Левит 19:1

Holiness of Behaviour Towards God and Man. - However manifold the commandments, which are grouped together rather according to a loose association of ideas than according to any logical arrangement, they are all linked together by the common purpose expressed in Lev 19:2 in the words, "Ye shall be holy, for I am holy, Jehovah your God." The absence of any strictly logical arrangement is to be explained chiefly from the nature of the object, and the great variety of circumstances occurring in life which no casuistry can fully exhaust, so that any attempt to throw light upon these relations must consist more or less of the description of a series of concrete events.

Moses is ordered to deliver the summary of the laws to all the congregation of the children of Israel (Lev 19:2); not to Aaron and his sons only, but to all the people, for they were all concerned to know their duty. Even in the darker ages of the law, that religion could not be of God which boasted of ignorance as its mother. Moses must make known God's statutes to all the congregation, and proclaim them through the camp. These laws, it is probable, he delivered himself to as many of the people as could be within hearing at once, and so by degrees at several times to them all. Many of the precepts here given they had received before, but it was requisite that they should be repeated, that they might be remembered. Precept must be upon precept, and line upon line, and all little enough. In these verses, I. It is required that Israel be a holy people, because the God of Israel is a holy God, Lev 19:2. Their being distinguished from all other people by peculiar laws and customs was intended to teach them a real separation from the world and the flesh, and an entire devotedness to God. And this is now the law of Christ (the Lord bring every thought within us into obedience to it!) You shall be holy, for I am holy, Pe1 1:15, Pe1 1:16. We are the followers of the holy Jesus, and therefore must be, according to our capacity, consecrated to God's honour, and conformed to his nature and will. Israel was sanctified by the types and shadows (Lev 20:8), but we are sanctified by the truth, or substance of all those shadows, Joh 17:17; Tit 2:14. II. That children be obedient to their parents: "You shall fear every man his mother and his father, Lev 19:3. 1. The fear here required is the same with the honour commanded by the fifth commandment; see Mal 1:6. It includes inward reverenc…