The middle of Leviticus turns from the priests to everybody. “Speak unto all the congregation,” God says, “ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.” What follows is not a list of rituals but a portrait of ordinary life — harvest, wages, courtrooms, old age, the foreigner down the road — because holiness, in Leviticus, is mostly a matter of how you treat your neighbour.
A study in Leviticus 19-20 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 8 min read
Ye Shall Be Holy: For I The LORD Your God Am Holy
“Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.”
Leviticus 19:2
Holiness here is not first a feeling or a ceremony — it is a resemblance. The standard is God’s own character, and the reason to be holy is simply that He is. Peter lifts this verse straight into the New Testament church: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). The chapter that follows shows what the resemblance looks like on a working farm.
Leave Them For The Poor And Stranger
“And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard… thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.”
Leviticus 19:9-10
Holiness costs the farmer money. He is told to harvest inefficiently on purpose — leave the edges, do not go back for what was dropped — so that a widow or an immigrant can work with dignity instead of begging. This is the law Ruth lived on in Boaz’s field (Ruth 2). Right beside it come the plain commands: “Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another” (Leviticus 19:11); do not hold back a hired man’s wages overnight (verse 13). The holy life is honest with money and generous by design.
Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself
“Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”
Leviticus 19:17-18
Jesus called this the second commandment, the one on which “all the law and the prophets” hang with the first (Matthew 22:39-40). Notice it forbids the quiet sins: hating in the heart, nursing a grudge, keeping score. And it requires an active one — “rebuke thy neighbour” — because letting a friend go on in sin without a word is not love, it is neglect dressed up as politeness.
Love Him As Thyself; For Ye Were Strangers
“But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
Leviticus 19:34
The command to love the neighbour is immediately widened to include the outsider — and the same words are used, “as thyself.” The reason is memory: you were strangers in Egypt. A people who forget where they came from get hard toward newcomers; a people who remember their own rescue keep the door open. The same chapter also says “rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man” (verse 32) — holiness has good manners toward the weak and the aged.
I Am The LORD Which Sanctify You
“And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you… And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.”
Leviticus 20:8, 26
The refrain “I am the LORD” lands after nearly every command in these chapters — the reason to do right is who is watching and who redeemed you. And the holiness is God’s doing: “I am the LORD which sanctify you.” Israel does not make itself holy by keeping the list; it keeps the list because God has already set it apart “that ye should be mine.” Chapters 21-22 return to the men who serve at the altar, and the standard only rises.
