100 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 Pentateuch; his translations were banned in England, and he was executed as a heretic six years later.

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, and the priest had the house emptied before he inspected it, so that the belongings inside would not be condemned along with the walls.

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, with torn clothes and a covered upper lip; the isolation spared no one, and King Uzziah lived apart for the rest of his reign while his son governed.

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, never gets that name in the Torah, which knows the day only as one of horn blasts in the seventh month.

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 had to season every offering, and the Bible elsewhere calls a lasting pact a 'covenant of salt', the phrase used for God's promise of kingship to David.

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 only: the rule follows the death of two of Aaron's sons, who had drawn too close, and Aaron is warned not to enter at will 'lest he die'.

What does Leviticus 10 ban priests from consuming on duty, 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 food for priests alone, yet a fleeing David was given them at Nob when the priest had no ordinary bread to offer.

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

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 the verse borrows the wording of 'love your neighbour as yourself' from earlier in the chapter, extending that command to outsiders.

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 grey head and honour the old. The Talmud reads 'the old' to take in the wise as well, so Jewish law has people rise for a learned scholar whatever his age.

What must happen to farmland every seventh year under Leviticus 25?

Lie unworked and unsown: Leviticus 25 calls the year a sabbath of rest for the land itself, and whatever grows on its own is food for owner, servants, hired workers and animals alike.

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

Interest, Hebrew neshech from a root meaning 'to bite', was barred on loans to a struggling kinsman, and the same law forbade selling him food at a profit.

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

Taking vengeance is barred, and the verse before gives the alternative: do not hate your brother in your heart, but tell him openly what he has done wrong.

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 Jews from Yemen and North Africa kept a tradition of which species could be eaten.

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 the very poorest sinner bring what as a sin offering, at the bottom of its sliding scale?

Fine flour, with no animal at all, was accepted from those who could afford nothing more, so that even the destitute could atone.

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.

What must happen to a clay pot that boiled a sin offering under Leviticus 6, though copper is just rinsed?

It must be broken, while a copper pot was only scoured and rinsed: the offering was 'most holy', and whatever its flesh touched became holy too.

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 breastpiece, as Leviticus 8:8 records. When Saul sought God's answer through them before his last battle, none came, so he turned to a medium at Endor.

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

Two turtledoves or pigeons stood in for the usual lamb and bird, and Luke's Gospel has Mary bring exactly this offering after the birth of Jesus.

What happens to the second live bird in the Leviticus 14 rite for someone healed of a skin disease?

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, or etrog, is carried with palm, myrtle and willow at the autumn festival, and a Temple crowd once pelted the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus with theirs for flouting the ritual.

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 named Nisan, is the date; early Christians who kept Easter on it whatever the weekday were called Quartodecimans, 'fourteeners'.

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 counting fifty days from it gave the Feast of Weeks its Greek name, Pentecost, 'fiftieth'.

Which episode in Leviticus 24, one of the book's few stories, has all who heard the culprit lay 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: a priest barred from the altar by a defect could still eat even the 'most holy' offerings, food that no layperson was allowed to eat.

Under Leviticus 25, which property stays sold for good, even at the jubilee, unless redeemed within a year?

A walled-city house could be bought back for one year only, then stayed with the buyer even at the jubilee, when village homes and farmland went back to the families that had sold them.

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), named for its concern with priests, ritual and the sanctuary, supplies all of Leviticus, which scholars divide between 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, yet Leviticus keeps much older material, since ritual practice is slow to change.

How much time does Leviticus span, between the Tabernacle's completion and Israel's departure from Sinai?

About a month and a half: Exodus ends with the Tabernacle raised on the first day of the first month, and Numbers has Israel break camp on the twentieth of the second, so the whole book never leaves Sinai.

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, though an ordinary priest was allowed to bury his father, mother, children and brother.

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.

What had Eleazar and Ithamar done with the sin-offering goat to anger Moses in Leviticus 10?

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 means 'law of the priests', a title the Greek Leuitikon, 'of the Levites', is thought to echo, as so many of the book's laws concern the priestly tribe.

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

The Sifra, Aramaic for 'the book', draws law from Leviticus; the homiletic Leviticus Rabbah keeps the saying that children begin their schooling with this book, the pure studying the pure.

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 synagogue readers traditionally hurry through it in a low voice, an honour few wanted to be called up for.

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; the rival reading, 'the goat that departs', is the one that gave English the word 'scapegoat'.

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, the Mishnah says, down a slope so rugged that the goat was broken to pieces before it was halfway down; Leviticus itself says only that it is sent off into the wilderness.

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 of the seventh month is also when the jubilee horn sounded every fiftieth year, proclaiming liberty and sending each family back to its land.

Which American icon has a verse from Leviticus 25, about freedom for all the land's inhabitants, inscribed on it?

The Liberty Bell quotes verse 10, and that line is why abolitionists adopted the bell in the 1830s and gave it its famous name.

Which form of body art does Leviticus 19:28 forbid, in the same verse as cutting the skin in mourning?

Tattoos remain off-limits under Orthodox Jewish law on the strength of this verse, while many Christians class it with ceremonial rules that no longer bind them.

Which English king cited Leviticus 20:21, on marrying a brother's wife, to argue his first marriage was cursed?

Henry VIII had married Catherine of Aragon after the death of her first husband, his brother Arthur, and read the verse's threat of childlessness as the reason they had no living son.

Which animal does Leviticus 11 ban as food because it has a split hoof but does not chew the cud?

The pig is the reverse of the chapter's other three rejects, which chew the cud but lack the hoof. Pork went on to be the best-known forbidden food in Judaism.

By which Hebrew name do Jews know the Day of Atonement, whose rites Leviticus 16 lays out?

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year. With no Temple left, synagogues instead recite the Avodah, a poem that retells the high priest's service in detail.

Which famous principle of justice does Leviticus 24 share with the older Babylonian Code of Hammurabi?

An eye for an eye sits in the chapter beside fracture for fracture and tooth for tooth. The rabbis later took it to mean fair money compensation, not maiming.

Which parable does Jesus tell in Luke 10 after a lawyer cites Leviticus 19:18 and asks who his neighbour is?

The Good Samaritan turns the question round: a priest, the very minister Leviticus regulates, and a Levite both pass the wounded man by, and an outsider stops to help.

Which creature that is no bird at all ends Leviticus 11's list of birds that must not be eaten?

The bat closes the list, after the stork, the heron and the hoopoe. The Bible sorts animals by where they move, so anything that flies is counted with the birds.

What name does Leviticus 25 give the fiftieth year, when sold land returns to its original families?

The Jubilee began with a ram's-horn blast across the land, and Israelites who had sold themselves into service went home free along with their farms.

Fragments of seventeen Leviticus manuscripts, some from the third century BC, came from which famous discovery?

The Dead Sea Scrolls include a Leviticus copy written in paleo-Hebrew, the archaic script Israelites had used before the Babylonian exile.

Which two features must a sea creature have before Leviticus 11 allows Israelites to eat it?

Fins and scales are the whole test, so every shellfish fails it: shrimp, crab, lobster and oysters are all off the table for observant Jews.

Which event ended the animal offerings of Leviticus for good, turning Judaism toward prayer and study instead?

Rome's sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 destroyed the Temple, the one place where the offerings could lawfully be made, and neither Jews nor Christians have made them since.

Which disease do English Bibles traditionally name in Leviticus 13, though the Hebrew word tzaraath fits it poorly?

Leprosy entered the text through the Greek word lepra, which meant scaly conditions like psoriasis. Tzaraath is not Hansen's disease, and it could even break out on clothing.

Which apostle is told in a rooftop vision in Acts 10 to kill and eat animals that Leviticus forbids?

Peter declines, since the sheet holds creatures he has never eaten. Messengers from the centurion Cornelius then arrive, and the vision becomes his reason to welcome Gentiles.

Which word, from the Hebrew for 'fit', describes food that passes the dietary laws rooted in Leviticus 11?

Kosher has an opposite, treif, for anything the rules forbid. Kosher reached English through Yiddish, which is why it sounds unlike the modern Hebrew kashér.

Which fuel does Leviticus 24 tell the Israelites to supply so the Tabernacle lamp burns every night?

Olive oil from beaten olives kept the lamp alight from evening to morning. The ever-burning ner tamid that hangs before the ark in synagogues recalls that light.

What name is given to the one-in-ten share of crops and herds that Leviticus 27 declares holy to God?

The tithe of the herd was picked by counting animals under a rod, with no choosing: an owner who swapped a weak animal for a better one lost both.

On which day of a boy's life does Leviticus 12 set his circumcision, a rule first given to Abraham?

The eighth day holds even when it falls on the Sabbath, when such work is otherwise banned. Jews call the rite brit milah, the covenant of circumcision.

What did Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu offer before the LORD in Leviticus 10 that cost them their lives?

Strange fire, incense lit in a way God had not commanded, was answered in kind: flame came out from the LORD's presence and killed both priests on the spot.

How does Aaron decide in Leviticus 16 which of two goats is sacrificed and which is sent into the wilderness?

By casting lots, Aaron left the choice to God. One lot marked a goat for the LORD's altar, and the other marked the goat that would carry the nation's sins away.

Which New Testament letter draws on Leviticus to portray Jesus as a high priest offering his own life?

Hebrews presents his death as the one sacrifice offered once for all, which is the reason Christians give for never having kept up the animal offerings.

What does Vayikra, the Hebrew title of Leviticus taken from the book's opening word, mean in English?

And He called opens the book with God summoning Moses from the newly built Tabernacle. All five books of Moses take their Hebrew names from their opening words in this way.

How does Leviticus 10 describe Aaron's response when Moses speaks to him just after his two sons die?

He stays silent, and the mourning stops there: Moses forbids Aaron and his surviving sons to tear their clothes or leave the sanctuary while the anointing oil is on them.

What do Hasidic Jews call the uncut sidelocks they grow in obedience to Leviticus 19:27?

Payot means 'corners', from the verse's ban on cutting the hair at the sides of the head. The same sentence protects the edges of the beard.

What does Leviticus 19:13 forbid an employer to keep overnight, even until the next morning?

A labourer's wages were due the day they were earned. The cloak has its own rule in Exodus, where a coat taken as security for a loan must go back by nightfall.

Which tools of trade does Leviticus 19 demand be kept 'just', alongside the ephah and the hin?

Balances and weights that cheat are condemned in the same breath as unjust courts. The ephah was a measure for dry goods such as grain, and the hin a measure for liquids.

Which practitioners does Leviticus 20 condemn to death, the kind King Saul later consults at Endor?

Mediums had been expelled from Israel by Saul himself, so the king went in disguise and by night to consult the woman of Endor.

The seven-week count ordered in Leviticus 23 ends at which Jewish festival, known in Greek as Pentecost?

Shavuot means 'weeks'. It falls fifty days after Passover begins, and Jews keep it as the anniversary of the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai.

Jesus pairs a command from Leviticus 19 with one from which other book to sum up the whole Law?

Deuteronomy gives the first half, the command to love God with all one's heart, from the prayer Jews call the Shema. Leviticus supplies the second, about one's neighbour.

Beside crossbreeding cattle and sowing mixed seed in one plot, what does Leviticus 19:19 forbid wearing?

A blend of two fabrics is as far as Leviticus goes; a later law names the fibres. Observant Jews call the mix shatnez, and testers check suits down to the collar linings.

Who has the first duty under Leviticus 25 to buy back land that an impoverished Israelite has sold?

The closest kinsman was called the goel, the redeemer. Boaz takes the part in the Book of Ruth after a nearer relative declines it, buying Naomi's family land and marrying Ruth.

After the birth of which child does Leviticus 12 double a mother's time of purification?

A daughter meant two weeks of impurity and sixty-six days of waiting, against one week and thirty-three days for a son. The text gives no reason for the difference.

Which plant do English Bibles name beside cedar and scarlet yarn in the Leviticus 14 rite for a healed sufferer?

Hyssop was bunched and used as a sprinkling brush, as at the first Passover, when it marked Israelite doorposts. Jewish commentators identified the Hebrew ezov as a wild oregano.

What do the King James Bible and its heirs call the Ark's gold cover, the focus of Leviticus 16's atonement rite?

The mercy seat was hidden by a cloud of incense when the high priest entered, a precaution the chapter says kept him alive in God's presence.

What must a priest add to the altar every morning under Leviticus 6, so that its flame never dies?

Wood went on at dawn because the altar's flame was never to go out. The priest also changed his clothes each morning to carry the night's ashes outside the camp.

What does Leviticus 18 warn the land itself will do to those who defile it, as it did to the Canaanites?

Vomit them out is the chapter's image for exile: the land is pictured as a body that cannot stomach the incest, adultery and child sacrifice the chapter lists.

Which everyday condition does Leviticus 13 pause to declare clean, in a chapter about skin disease?

Baldness, at the crown or at the forehead, gets two verses of reassurance. Only a reddish-white sore on the bare scalp sends a bald man to the priest.

The English title Leviticus comes directly from which language's Bible, which had borrowed it from Greek?

Latin Bibles called the book Liber Leviticus, after the Greek Leuitikon. The name is odd for a book that mentions the Levites in only one short passage, on their property in chapter 25.

When does each day begin in the Jewish calendar, a custom reflected in how Leviticus 23:32 times a holy day?

At sunset: the verse runs the holy day 'from evening to evening', and the rabbis traced the custom to Genesis, where each day of creation is evening first, then morning.

A charred manuscript from which ancient site in Israel was virtually unrolled in 2015, revealing the start of Leviticus?

Ein Gedi's synagogue burned around AD 600, leaving the text a lump of charcoal in its ark. A Kentucky team read it by X-ray scanning, without ever opening it.

Which weekly Torah portion, named with the Hebrew for 'holy ones', opens at Leviticus 19?

Kedoshim runs through chapters 19 and 20. In ordinary, non-leap years synagogues read it on the same Sabbath as the portion before it, Acharei Mot.

Which anthropologist reinterpreted the food laws of Leviticus in her 1966 book Purity and Danger?

Mary Douglas argued that the forbidden animals were those that fit no neat category, not health hazards. In 2002 she called that explanation of the rules a major mistake.

Which third-century theologian from Alexandria preached the Homilies on Leviticus, applying the book to Christians?

Origen wanted every Christian to be what the book asks of a priest: strict, wise, self-examining and ready to forgive sins.

Which Pre-Raphaelite travelled to the Holy Land to paint The Scapegoat, the outcast animal of Leviticus 16?

Holman Hunt began the picture on the shore where Sodom was said to have stood and finished it in London. He painted two versions, one with a dark goat and a rainbow.

Which fragrant resin does Leviticus 2 have worshippers put on a grain offering, later a gift of the Magi?

Frankincense went up in smoke with the handful the priest burned on the altar; the rest of the grain offering was food for Aaron and his sons.

Which everyday failing, known as rekhilut in Hebrew, does Jewish law trace to a ban in Leviticus 19:16?

Gossip is banned in the verse's words about going up and down as a talebearer. Jewish ethics built on it the wider rules of lashon hara, harmful speech even when it is true.

Which sacred vestment, tied on with a skilfully woven band, does Moses place on Aaron in Leviticus 8?

The ephod was the elaborate outer vest on which the high priest's jewelled breastpiece rested. In Leviticus 8 Moses dresses Aaron in it himself, piece by piece.

Who traditionally begin their Torah schooling with Leviticus, not Genesis, in the rabbinic system of education?

The youngest pupils are pure, the sage Rav Assi explained, so their schooling began with the book of purity and sacrifice instead of the stories of creation.

Which part of an ox, sheep or goat does Leviticus 7 forbid Israelites to eat, reserving it for the altar?

The fat was burned on the altar as God's own portion; chapter 3 says flatly that all of it is the LORD's. Jewish law calls the forbidden suet chelev.

What does Leviticus 19 forbid Israelites to eat for the first three years after planting in the land?

A tree's fruit was forbidden for three years and given to God in the fourth, so a farmer first tasted his own crop the year after that. Jewish law calls the early fruit orlah.