When was Leviticus written?

The Time When Leviticus Was Given

Different views are held concerning the period of time consumed in the giving of these words of Jehovah. It is evident that Leviticus and Numbers 1-10:10 were given between the first day of the month and the twentieth day of the second month, that is of the second year after their departure from Egypt .

Leviticus, then, is by its own testimony the Word of God. The Son of God and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament confirm this testimony. The work of Christ and the gospel are foreshadowed in it and closely linked with the levitical institutions. In view of these great facts, believed and cherished by the people of God, including the most scholarly and devout, how astonishing is the assertion now so generally made by the boasting rationalistic school of higher criticism, that Leviticus is "a priestly forgery of the days after Ezra"! One is loath to refer again to this most dangerous infidelity which has become so widespread throughout all Christendom. Our times, however, demand a positive and outspoken condemnation of this modern day infidelity, which comes in the garb of an angel of light, with the claim of being reverent and devout, but behind which stands the dark and sneering shadow of the enemy of God. Higher criticism has consigned Leviticus to a date after the Babylonian captivity. According to these "scholars" the priestly laws were collected in Babylonia and were brought back to Palestine . Some even go so far as to claim that the levitical institutions were influenced by the institutions of Babylon . But enough of this! We do not want to fill our pages with the inventions of those blind leaders of the blind. If the book of Leviticus was not written by Moses, given to him directly by Jehovah Himself, then this book is a colossal fraud and forgery. Inasmuch as so many "theological" professors deny the inspiration and Mosaic authorship of Leviticus, this book has been branded as a concoction of falsehoods. Such is the logical consequence. We let another scholar speak on this matter: "While the Lord Jesus taught in various ways that Leviticus contains a law given by revelation from God to Moses, these teach that it is a priestly forgery of the days after Ezra. Both cannot be right; and if the latter are in the right, then--we speak with all possible deliberation and reverence--Jesus Christ was mistaken, and was therefore unable even to tell us with inerrant certainty whether this or that is the Word of God or not. But if this is so, then how can we escape the final inference that His claim to have a perfect knowledge of the Father must have been an error; His claim to be the incarnate Son of God, therefore, a false pretension, and Christianity, a delusion, so that mankind has in Him no Saviour?

The Scope and Division of Leviticus

Leviticus containing the divine instructions for a redeemed people reveals a progressive order. A rapid glance at the contents will demonstrate this at once. First the Lord gives to the people, whom He brought out of Egypt , His communications concerning the different sacrifices. After these offerings are described, and the law concerning them is given, the account of the consecration of Aaron and his sons, his fellow-priests, follows, and how they began their priestly functions. The judgment of Nadab and Abihu for presenting strange fire is closely connected with this. God demanding holiness in His redeemed people comes next in this book. The account of the great day of atonement, when Aaron entered the Holiest for a brief season, precedes the precepts for the people of God in which their walk in separation from evil is so fully entered upon. The great day of atonement is the center of the book of Leviticus; everything in the book is related to that day. The next which follows, after the giving of instructions of a holy walk, is the divine appointment of the different feasts, and the laws connected with these feasts, especially the great year of jubilee. This, with a chapter on things vowed and devoted, closes the book. It is most interesting to note this last chapter, for it contains the consummation of the book, and foreshadows the time when God will receive what belongs to Him, and when He will be all in all. The words "unto Jehovah"--"holy to Jehovah"--"it is Jehovah's"--occur fourteen times in this last chapter. (The word "Lord" in Leviticus, as throughout the Old Testament, is in the Hebrew "Jehovah.") "Holy unto Jehovah" is mentioned thrice in the closing verses of Leviticus. And this is in keeping with the message of the book. Jehovah is holy; His people must also be holy. "Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy" (chapter 19:2). The last verse of Leviticus states once more the solemn fact of the beginning of the book, that Jehovah spake all these words unto Moses.

This brief sketch shows the unity of the book of Leviticus and its progressive revelation. That it could be the patchwork of different writers or the product of after exilic days, as claimed by the rationalists, is impossible. A closer study of this book, so directly communicated by Jehovah to Moses, shows the marvellous wisdom of God. Only the omniscient Lord could give such instructions and institutions, which foreshadow His gracious ways in redemption. We shall aim, as much as this is possible, in our annotations, to point out the wonderful types and prophecies of Leviticus. Here the atoning work of Christ, the results for His people, their privileges and responsibilities are most blessedly outlined. Israel 's future restoration connected with the coming day when they shall see Him, who is typified by Aaron, when they shall look upon the pierced One, and their great national day of atonement dawns, the millennial times of blessing and glory and the great Jubilee: all is more than indicated by the Divine communications.

Leviticus starts with the words: "And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation." Such introductory words appear over 35 times in Leviticus. They emphasize that Moses received these many revelations and communications personally and that he wrote them himself (compare Deut. 31:9). - God spoke out of the tabernacle of congregation but also on Mount Sinaï (see chap. 25:1). Thus Moses was able to write it all down and to communicate it to the people of Israel (compare Jos. 1:7-8).

The Lord Jesus testifies to the fact that Moses was the author of Leviticus in Matthew 8:4 (comp. Lev. 13:49; 14:2-32).

Then in Leviticus, which is almost entirely characterised by the words, "And Jehovah spoke to Moses," and ends with "These are the commandments which Jehovah commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai," how daring is the impiety which allows a doubt! Here they have not the plea of heathen writers for confirmation, whom they venerate as they distrust the scriptures. It is the love of doubt which they confound with the love of truth, the assurance of systematic self-will and independent speculation, and not the faith of God's Son and God's word.

The feasts close the presentation of Christ by type in connection with the giving of the law. Now God requires a testimony from them. Jehovah's presence is among them; His feasts are given to them, and their happy privilege is to bear witness to it. They are commanded to bring pure olive oil, beaten for the light, without the veil of the testimony. (Lev. 24:2-3.) Primarily it was the witness of Jehovah's presence, and then a testimony to them and to the nations. A solemn case is immediately brought forward as proof of the reality that Jehovah was there. The mongrel son of an Israelitish woman blasphemed the name of Jehovah, and cursed, and he is stoned by God's command. Then follow precepts for the land — promises and threatened judgments. The order for the wilderness is closed. If during their journey worse sin should appear, there would be found in what was already given sufficient resources in grace to meet it. Grace might appear in a new form, in wisdom adapted to the particular evil, but all was contained in these ordinances given while they remained at Sinai, for the people had not yet begun their march in the new condition of being under law. Leviticus closes with, "These are the commandments which Jehovah commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai."

The record of the return under Zerubbabel and the rebuilding of the temple ends with the previous chapter. Many years passed after the temple had been built before the godly Ezra and his companions returned to Jerusalem. No record whatever is in existence covering the years which intervened between Zerubabbel's expedition and work, and Ezra's expedition. The critics claim that "it was in these apparently barren years that the priestly code was elaborated by the priests who had not left Babylon, and that part at least of the second half of Isaiah (chapter 40, etc.) was composed and put together in Babylon." But what historical foundation for their theory can they offer? There is nothing in existence which in any way warrants such claims. The evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and that Isaiah is the author of the entire book which bears his name is overwhelming. The theory of a priestly code, that the priestly laws of Leviticus were collected in Babylon and brought back by Ezra, is an invention.

The period of this compilation he gives as "approximately, in the eighth century B.C.," or about Hezekiah's time! But that only carries us a few steps in the construction of the Pentateuch.

Deuteronomy comes next, which critics believe to be the "book of the law" found by Hilkiah in Josiah's day; but "how much earlier than B.C. 621 it may be is more difficult to determine. The supposition that Hilkiah himself was concerned in the composition of it is not probable; for a book compiled by the high-priest could hardly fail" — God, of course, being left out, — "to emphasize the interests of the priestly body at Jerusalem, which Deuteronomy does not do. … It is probable its composition is not later than the reign of Manasseh."

The real "priestly" narrative — which does, of course, look sharply after their interests, — came later still. It is supposed to have added largely to Genesis, considerably to Exodus, including all about the special priesthood, the entire book of Leviticus, and much of Numbers. It belongs "approximately, to the time of the Babylonish captivity"! And now, with Ezra's revision, the Pentateuch is complete. But we must take notice, if we are to do justice to Dr. Driver's position, that he allows that there was a certain indefinable amount of tradition long before, and even, as we see, some written documents. The aggregate amount of these it is very hard to determine.

"Although, therefore, the Priests' Code assumed finally the shape in which we have it in the age subsequent to Ezekiel, it rests ultimately upon an ancient traditional basis, and many of the institutions prominent in it are recognized in various stages of their growth, by the earlier pre-exile literature, by Deuteronomy and by Ezekiel. The laws of P [the priestly code], even when they included later elements, were still referred to Moses, — no doubt because, in its basis and origin, Hebrew legislation was actually derived from him, and was only modified gradually."

The fifth narrator belongs to about Joel's time. From him the first great collection and thorough working up of all the previous sources of the original early history proceeded; to him the whole present Pentateuch and book of Joshua must be referred, except the three kinds of additions which were inserted later. So that we have a narrator who indeed sketches much altogether new with his own hand, and according to his own thought, as the need of his own time seemed to require it, but most of it only out of older writings, either verbally repeated, or here and there somewhat changed, and on the whole is more a collector and thorough worker-up than an independent writer and original historian. The distinction of Israel and the other nations is more strongly marked, particularly Edom, Moab, and Ammon, who were then throwing off Israel's yoke, whence the prophecy of Balaam, the Assyrian being looked at rather as a friendly power, Josephus enabling us to trace the place of Amalekites and Kenites then. The ships of Chittim refer to a war of the Phoenicians for the subjugation of Cyprus, whence pirates had been attacking all those coasts, as we read that Elulaus, king of Tyre, conquered those of Chittim, etc. But, through this division of foes and friends of the spiritual religion, which was much more marked then, this historian introduces a remarkable supplement to the "Book of Origins," in that he sets up in the olden time before the flood an opposition of holy and corrupt, of good and bad among men; Gen. 4.

161 After the previous one had already pursued the origin of wickedness farther up to the first man, and has developed it there at the same time in a prophetic way, he brings in striking pictures of things before the history, as Genesis 15 before 17, and so on. But he leaves out a great deal of what he had before him. So he sets Jehovah in addition to Elohim (Gen. 2:5; chap. 3), which he had from the fourth narrator, but gives up the unusual dragging double name in the simple relation; Gen. 4. However freely the fourth narrator has handled the original history, it is never with a law-giving object; for the single time when he brings forward laws he does it only in his usual competition with the old sources (Exod. 34:10-26), in order to declare the decalogue and its origin in his own way. Leviticus 26 is inserted by him, and could only have been written after the dispersion of one kingdom, as we have the sorrowful feelings of the descendants of those dispersed (vv. 36-40), so that this could not have been written before the end of the eighth or beginning of the seventh century (B.C,),

The little word "and" connects the book closely with the preceding one. Its beautiful relation to the book of Exodus we hope to show later. The opening verses of Leviticus solemnly declare that the words contained in this book are the very words of Jehovah. "And the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel ," etc. In no other book of the Bible is such stress laid upon the fact that Jehovah speaks, and nowhere do we find so many repetitions of this fact. Twenty-four times we find the divine command, "speak unto the children of Israel "--"speak unto Aaron." Thirty-six times occurs the phrase "the Lord spake." Twenty-one times the speaking One says, "I am the LORD (Jehovah)," and as often, "I am the Lord your God." No other proof is needed that the Lord is speaking on every page of this book. Moses received the very Word of God. He wrote the words as he had received them from the Lord. Any other belief is untenable.