INTRODUCTION TO PART 4
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts (Lev. 23:1-2).
And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death (Lev. 24:15-16).
Leviticus 23 and the first section of Leviticus 24 are concerned with corporate religious feasts. The second half of Leviticus 24 deals with blasphemy. The judicial link between these passages is point four of the biblical covenant: sanctions. The first section deals with covenant renewal through participation in corporate covenant-renewal celebrations. The second section deals with individual covenant-breaking by oath.
Leviticus 23 lists the three national covenant-renewal celebrations: Passover (vv. 4-8); Firstfruits (vv. 10-21); and Tabernacles or booths (vv. 23-44). Verse 22 is seemingly a textual anomaly: "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God." I discuss in Chapter 22 the reason why the gleaning law of Leviticus 19:9 is recapitulated in the middle of the section on the three feasts.
Covenant is an inescapable concept. A man must affirm a covenant of some kind. He is, in Meredith G. Kline's words, by oath consigned. Covenantal affirmations in the modern world are usually implicit rather than explicit. Civil covenants are not normally established by explicit public oath except for political office-holders and members of the military. Marriage is today regarded as a contract rather than an oath-bound institution under God's sanctions in history. Baptism is also not regarded as an oath-sign, nor is the Lord's Supper regarded as an act of covenant-renewal. People make and break covenants without knowing what they are doing.
Blasphemy, however, is a far more self-conscious violation of God's covenant: a covenant-breaking verbal oath. No one is allowed to assault God's name verbally, whether he is a covenant-keeper under special grace or a covenant-breaker under common grace. The mandatory sanction is public execution (Lev. 24:15-16). This is the ultimate reparations payment to God in history: a forcible crossing of the ultimate boundary in history, death.
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