LEVITICUS
Ps
| sree | Redemption of Heb. slave.
Commands as to worship. ConciupiIna EXHORTATION. Co.ornon to the Law of Holiness. On Vows : persons, cattle, houses, fields. Firstlings and devoted things excepted. Appendix on tithes. Colophon to Leviticus.
B. Critical Notes.
For a general account of the Law of Holiness, and of the criteria which distinguish it from the rest of P, see art. HEXATEUCH. Careful lists of
eculiar words and phrases are given in Driver,
OT; Holzinger, Hint. in d. Hex.; and Oxf. Anal. Hex. Here we have to do only with the actual use of the criteria in the analysis, and with the internal structure of P" itself. Any general re- marks under the latter head will be found under § 5. It will be enough to point out in advance that traces of more than one series of parallel laws will be found in the present code.
17)" ; The place of sacrifice.—As it stands, this passage requires that no animal shall be slaugh- tered except as a sacrifice, and at the door of the tent of meeting. In any case this conflicts with Dt 12, which allows slaughtering at home. But the clauses referring to the camp and the (door of the) tent of meeting can be excised without loss, as in many other cases where they ill suit the context. When they are removed, the injunction remains that all slaughtering is to take place at the altar of J", which is only reasonable, on the one hand, if many altars are allowable, as is recognized in E’s Covenant Book, Gn 9053, and in the pre- Deuteronomic narratives ; or, on the other hand, if a small company of exiles are gathered round the restored temple in Jerusalem after the Exile. The latter alternative is upheld by Baentsch, Addis, ete. The former is maintained by Kittel, Bandissin, W. R. Smith, and Driver.—17* is to the same effect, only including strangers.—In 17°18 the work of the later editor may be sus- pected, but cannot be pointed out with precision.
185-9: On sex relations.—This section has a close parallel in 20'-#!, but it is not agreed how the two are connected. The latter passage is composed of various elements, not all on the same subject. Its ordinances are in the form of Cases, or Judgments, the man that... ,0r ifaman... , whereas in 18 we have the older type of Words, Thou shalt not... . Only in 20 are penalties stated. Prob- ably we have in 18, nearly intact, the series which, in an altered form, with Judgments instead of Words, and with penalties attached, underlies ee where it is combined with other quoted
AWS.
19: Miscellaneous.—The contents of this chapter are clearly selected from various sources, many of them early, as is shown by the numerous parallels with the most ancient codes (for refs. see Oxf. Anal. Hex.). They illustrate both the diversity of form in which ordinances were cast, and the fondness of Hebrew jurists for sets of 50r 10. An cutline of the 14 sections will show this.
20. 4 has δ commandments of the type, ye shall (not). . .— δι8 is a cultus-section like 21-22 below. has 5 words about gleaning.—Uf has 4 commandments and 1 word, 5 in all, about honesty and reverence.—13f. has 5 words, not quite uniform, on kindness.—15¢ has δ words, preceded by a com-
LEVITICUS
mandment, on justice.—!7% has 5 words on kindness, clinched by the grand positive word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.—19 has a general commandment, and 3 words on mixtures, the last altered.—® is a Judgment on seduction, with a supplement by ΡῈ 2!f,—23-°5 is an ordinance on young fruit trees, like the law on the Sabbath year in 2537 ete,
has 10 commandments against superstition and irreverence, the last 2 in 31 being altered, and with supplements using 2nd person sing. in 270. 29,—82 has 3 words on reverence.—%3!. con- tains laws of 8 types on strangers.—*-87 contains 2 command- ments on weights and measures, and a general conclusion.
The next chapter, 20, is remarkable for the fact that 4 of its 5 sections have a parallel in P» else- where. Thus 1.8. || 182, 10-240 ἢ 185-2. 22-30, 24-26 || 1143-47, 27) 199, For 10-248 see on 18%,
21-22: On the priesthood and sacrifices.—These chapters, while presenting many of the features of P», have undergone more revision, it would ap- pear, than 18-20, perhaps because their subject was one which occupied more of the attention of later legislators. ifferences of form, changes from 3rd to 2nd pers., and the introduction of fresh superscriptions 11} 16 22) 17. 25, all point to diversity of source.
218, with its thou shalt, referring to Israel, may be a fragment from an earlier source.—22!725 appears to be made up of two ordinances, 18-20 and 21-2, with many parallels in detail. Both this section and 222% have been ascribed to Pt, not Pb, but without sufficient reason. The marks of Pb are not absent, and there is enough difference in the ordinances from those on the same subjects elsewhere (711-18) to suggest that an earlier stage is reflected here.
23: A sacred calendar.—In this chapter there is prescribed a series of ‘holy convocations,’ in language largely made up of phrases character- istie of Pf and Ps, with exact dates by numbered days and months. This is ascribed to Ρέ, But with it is combined another series of holy days, which does not mention ‘holy convocations’ or use the peculiar phrases of Pé and P* (except in isolated sentences distinguishable as interpolated), but bears indications of P® and is marked by a