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Leviticus

About this book
Chapter 19

1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Speak to the whole congregation of the Israelites and tell them, ‘You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.⁠ 3 Each of you must respect his mother and his father,⁠ and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. 4 Do not turn to idols, and you must not make for yourselves gods⁠ of cast metal. I am the Lord your God. 5 “‘When you sacrifice a peace-offering sacrifice to the Lord, you must sacrifice it so that it is accepted for you. 6 It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice and on the following day, but what is left over until the third day must be burned up. 7 If, however, it is eaten on the third day, it is spoiled; it will not be accepted, 8 and the one who eats it will bear his punishment for iniquity because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord. That person will be cut off from his people. 9 “‘When you gather in the harvest of your land, you must not completely harvest the corner of your field, and you must not gather up the gleanings of your harvest. 10 You must not pick your vineyard bare, and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the resident foreigner.⁠ I am the Lord your God. 11 “‘You must not steal, you must not tell lies, and you must not deal falsely with your fellow citizen. 12 You must not swear falsely in my name, so that you do not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. 13 You must not oppress your neighbor or commit robbery against your neighbor. You must not withhold the wages of the hired laborer overnight until morning. 14 You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. You must fear your God; I am the Lord. 15 “‘You must not deal unjustly in judgment: You must neither show partiality to the poor nor honor the rich. You must judge your fellow citizen fairly.⁠ 16 You must not go about as a slanderer among your people. You must not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the Lord. 17 You must not hate your brother in your heart.⁠ You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him.⁠ 18 You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you must love your neighbor as yourself.⁠ I am the Lord.⁠ 19 You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed together, you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed,⁠ and you must not wear a garment made of two different kinds of material. 20 “‘When a man goes to bed with a woman for intercourse, although she is a slave woman designated for another man and she has not yet been ransomed, or freedom has not been granted to her, there will be an obligation to pay compensation. They must not be put to death, because she was not free. 21 He must bring his guilt offering to the Lord at the entrance of the Meeting Tent, a guilt-offering ram, 22 and the priest is to make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, and he will be forgiven of his sin that he has committed. 23 “‘When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, you must consider its fruit to be forbidden. Three years it will be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten.⁠ 24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, praise offerings to the Lord. 25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest. I am the Lord your God. 26 “‘You must not eat anything with the blood still in it.⁠ You must not practice either divination or soothsaying. 27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head⁠ or ruin the corners of your beard. 28 You must not slash your body for a dead person⁠ or incise a tattoo on yourself. I am the Lord.⁠ 29 Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land does not practice prostitution and become full of lewdness. 30 “‘You must keep my Sabbaths and fear my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 31 Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. 32 You must stand up in the presence of the aged, honor the presence of an elder, and fear your God. I am the Lord. 33 When a resident foreigner lives with you in your land, you must not oppress him. 34 The resident foreigner who lives with you must be to you as a native citizen among you; so you must love the foreigner as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.⁠ 35 You must not do injustice in the regulation of measures, whether of length, weight, or volume.⁠ 36 You must have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin.⁠ I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt. 37 You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations. I am the Lord.’”

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.5 VI:17 and Leviticus 19:28

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Leviticus 19 rejects the mourning cuts shown by El in the Baal Cycle, where he gashes his skin with a stone and shaves his beard, breaking with a familiar way of expressing grief for the dead.

Passages

KTU 1.5 VI:17

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Then the Wise One, the perceptive god, went down from his throne: he sat on his footstool. And from his footstool he sat on the ground. He poured the ashes of affliction on his head, the dust of grovelling on his skull For clothing he put on a loin-cloth His skin with a stone he scored, his side-locks with a razor; he gashed cheeks and chin. He ploughed his collar-bones, he turned over like a garden his chest, like a valley he ploughed his breast He lifted up his voice and cried: Baal is dead! What has become of the Powerful One? The Son of Dagan! What has become of Tempest?
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Leviticus 19:28

Hebrew Bible
25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest. I am the Lord your God. 26 “‘You must not eat anything with the blood still in it. You must not practice either divination or soothsaying. 27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard. 28 You must not slash your body for a dead person or incise a tattoo on yourself. I am the Lord. 29 Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land does not practice prostitution and become full of lewdness. 30 “‘You must keep my Sabbaths and fear my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 31 Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Leviticus

References

“... 56. This and the following tricolon take the description of El's mourning to its ritual culmination. Self-mutilation is a classic expression of grief and guilt (both emotions are present at funerals!). El gouges his skin with a stone. Cf. Job 2.8. He also shaves. The prohibition against these actions in Lev. 19.27-28 and Deut. 14.1 presupposes that this was hitherto normal practice. An important symbolic aspect may be that to break the skin is to destroy the boundary between self and not-self, thus inviting the irruption of chaos. Boundaries must be maintained! See Job 7.5. Cutting of the hair 'killed' it, again reinforcing the sense of sharing in the experience of the dead. See refs. in de Moor (1971 a: 193). In the final colon, 'cheeks and chin' (Ug. IQm wdqn) is translated 'side-whiskers and beard' by some, e.g. de Moor (1971a: 190, 193). ...”
N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed. (London: Sheffield Academic, 2006), 127.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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KTU 1.5 VI:17 and Leviticus 19:28

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