Notes on Leviticus

4Verse 27: “A soul, if it sins unintentionally,” it says, “and does not do any of all the commandments of the Lord, which it is necessary to do.”

But consider what is natural here. There are perhaps certain ordinances of the Lord which it is not necessary to do, according to the text: “They gave themselves ordinances that were not good” (Ezekiel 20:25). So a soul sins unintentionally when it keeps what it should not keep under pretext of piety. And this requires a sacrifice for forgiveness, whereas the one who acts deliberately does not require a sacrifice—like the one who became a Jew in order to gain Jews, and circumcised Timothy.

Verse 28: It indicates, then, that the very thing being offered is also called sin. This is how we must understand the text: “They will eat the sins of my people” (Hosea 4:8). If, then, the one who sins seems to offer the sin itself as a sacrifice in repenting, he ought not to fall back into the same sins, since the sin comes to life again. In this way it is possible to call Christ sin, as having been sacrificed for the sin of all.

12Verse 2: “A woman who, if she is inseminated, bears a male child” (Leviticus 12:2). The phrase “if she is inseminated,” placed before “and bears a male child,” will seem to be redundant. But I am considering whether perhaps it was said for this reason: so that prophetically Mary, having borne a male child not from being inseminated, might not be thought unclean after giving birth to the Savior. Even without the phrase “if she is inseminated” being set down, Mary could be understood not to be unclean, for she was not simply a woman, but a virgin.

13Verse 45: “And the leper in whom is the plague of leprosy—his garments shall be loosened, and his head uncovered” (Leviticus 13:45). Why does it command that the leper’s head be uncovered and his garments loosened? So that he may be recognizable, and those who approach may not share in his uncleanness. Thus the Apostle said about sinners: “Keep yourselves away from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which you received from us” (2 Thessalonians 3:6), and, “If anyone named a brother is a fornicator, or greedy, or an idolater, or a drunkard, or a reviler, or a robber—do not eat with such a person” (1 Corinthians 5:11).

23Verse 2: “These are the feasts of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:2). Every cheerful day on which it has been prescribed to do certain special things as on a holy day, beyond what is done on the remaining days, is called a feast. But not every feast is a solemn assembly; rather, according to the name, it is when people are gathered together from everywhere to the same place. So a solemn assembly is also a feast, but a feast is not necessarily also a solemn assembly. For example, Sabbaths and New Moons are feasts, but Unleavened Bread, the days of the Weeks, and Tabernacles are not only feasts but also solemn assemblies.

Verse 40: “And adornments of palms” (Leviticus 23:40). Through these things it is possible to understand that God apportions to us again in Christ the delights of paradise. The branches of evergreen trees signify in themselves the perpetual nature of grace and the unfading quality of hope.

27If the person who sanctified it redeems his house, he will add a fifth of the silver of the treasury to it, and it will be his. But if someone sanctifies not the value of a house or field but the things themselves to God, he will pay down the value with the fifth when redeeming them, and he will keep the properties; he will not give them back to others. But even if he does give them back, the buyer will keep them until the Jubilee, and after that they will be God's.

If it is from the field.

But the one who buys a field that was purchased cannot recover it for himself; rather, after paying the produce to God according to the reckoning, at the Jubilee he will restore the field to the one who sold it.