Who wrote the book of Leviticus? Who was the author of Leviticus?

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).

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.

And here we must add the testimony of the New Testament Scriptures. 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. Without giving other New Testament references we briefly mention the Epistle to the Hebrews, which contains so many allusions to the levitical institutions, the priesthood and sacrifices, their typical meaning and realization in the person and work of Christ. This remarkable Epistle alone, in its God-breathed unfoldings, bears an incontrovertible testimony to the divine, as well as Mosaic, origin of Leviticus. And to this must be added another fact. The closer study of this book will disclose the fact that the different rites and divinely appointed institutions are indeed the "shadow of good things to come." The gospel of the grace of God is inseparably connected with the entire book of Leviticus. Nowhere else do we find the redemption-work of Christ so fully and so blessedly told out as in this book. The beauty and wisdom of all is from above.

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?

If we take the central book of the Pentateuch, what does it distinctly claim? "And Jehovah called unto Moses, and spoke unto him" etc. "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man" etc. And so, with slight historic exceptions the book of Leviticus attaches to itself the character of direct dictation from Jehovah throughout. But these critics flatly refuse to believe. Faithful men accept it as literal truth, the law given through Moses. This is surely inspiration; and He who revealed it empowered the human medium to communicate it, not only piecemeal by the way, but written as a whole.

143 But, before I turn to his more direct subject — the historical part, there is another point I may notice, which refers also to the subject we have been upon. Dr. Dods believes the prophets when they say, "Thus saith the Lord." Now in the greater part of the Pentateuch (and he will "contend for the historic credibility of the narratives") we find, "And the Lord spake unto Moses," very commonly adding, "Speak unto Aaron," or "to the priests," or "to the children of Israel, and say unto them," etc. Is this true? If so, we have, not a revelation of God in history credibly reported, but the word of God revealed to us. So in Deuteronomy we find "These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel," and then (chap. 4) he says, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." Is it true, or did he deceive them or not? If not, all the commandments, which are inseparable in the four last books from the history, and the history with them, are the word of God. If it is not true, or he deceived himself, or meant to deceive others, we have no sure warrant for the history, nor any revelation of God at all. If it be true, we have the revelation made by God to Moses. I do not insist on the absurdity of a system which makes the words of the prophets in warning to the Jews, and in statements occupied with their history and future hopes as a nation, a revelation from God; and the account of the fall of man, the promises, the law, the judgment of the whole world — a subject infinitely more important to us all — no revelation at all. The absurdity of it stares every intelligent Christian in the face.

158 If we treat now the whole manner and way in which the author puts in order and describes the Mosaic laws in recounting the history, there cannot be the smallest doubt that it is solely on this account that he describes them as communicated from Jehovah to Moses, and through Moses to the congregation, or Aaron, if the contents concern the priesthood; namely, that, as in his time they were in force as holy, an historian could only place their origin in that commencement of the congregation. They had won their force and holiness through long use, and so the author puts them as divine commands. Hence he has to seek what goes back to Moses' time, and what gradually or from other causes had come in. The author does not set up to be Moses. And when a prescription in the connected whole of the description applied only to the land, not in the wilderness, the author makes Moses announce it prophetically, sometimes with the addition, "When ye are come into the land." He revives the law-giving time, and depicts Moses and Joshua as models of leaders of the people, himself imbued with the same spirit. And certainly he took much out of the former historical work, or worked it up after his own manner, and took what was already in it, the inimitably described manifestation at Sinai, and with it the decalogue (where the words Exod. 20:9-11 are an addition from himself), the rather, as it was necessary in itself. He then praises largely the author for a priestly, lawgiving, leading royal spirit, and closes with thus apostrophising the author's elevated spirit whose writings have for centuries succeeded in being taken for those of the great hero Moses himself. "I know not thy name, and guess only from thy traces where thou walkedst in time, and what thou didst; but these traces lead me irrecusably on not to take thee immediately for him who was greater than thee, and whom thou couldst thyself honour as he deserved. So see that in me there is nothing false, and no desire not to recognise thee altogether as thou wast."

155 A very large part of the Bible, even on M. Godet's confession, professes to give the words of the Lord. "All the writings and some part of the prophetic scriptures, have these words for title: 'Thus saith the Lord.'" (p. 42.) Is it true or not? If that is true, there is no distinction between revelation and the Bible. The Bible is revelation itself set down in writing. M. Godet says, "The veracious document of the word of salvation." (p. 46). If it is veracious, we have, in all that it contains, revelation itself; and that does not only apply to prophecy but to law. It tells us there, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying." Is it true or not? The history of the creation, that of Abraham, etc., are they a collection of Elohistic or Jehovistic legends; or is it a written revelation? Man should live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Where find these words if the account rendered and revelation are not identical — if the Bible does not give us words from the mouth of God, that is, say, the revelation?

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.

The chapters which form the third section of Leviticus are by some taken to give evidence that not Moses, but another person arranged the material of the book. Even men who do not deny the inspiration of the book claim that the hand of a redactor is here discovered. In their opinion chapter 16 should follow immediately after the tenth chapter, because the first verse of the sixteenth chapter connects with the death of Nadab and Abihu. We do not agree with this view, but believe that the arrangement as we have it, is as Moses made it. Immediately after the solemn judgment Jehovah spoke again unto Moses and Aaron. Each chapter begins with the statement "And Jehovah spake." The holy One now demands that His people whom He has redeemed and made nigh, must be a holy people. The fact of man's sin and defilement is fully demonstrated in this section.

It is impossible to look at this book ever so cursorily without feeling the difference of the atmosphere from that of Leviticus. And this is so much the more striking because it cannot be fairly doubted by a believer that they were both the production of the same inspired author. Nothing therefore illustrates more clearly the way and measure in which the object of God gives the tone to the book in which He is communicating His mind to His people; for although there is quite enough to show the same human hand that He employed, the fulness of divine wisdom is equally manifest, as also the special forms which it thought fit to adopt for the purpose of enforcing the truth on our careless minds.