When was Leviticus written?

Question

True Bible Answers · Accepted Answer

Leviticus begins with a word — God calling to Moses from the newly finished tent of meeting — and that setting is itself the clue to when the book was written. The commentators answer the question from three angles: where Israel was camped at the time, how long the speaking took, and who held the pen.

The Starting Point: A Tabernacle Just Finished

Exodus ends with the tabernacle raised and filled with God's glory, and that event is dated in the text itself. One writer fixes the moment precisely:

On the first day of the first month, a fortnight short of a year from the exodus, the lawgiver set up the structure, having first received a direct command from the Lord Jehovah to do it. He curtained off the court in the middle of the camp, and, by divine directions, put each vessel in its place, and anointed the tabernacle, and all its vessels, and the bronze altar, and the basin as well. Then the Lord took visible possession of the sanctuary.

C. E. Stuart

Leviticus opens immediately after this. God speaks from the structure that has just been filled — which is why the book's contents cannot predate that day.

The Window: Roughly One Month in the Second Year

How long did the speaking take? One commentator marks off the span, while noting that estimates vary:

Different views are held about the length of time taken up in the giving of these words of Jehovah. It is clear 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.

Arno Clemens Gaebelein

The book of Numbers supplies the far end of that boundary, since it opens on a stated date at the same location:

The book of Numbers begins with the words "The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt." (Compare Ex. 40:17)

Arend Remmers

The Pen: Moses Himself

The repeated formula running through the book is treated as evidence of both source and authorship:

Leviticus starts with the words: "The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting." Such introductory words appear over 35 times in Leviticus. They emphasise that Moses received these many revelations and communications personally and that he wrote them down himself (compare Deut. 31:9). God spoke out of the tent of meeting but also on Mount Sinai (see chap. 25:1). So Moses was able to write it all down and communicate it to the people of Israel.

Arend Remmers

(The older translation this writer used reads "tabernacle of the congregation" where the ESV reads "tent of meeting.")

The Closing Landmark: Still Sinai

The last verse of the book names a location, and one reference work reads that as covering the final section:

The book ends with "These are the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai." This apparently covers the last three chapters, since Lev. 25 begins with "The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai," in contrast to Lev. 1, which was spoken to him out of the tabernacle.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

The Seal: New Testament Confirmation

Beyond the book's own claims, the writers appeal to how later Scripture treats it:

Those contain at least forty references to the book and its ordinances. When our Lord Jesus Christ, the infallible Son of God, was on earth, the book of Leviticus, as well as the entire Pentateuch, was known and believed to be the Word of God, and written by Moses. Our Lord set His seal to this, and repeatedly bore witness to the Mosaic authorship and inspiration of the Pentateuch, called "the Law of Moses." How He confirms the book of Leviticus may be seen by turning to the following passages: Matthew 8:4 and Lev. 14:3-10; Matthew 12:4 and Lev. 24:9; Matthew 15:3-6 and Lev. 20:9; John 7:22 and Lev. 12:3.

Arno Clemens Gaebelein

The Rival Answer: A Date Nearly a Thousand Years Later

A very different date has been proposed, and the commentators address it directly:

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"! Higher criticism has assigned 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.

Arno Clemens Gaebelein

For these writers the dating question is not merely academic, because of who else has spoken on it:

It is not however the soundness of human theories, but the character of our Lord Himself that is involved. For if Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible — "the law" — as our Lord asserted more than once, but which the advocates of "modern criticism" deny, then the Holy Son of God stands convicted of ignorance or error, if not deliberate deception.

The Bible Treasury

Summary

- Place. The book opens from the tent of meeting, set up on the first day of the first month, just under a year after Israel left Egypt.

- Time. The contents fall in the second year after the exodus, inside a window closing around the second month — though commentators differ on the exact span.

- Pen. The formula "the LORD spoke to Moses," repeated over thirty-five times, is read as Moses receiving and writing the words himself.

- Seal. Around forty New Testament references, including the Lord's own words, treat Leviticus as Moses' writing and God's Word.

- Challenge. The rival dating puts the book after the Babylonian captivity — a claim these writers reject, because it sets human theory against Christ's testimony.