50 Fun Facts About Leviticus

Who coined the word 'scapegoat' in his 1530 English Pentateuch, rendering Leviticus 16's goat 'for Azazel'?

William Tyndale rendered the Latin caper emissarius as '(e)scape goat' in his 1530 Bible, a translation then illegal and one he later paid for with his life.

Leviticus 14 extends its skin-disease rules to what, which a priest may order scraped, re-stoned, or finally torn down?

Houses could carry the 'plague' in Leviticus 14: infected stones were pulled out and the walls replastered, and a second outbreak meant demolition.

Which mammal does Leviticus 11 group with the camel and the hare as cud-chewers that lack a split hoof?

The hyrax (the 'coney' of older Bibles) is not a ruminant at all; its constant jaw movement may have looked like cud-chewing to ancient observers.

What must a person with a confirmed skin disease cry out under Leviticus 13, living in torn clothes outside the camp?

'Unclean, unclean' was the required cry, along with a bared head and a covered upper lip, so that others could keep their distance.

Leviticus 17 bans eating what, and tells hunters who kill game to cover it with earth?

The blood is forbidden because Leviticus treats it as the animal's life, so even game killed in the hunt had to be drained and the ground covered over.

In Leviticus 8's ordination rite, Moses marked Aaron's right ear, right thumb and where else with the ram's blood?

The big toe of the right foot completed the trio, after which Aaron and his sons stayed at the Tent of Meeting for seven days to finish their ordination.

Leviticus 23 marks the first day of the seventh month with 'loud blasts' of the horn — which holiday did it become?

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, grew from this day of horn blasts, which Numbers 29 calls Yom Teruah.

Leviticus 23 orders every citizen of Israel to live in booths for seven days each year — the rule behind which festival?

Sukkot takes its name from those booths, which Leviticus says are to remind future generations that Israel lived in shelters after the Exodus.

What does Leviticus 2 call 'of the covenant of your God', required on every grain offering and never to be left out?

Salt seasoned every meal offering, with the text calling it 'the salt of the covenant with your God' that must never be excluded from the sacrifices.

What practice did 'afflict your souls', Leviticus 16's Day of Atonement command, come to mean, as Isaiah 58 makes clear?

Fasting is how 'to afflict the soul' was understood, and Isaiah 58 adds that the fast God chooses also means freeing the oppressed and feeding the hungry.

How often does Leviticus 16 let the high priest pass the curtain into the inner sanctuary to atone for Israel?

Once a year the high priest purged the Tabernacle and made atonement for the Israelites, a law the text fixes 'for all time'.

What may priests not consume on duty under Leviticus 10, a rule given just after two of Aaron's sons die?

Wine or strong drink was banned for priests on duty, and one rabbinic tradition blamed the two brothers' deaths on having drunk before they offered.

How many loaves does Leviticus 24 have baked and set out in the Tabernacle each Sabbath, then eaten by the priests?

Twelve loaves — the showbread — were replaced each Sabbath, and the priests ate the old ones in the sacred precinct.

For whom does Leviticus 19 tell farmers to leave the edges of their fields and the fallen grapes of their vineyards?

The poor and the stranger had a claim on the harvest's corners and the gleanings, and the Mishnah says the Torah sets no upper limit on what may be left for them.

What reason does Leviticus 19:34 give for loving the foreigner who lives among you 'as yourself'?

'You were foreigners in Egypt' is the reason given, and Rabbi Eliezer the Great counted 36 places where the Torah warns against wronging such a newcomer.

Leviticus 19:14 pairs a ban on putting an obstacle before the blind with a ban on cursing whom?

The deaf are shielded from curses they cannot hear, in the same chapter that demands fair judgment and honest weights and measures.

What does Leviticus 19:32 command Israelites to do before the grey-headed, as a mark of deference to the old?

Stand up is the command — 'rise before the aged and show deference to the old' — one of dozens of rules packed into Leviticus 19.

What must happen to farmland every seventh year under Leviticus 25, a 'Sabbath of complete rest' for the land itself?

Lie unworked and unsown — with no pruning of vineyards and no reaping of the aftergrowth either — in the sabbatical year known as shmita.

What does Leviticus 25 ban charging an Israelite who has fallen into poverty, 'that your brother may live with you'?

Interest — Hebrew neshech, literally 'bite' — was barred on loans to a struggling kinsman, and a midrash compared the lender to the serpent biting Adam.

What does Leviticus 19:18 forbid alongside bearing a grudge, in the verse that ends 'love your neighbour as yourself'?

Taking vengeance is barred first — 'you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge' — before the command to love the neighbour.

Which god does Leviticus forbid Israelites from 'giving' their children to, an act it says profanes God's name?

Molech worship is banned in Leviticus 18 and 20, where handing over a child is punished with death and called a profanation of the Name.

Which insects are the only 'winged swarming things' Leviticus 11 allows Israelites to eat?

Locusts with jointed legs for leaping are permitted in Leviticus 11:21, and some Yemenite Jewish communities still treat certain species as kosher.

Which two ingredients does Leviticus 2 keep out of every meal offering burned on the altar to the LORD?

Leaven and honey were excluded from meal offerings, which were partly burned on the altar and partly eaten by the priests as a most holy portion.

Leviticus 5 lets a sinner who cannot afford a pair of birds bring what instead, at the bottom of its sliding scale?

Fine flour, with no animal at all, stood in for the bird offering, so that even the destitute could atone for an unwitting sin.

When a Leviticus guilt offering follows theft or fraud, what must the offender add to full restitution for the victim?

A fifth more went to the victim on top of full restitution, and the offender still owed an unblemished ram to the priest as the guilt offering.

What must 'the anointed priest' bring as a sin offering under Leviticus 4, a costlier animal than a commoner's goat?

A young bull was required when the high priest or the whole community sinned unwittingly, and its carcass was burned on the ash heap outside the camp.

Under Leviticus 6, what happens to a clay pot used to boil a sin offering, where a copper pot is simply rinsed?

It must be broken, since earthenware absorbed the most-holy offering's residue, whereas a copper vessel could be scoured, rinsed and reused.

What did Moses put inside Aaron's breastpiece at his ordination in Leviticus 8, objects later consulted for oracles?

The Urim and Thummim went into the breastplate, as Leviticus 8:8 records, and Saul later used them to seek answers from God in 1 Samuel.

Leviticus 12 lets a new mother who cannot afford a lamb bring what instead, to end her purification after childbirth?

Two turtledoves or pigeons replaced the lamb-and-bird pair for a poorer mother, one serving as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering.

In the Leviticus 14 rite for someone healed of a skin disease, what happens to the second of the two live birds?

Released in the open field after being dipped with cedar wood, crimson yarn and hyssop, once the first bird had been killed over fresh water.

What does Leviticus 16 have Aaron wear into the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement, not his usual vestments?

Plain linen garments — tunic, breeches, sash and turban — were put on after bathing, and changed out of again before the burnt offerings.

Which fruit does tradition identify as the 'product of hadar trees' Leviticus 23 pairs with palm fronds and willows?

The citron is the etrog, held with the lulav, myrtle and willow as the four species during the week-long festival of booths.

Leviticus 23 sets the Passover 'at twilight' on which day of the first month, seven days of unleavened bread following?

The fourteenth of the first month (later called Nisan) is the date, with the Feast of Unleavened Bread running from the fifteenth for a week.

What was waved before the LORD on the day after the Sabbath, beginning Leviticus 23's count of seven weeks?

A sheaf of barley — the omer — was waved, and the seven weeks counted from that day end at the Feast of Weeks.

Which episode in Leviticus 24, one of the book's few stories, ends with all who heard him laying hands on his head?

A blasphemer's trial — the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian had cursed the Name in a fight — ends with the whole community stoning him outside the camp.

What may a priest with a bodily defect still do under Leviticus 21, though kept from offering at the altar?

Eat the sacrificial meat, the text allows, so a disabled priest kept his share of the holy food while losing altar duty.

Under Leviticus 25, a house sold inside a walled city passes to the buyer for good unless redeemed within how long?

One year was the window; after that a walled-city house stayed sold and was not freed even in the jubilee, unlike village homes and farmland.

What name, coined by August Klostermann in 1877, do scholars give the block of Leviticus chapters 17 to 26?

The Holiness Code (Heiligkeitsgesetz) repeats 'you shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy', and many scholars see it as the work of a separate school of editors.

To which of the documentary hypothesis's four strands do scholars assign the entire Book of Leviticus?

The Priestly source (P) accounts for all of Leviticus, with chapters 1–16 and 17–26 seen as the work of two related priestly schools.

In which era do most scholars say Leviticus reached its present form, centuries after the Sinai setting it describes?

The Persian period (538–332 BC) is when the Pentateuch took its final shape, though Leviticus itself had a long growth before then.

How much time does Leviticus span, from the Tabernacle's completion in Exodus 40 to Israel leaving Sinai in Numbers 10?

About a month and a half passes — the book stays at Sinai throughout, mostly as speeches God tells Moses to relay to the people.

Whose bodies does Leviticus 21 single out when it bars the high priest from every corpse, 'even for' them?

His own parents' bodies were off-limits to the high priest, who also could not bare his head or tear his vestments in grief.

Which two cousins did Moses summon to carry Nadab and Abihu's bodies out of the camp in Leviticus 10?

Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Aaron's uncle Uzziel, carried the bodies out by their tunics while Aaron's surviving sons were ordered not to mourn.

Why was Moses angry with Eleazar and Ithamar in Leviticus 10 — what had they done with the people's sin-offering goat?

Burned it instead of eating it in the sacred area, a breach Moses took up with Aaron's surviving sons until Aaron's answer satisfied him.

What did the early rabbis call the Book of Leviticus, a Hebrew title the Septuagint's Greek name is thought to echo?

Torat Kohanim is the rabbinic name, and the Septuagint's Leuitikon is thought to be a variant of it, as so many of the book's laws concern priests.

Which halakhic midrash is devoted to Leviticus, distinct from the more homiletic Leviticus Rabbah?

The Sifra is the legal midrash on the book, while Leviticus Rabbah gathers the homilies; between them they anchor Leviticus as a pillar of Jewish law.

What name does Jewish tradition give the long list of curses in Leviticus 26, also known as the 'Admonitions'?

The Tocheichah threatens misery, fever, stolen harvests and defeat, and its curses are considered more severe than Deuteronomy 28's parallel list.

What do most scholars take the 'Azazel' of Leviticus 16 to be, rather than simply the goat that is sent away?

A desert demon or deity is the reading most scholars accept, and the medieval commentator Nachmanides identified this Azazel with Samael.

What did Second Temple practice add to the scapegoat's fate in the wilderness, beyond Leviticus 16's 'sending it away'?

Pushed off a cliff was the later procedure, most likely to stop the sins 'returning' as an unlucky omen, though the text only requires its release.

On which day of the seventh month does Leviticus 16 fix the Day of Atonement, a day of 'self-denial' and no work?

The tenth day of the seventh month (Tishrei) is the date, and both Israelites and resident aliens had to practise self-denial and do no work.