Moses is still up on Mount Sinai. Well, probably not still, there's been several things that have happened in the camp, a couple of people have been killed, and there's been sacrifices. So Moses had been going up and down the mountain several times.

²Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.

³Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

⁴But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

Not only is there a Sabbath day, there is also a sabbath year.

Sounds pretty straight forward, after 6 years, give the land rest. The last sabbatical year was 2007. People still follow the law. They follow the letter of the law, but in no way do they follow the spirit of the law.

Farmers who observe this biblical law run the risk of going out of business, as they lose a year of profit. Some choose to raise crops in boxes of soil raised above the earth: a loophole to get around the law. The Sephardic chief rabbi has ruled that Jews may symbolically sell their land to Arabs as a way of avoiding the law (the Arabs have no obligation regarding the sabbatical year and therefore the land can be harvested). However, many ultra-Orthodox Jews do not accept this sabbatical sale. Many Israeli farmers don’t or can’t comply with the sabbatical year, so some Jews choose not to buy any produce from the land of Israel during a sabbatical year, in compliance with the law not to eat harvested produce.

An all powerful god who told the people to do this wouldn't let them go out of business... would he?

⁸And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

⁹Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

The seventh seventh year is a jubilee year.

¹³In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.

In the jubilee year, you have to let jewish slaves go.

²⁰And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:

²¹Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.

See, god said he'd provide extra in the 6th year.

²⁹And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it.

God built in an indian-giver law.

³⁸I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

Don't forget that.

Then there are some rules about buying and selling hebrews.

Leviticus 26

¹Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.

Did you read that Effingham, Illinois?

Just because you have a cross that's covered in aluminum siding, doesn't make it ok.

What about you, Monroe, Ohio?

³If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

If/then...

⁶And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

Lack of peace in the land is directly caused by not following the commandments. Note, they are commandments, not requestments.

¹¹And I set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

¹²And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

Israel doesn't have a temple... is their god still walking among them?

If the people don't follow the commandments...

¹⁶I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁷And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

Just wait until we get to Jeremiah!!!

²²I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

DINGO ATE MY BABY!!!

²⁴Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

Perry Stone likes to do biblical math. He also likes to say things, and then throw a bible verse location behind it. For example he'd say something like this:

There will be dingo's eating babies, Leviticus 26:22.

The best part of doing it like that, is most people don't have the ability to look up the referenced verse as quick as he says it. So, there's no telling how much of the actual verse he's using.

³²And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

It's like Moses wrote Lamentations.

³⁵As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

All because they didn't let the land sit for a year.

⁴⁰If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;

If you remember back to this later, you will wonder if it was added as it was happening.

Leviticus 27

²Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the LORD by thy estimation.

What is a singular vow?

³And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary.

⁴And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.

We still don't know what it is, but it costs men 50 shekels and women 30 shekels to get out of it.

The rest of the chapter is other prices that can be paid to get out of the singular vow, if a person doesn't have the silver.

We still aren't told what a singular vow is. I like to think of it as a person who is in trouble and says "God, if you get me out of this I PROMISE..."(to be a better person, to go to church, to give to charity, to be a better husband...) There is actually a price sheet for getting out of that.

Thus ends Leviticus. So what did you think of Leviticus? You probably thought you wouldn't like it. Most of it doesn't apply to you, you aren't a Levite. Honestly, if you aren't a born Hebrew (Jew) the rest of it doesn't apply to you either. According to Hebrew tradition, the only laws that apply to non-jews are the 7 Noahide Laws. I follow five of the seven, the two I don't are Blasphemy and Idolatry (I don't have a god, so I can't put Jehovah above everything else).

Today is February 18, the 49th day of the year, I'm only 11 days behind.

Points to ponder for today:

1. Do you follow the sabbath year? What would the world look like if everyone took a year long vacation every 7th year?

2. You may claim you follow the bible, all of it, but do you have a cross around your neck? That is a graven image.

Is the only way that people know you are a christian because of the thing around your neck, or your lapel pin? Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, how many people surprised you by showing up to work with ash on their heads, did they make you say "wow, you are a catholic, I never would have guessed". I guess strippers need Jesus too.

3. How much of Leviticus do you follow? Don't you just wish we could kill homosexuals? Do you believe there can be a gay christian?