CHAPTER 19

(1490 B.C.)

HOLINESS

¹And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,

²Speak unto all the congregation of the Children of Israel, and say unto them, You shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am Holy. (Before the Cross, Israelites were severely limited in their ability to keep the Word of God. It was because animal blood was insufficient to take away the sin of man; consequently, the Holy Spirit, without Whose help Holiness cannot be perfected, was severely limited. After the Cross, which addressed in totality the sin debt, taking it all away, the Holy Spirit can now abide permanently within the hearts and lives of Believers, and will help us to live holy, providing our faith is ever placed in Christ and the Cross [Jn. 14:16-17; 16:7-14; Rom. 8:1-2, 11].)

HONOR PARENTS; KEEP THE SABBATH

³You shall fear every man his mother, and his father (render due honor to parents), and keep My Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God (the Sabbath in the Old Testament was a type of the rest which would be had in Christ when He came; trusting Christ and what He has done for us at the Cross constitutes, presently, the keeping of Sabbaths; since the Cross, the word Sabbath has nothing to do with a day or time, but rather Christ).

IDOLATRY

⁴Turn you not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God. (Anything presently which adds to Christ and Him Crucified, or ignores it altogether, is idolatry. In fact, religion is the greatest idol of all.)

THE PEACE OFFERING

⁵And if you offer a Sacrifice of Peace Offerings unto the LORD, you shall offer it at your own will (could include a lamb, a goat, or a bullock [Lev., Chpt. 3]. It signified that peace had been restored between this particular individual who had brought the Offering and God. The phrase, You shall offer it at your own will, would have been better translated, You shall offer it for your acceptance. If the Offering was accepted, the offerer was accepted as well, because the Offering was a Type of Christ).

⁶It shall be eaten the same day you offer it, and on the morrow: and if ought remain until the third day, it shall be burnt in the fire. (All the Offering was to be consumed in the allotted time, which typified Christ being totally accepted. Some of the Offering being left over for the third day, or even later, in essence, said that Christ was not being accepted totally in that which He did for us, which, in fact, pertains to the Cross.)

⁷And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be accepted (as stated, if the Offering was rejected by God, then the offerer was rejected, as well; Cain is a perfect example of this [Gen., Chpt. 4]).

⁸Therefore everyone who eats it (eats it after the second day) shall bear his iniquity (shall be held responsible by God for sinning), because he has profaned the hallowed thing of the LORD (because it pointed strictly to Christ): and that soul shall be cut off from among his people (if he does not repent).

LAW OF GLEANINGS

⁹And 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.

¹⁰And you shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God (the object of this Law is to inculcate a general spirit of mercy, which is willing to give up its own exact rights in kindness to others suffering from want; it is to be done in the spirit of Christ, Who has given us everything, in fact, the greatest gift of all, Salvation purchased at great price; this means that presently our spirit, attitude, and personality must always be in the capacity of the spirit of the Cross).

PROHIBITIONS

¹¹You shall not steal, neither deal falsely (the Eighth Commandment), neither lie one to another (the Ninth Commandment [Ex., Chpt. 20]).

¹²And you shall not swear by My Name falsely, neither shall you profane the Name of your God: I am the LORD (the Third Commandment).

OPPRESSION

¹³You shall not defraud your neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him who is hired shall not abide with you all night until the morning (in other words, common laborers were to be paid each day at the end of the day, because their needs were great).

¹⁴You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the LORD (all who were handicapped were to be treated with the deepest compassion).

¹⁵You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbour (the poor must not be allowed to break the Law because they are poor, and the rich must not be allowed to break the Law because they are rich; all are to be treated, as it regards the Law, equally).

FALSE WITNESS

¹⁶You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people (would have been better translated, You shall not go about slandering): neither shall you stand against the blood of your neighbour; I am the LORD (refers to the fact of lying against a fellowman, which could cause his death; the short phrase, I am the LORD, in effect says if this be done, the Lord will have vengeance on the perpetrator [Rom. 12:18-19]).

LOVE

¹⁷You shall not hate your brother in your heart: you shall in any wise rebuke your neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him (Jesus addressed this in Matthew 18:15-17).

¹⁸You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD (fulfills the second half of the entirety of the Ten Commandments).

SEPARATION

¹⁹You shall keep My Statutes. You shall not let your cattle gender with a diverse kind: you shall not sow your field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and wool come upon you. (The spiritual application of this Passage presently has to do with the mixing of false doctrine with the True. Paul said: You cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils [I Cor. 10:21]. Hooker says: He cannot love the Lord Jesus with all his heart who lends one ear to His Apostles and another to false teachers.)

SEXUAL ACTIVITY

²⁰And whosoever lies carnally with a woman (sexual intercourse), who is a bondmaid (a slave, or else a woman who was working in a certain household for a period of time in order to pay off a debt), betrothed to an husband (engaged to be married to someone else), and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged (for committing this act); they shall not be put to death (the man and the woman), because she was not free (the death penalty was not demanded because she was not free to make a choice; but yet, she was still guilty, so scourging was required).

²¹And he shall bring his Trespass Offering unto the LORD (the man has sinned against the woman), unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a Trespass Offering (thereby suffering the expense of doing such, which was the punishment for the man committing this sin).

²²And the Priest shall make an Atonement for him with the ram of the Trespass Offering before the LORD for his sin which he has done: and the sin which he has done shall be forgiven him (the basic idea of this prohibition concerns itself not so much with the sin of adultery as it does cohabiting with someone who is engaged to be married to another; adultery is forbidden in any case, but the sin compounds itself, if committed with one who is engaged to be married to someone else).

FRUIT

²³And when you shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then you shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of. (It is said that fruit trees yield better fruit afterwards if the blossoms be nipped off [circumcised] during the earliest years. It is even said that the fruit of the first year is unwholesome.)

²⁴But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the LORD withal. (In the fourth year, the fruit was to be dedicated to the Lord. It was offered up to Him with songs of praise; perhaps with festival songs, as in that seen in the vineyards of Shiloh [Judg. 21:19-21].)

²⁵And in the fifth year shall you eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof: I am the LORD your God. (This entire precept was in some way a memorial of the forbidden tree of paradise. Every fruit tree was to stand unused for three years, as a test of obedience. Every stranger saw, in Israels orchards and vineyards, proof of their obedience to their supreme Lord a witness for Him. And what a solemn shadow they cast over the fallen sons of Adam there, reminding them of the first fathers sin. As well, five is Gods number of Grace. As fruit was allowed to develop, likewise, Believers are to develop in the Lord, and can do so only by the Grace of God [Jn. 15:1-8].)

PAGAN PRACTICES

²⁶You shall not eat anything with the blood (blood was not to be eaten, and, in fact, was, in a sense, to be held sacred): neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times (any type of superstition was to be avoided).

²⁷You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shall you mar the corners of your beard (all had to do with superstition, and must not be engaged by Gods people).

²⁸You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. (Pagans were accustomed to making small incisions in their physical bodies, or to putting marks upon their flesh as a sign of mourning for their loved ones who had recently died. But the Lord forbade anything of this nature among His people.

The incision represented a separation and, in fact, an eternal separation, in the minds of the pagans. In essence, by the Lord commanding His people to not engage in such activities, He, in effect, was telling them that death, that is if they would faithfully serve Him, did not end it all. In other words, if their loved ones had been in the Covenant, and had Faith in the Covenant, and the ones living continued to have Faith in the Covenant, they would see each other again.)

PROSTITUTION

²⁹Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness. (This refers to the worship of heathen gods, which demanded temple prostitutes, and which was common among the heathen. Israel must not engage in such.

As well, all adultery and fornication were a violation of the Second and the Seventh Commandments [Ex. 20:4, 14]. In fact, there must be no form of sexual immorality among Gods people. The people of the Lord must be clean physically and morally.)

THE SABBATH AND THE SANCTUARY

³⁰You shall keep My Sabbaths (the Sabbath was not actually a day of worship, but rather a day of rest; it was so important, because it pictured in type the rest which would be afforded by Christ when He would come; so when a Christian presently serves the Lord, he has entered into His rest and, by doing this, is, at the same time, keeping the Sabbath a Spiritual Sabbath [Mat. 11:28-30]), and reverence My Sanc tuary: I am the LORD (then it referred to a Tabernacle or Temple; now it refers to the physical body and mind [I Cor. 3:16; Rom. 12:1-2]).

THE OCCULT

³¹Regard not them who have familiar spirits (a familiar spirit is a demon spirit that is invisible, which possesses the individual, and helps that person relate certain things to those who seek counsel and advice), neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them (functions in the occult, pretending to tell the people answers to their questions): I am the LORD your God (we as Believers are to have no association with such works of darkness; we are to be led strictly by the Holy Spirit [Jn. 16:13-15]).

HONOR

³²You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD (respect is to be shown to the aged; however, it goes deeper here than that; it refers to one who, by experience and age, has great knowledge of the Lord and Gods Word; they are to be deeply respected for that knowledge).

OPPRESSION

³³And if a stranger sojourn with you in your land, you shall not vex him (pertains to a Gentile who had willingly come under the Covenant of Abraham).

³⁴But the stranger who dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God (a proselyte was to be treated exactly as another Jew).

INJUSTICE

³⁵You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure (portrays honesty in all things).

³⁶Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall you have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt (as well, as modern Believers we are to look at these commands as presently being incumbent upon us, just as they were upon Israel).

³⁷Therefore shall you observe all My Statutes, and all My Judgments, and do them: I am the LORD (the Lord didnt say that Israel was to observe some of His Statutes and Commandments, but rather all of them).