The Shape of Leviticus

Leviticus holds the crown for “deep weird” among books of the Bible, defying the best attempts to nail down its hidden logic. But there is a method to the apparent madness, and it is the Bible Matrix.

Although every book of the Bible contains apparent oddities, Leviticus baffles readers not only with its contents but also the order of those contents. Not only do many of the stipulations in the law remain strange to our ears, but the logic of their arrangement consistently eludes an explanation that is not awkward, incomplete, or overly contrived. However, it seems that we have not been paying the right sort of attention to the previous books: Leviticus recapitulates sequences found in Genesis and Exodus. Comparing the Levitical rites and commands with previous patterns shows us that these sacred texts are all “singing” the same story, all “speaking” the same architecture, but in different spatial registers. Applying the Bible Matrix to the problem reveals a multidimensional elegance in the secret plans of God.

Instead of humbling ourselves before the text, moderns have invented arbitrary theories such as the JEDP documentary hypothesis to explain its jagged edges. The truth is that the text has a crystalline structure because it is composed according to the “algorithm” established in Genesis 1. Just as the pattern of the seven day sequence is also found within the description of each of the seven days, the sequencing of Creation orders the structure of every subsequent text beyond Genesis 1. The entire Bible is a fractalline construct governed by the shape of its first words.

The Placement of Leviticus

In the ancient world, literary structure was a crucial part of the message. So when we read the Torah, the question is not “Why does its arrangement seem so haphazard?” but “What is the author telling us?” Modern Bible readers fail to read both cumulatively and typologically. Such sensitivities, when encouraged, not only enable us to discern the internal logic of the arrangement of texts such as Leviticus, but also reveal the typological “spin” intended by the author through his careful placement of each passage within each book. Likewise, at a greater scale, the central position of Leviticus itself within the Pentateuch reveals its significance as part of a fivefold covenant document:

What is fascinating is that the Heptateuch (Genesis to Judges) incorporates the Torah but allows the expansion of the Ethics step into the Triune Office. Thus, Numbers was the Lord’s judgment upon the “heads” of Israel, and Deuteronomy the Succession of Moses, but Joshua was Israel’s judgment upon the “heads” of Canaan, and Judges the Succession of Israel.

This literary “layering” actually begins with the book of Genesis, whose chronology spans a much greater period than the remainder of the Heptateuch. Despite this fact, Genesis (the text inherited by Moses) serves as a literary “head” for the growing literary “body.” Thus, we have a three-tiered ziggurat in these first seven books:

Genesis: Fathers (Garden & Offspring)
The Torah: Sons (Land & Firstfruits)
The Heptateuch: Bridal Cities (World & Glory)

Each triune house, once completed, becomes the “head” of an even greater house. The Ark of the Testimony contained three elements, the Tabernacle was comprised of three domains, and once in Canaan, the Tabernacle of Israel among the nations would add another three-tiered theoscape to the fractalline shape of this microcosmic “world.” This means that the “above, beside, below” pattern mentioned in Exodus 20:4, and which shapes the Ten Commandments, is the fundamental architectural model for all of God’s works.¹Jesus reverses the pattern in His baptism, burial, and ascension. See Jesus’ Three Ascensions.

Since sacred architecture is always a ziggurat, a stairway to heaven, this pattern would be measured out in even greater ways. Just as the Torah was completed when Israel was on the threshold of the Land, so also the entire biblical revelation was completed when the New Israel was on the cusp of the conquest of the World.

This one-and-many “nested” pattern of Creation provides strength and beauty, but fundamentally it is all about legal representation. Just as Adam represented Eve and, by extension, all humanity, the Levite priesthood would mediate for Israel that Israel might mediate for the nations. Thus, Exodus shifted the focus from circumcision of flesh (Covenant Sanctions) to circumcision of heart (Covenant Oath). The nation of Israel was circumcised in Abraham (indentity) but baptised into Moses (office). All were now expected to be “fathers” like Abraham, that is, men of faith. But the combined offices of Abraham as “head” would be delegated among Israelites as “body,” just as responsibility for the elements of the Tabernacle were delegated among the families of Levi.

Thus, the Tabernacle was not only an earthly model of heaven but also a microcosm of the union of heaven and earth: the heavenly sea represented the waters of the world below, and the heavenly altar represented the dry land below; the Levites — as the symbolic firstborn from the dead — represented the actual firstborn of Israel and received the firstfruits of Israel. As fruit bearers “in heaven,” they received only a “heavenly country,” that is, an architectural representation of heaven that served as a sacrificial substitute (the Tabernacle as Adamic “head”), and an architectural representation of the future of the earth, a network of holy cities, an Evian “body” serving as outposts of the ministry of mercy.

A Heavenly Country

Just as with Noah and his family in the World, Israel would not simply be a new Man but a new Mankind, an entire culture, a prefabricated “Church-State” ready to be planted and multiplied in the Land. So, before this Ethical Garden could be planted in the Physical World, a new society had to be organized to mediate between the two as a microcosmic Social order.

GARDEN (Church)
Ethical model within the Social order
Tabernacle constructed (Exodus)

LAND (Church-State)
Social model within the Social order
Living sacrifices (Leviticus)

WORLD (Church-State among the Nations)
Ethical/Social model within the Physical order
Witness (Numbers)

In the economy of God, as an expansion of the character of His Son, humble, priestly submission always precedes kingly exaltation and authority. Leviticus, as the Firstfruits in the sevenfold festal pattern from Genesis to Judges, concerns priestly Laws for the “head.” Then, in Numbers, as Pentecost, the “body’ is arranged architecturally around the Tabernacle as an enormous, cruciform, human ziggurat.³See Jacob’s Ziggurat.

Of course, just as Adam had done in Genesis 3, the Israelites failed to trust God and enter into His rest. Adam was disqualified from the role of Priest-King, so it was divided between his first two sons. In the same way, the priesthood of Israel was established before the kingly offerings from the tribes (Numbers 7). This prefigured the initial witness of the Israelites to the kings of the Gentiles who would eventually bring their glory into the Temple of God (Psalm 72:10; Isaiah 60:5; Revelation 21:24).

The “Head” of Leviticus

The first section of Leviticus describes “private sacrifices,” following the fivefold covenant pattern. They comprise a process of consecration, service, and deconsecration, a vow which has a beginning and an end. Thus, although “common,” every Israelite was also priestly, under an oath to walk as a living sacrifice. Since these offerings follow the covenant pattern, they are also inherently “cruciform,” just like the Tabernacle: a cruciform life around a cruciform tent in a cruciform nation. Just as the priestly roster of each Levite had a beginning and an end, and the life span of each High Priest came to an end, so also the ministry of Israel itself would one day be superseded (Hebrews 7:23-25).

TRANSCENDENCE (Above)
Ascension Offering (Genesis)
A recapitulation of the Creation week in flesh and blood. It was consumed entirely by the Lord’s fire.

HIERARCHY (Veil)
Tribute Offering (Exodus)
The sterility of Circumcision: bread made with oil. It could not contain leaven or honey (symbols of Succession and “swarms”). It was divided between the Lord (above) and the redeemed “firstborn,” Aaron and his sons.

ETHICS (Beside)
Peace Offering (Leviticus)
The meat is divided into four shares: God (insides), priest (right thigh), priesthood (breast), worshiper (the rest). This pictures the living God dwelling in His Son, His Son’s people, and the nations for whom they mediate. It prefigures God bringing all people to­­ dine with Him.

OATH/SANCTIONS (Veil)
Purification Offering (Numbers)
A sprinkling of blood, as on the Day of Coverings. For priests, the blood was smeared on the Incense Altar (inside the tent: Heaven). For common Israelites it was smeared on the horns of the Bronze Altar (outside the tent: Earth). This offering was not necessary prior to the establishing of the Levitical priesthood and the Tabernacle. It “cleans the House.” The bullock was burned outside the camp.

SUCCESSION (Below)
Trespass (Guilt) Offering (Deuteronomy)
This offering actually de-consecrates someone who is holy, rendering them once again a commoner. Only priests, those consecrated, could eat of this offering. He who was bound (as a sacrifice or “nearbringing,” like Isaac) is now loosed, looking forward to the offering and Ascension of the true Isaac, and the completion of the covenant vow.

The “Body” of Leviticus

TRANSCENDENCE:
Ark of the Testimony / Day 1 / Initiation
Leviticus 1-6:7

• As noted above, these five offerings were for individual worshipers, beginning with “If anyone…” Their focus is personal piety, self-government, like that expected of Adam in early Genesis. God established the family before He established worship. However, as a sequence, these offerings also serve as a microcosm of not only the remainder of the book, and the Torah itself, but also of Israel’s entire history.

HIERARCHY
Veil / Day 2 / Delegation
Leviticus 6:8-10:20

• The allusion shifts from Genesis to Exodus, with imperatives for the Aaronic priesthood concerning offerings (related to the previous sequence above) and then their preparation for service. Notice that the acceptance of Aaron’s offering corresponds to the Peace Offering in the first cycle, and the judgment upon his disobedient sons corresponds to the Sin Offering. This highlights the fact that their sin in offering “foreign fire” was not a mistake, not unintentional in nature, but high-handed (Numbers 15:30). This also explains why there is no Succession step in this sequence. Biblical literary structure is neither arbitrary nor merely ornamental, especially when a piece of a well-established pattern is deliberately omitted.

ETHICS: Priesthood
Altar & Table / Day 3 / Presentation
Leviticus 11-16

• The third cycle of stipulations symbolically puts every Israelite on the altar as a living sacrifice. Like the animals with which the cycle begins, those who would be part of the assembly had to be pure, spotless, and without blemish.
• The dominion over the animals of Genesis is followed by the purification after childbirth of Exodus. Israel was God’s firstborn, and ministry of the Levites (who substituted for the firstborn) lifted the Passover event from the tables of Israel to the table of God. ⁴No infant ever dined personally at God’s table, except through legal representatives. See Exodus 24. Those who practice paedocommunion based on Passover are grossly mistaken and presumptuous.
• The structure aligns the plague of leprosy with the ministry of the Levites, those who wore white linen as a kind of sacrificial “skin.”. The condition is not mentioned in the Bible until the commissioning of Moses on Sinai. Referring to dry, scaly, white skin, its context is serpentine. This section of Leviticus has four parts: leprosy upon people, upon garments, the cleansing of a leper, and house leprosy. Presumably these correspond to the four Levite clans in charge of the elements of the Tabernacle: Merari (formings: the Man face), Gershon (coverings: the Lion face), Aaron (cleansings: the bull face), and Kohath (fillings: the eagle face).⁵Again, see Jacob’s Ziggurat. (They may also relate to the four divisions of the flesh as a cruciform construct in the Peace Offering.) This means that every Israelite was to be not only a living sacrifice but also a Tabernacle for God (John 1:14). Jesus would later enact the laws for the cleansing of houses in the city upon the Temple of Herod, after which it would be torn down by God.
• Bodily discharges relate to sexual purity but in a microcosmic way. These stipulations reminded Israelites that the flesh — and everything that comes from it (Matthew 15:11) — was corrupted in Adam, and that historical continuity depended upon the mercy of God through atoning blood, just as it did in Eden. In Numbers, the men of Israel were seduced by Midianite women, a practice which was often intended to render the men easier to attack by the men whose women were carrying out the seduction.
• Although the Day of Atonement is not the center of Leviticus according to its literary structure, it does appear at the center of the sequence of the 36 speeches as speech 18. In this way it is also at the center of the Torah. Its placement in this cycle, however, is unusual: rather than appearing at Oath/Sanctions, it is placed at Succession. The reason is given in the verse 1 of chapter 16: “The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died…” On this Day, all Israel would “draw near” in the High Priest, that the fruit of the land and the womb promised to Abraham might be given by God‘s hand for another year. Also, in Deuteronomy, the new generation of Israel was clothed in robes with blue tassels to remind them of God’s laws (Numbers 15:38-39). Every Israelite was thus a city of light with four rivers, with the lamb of circumcision hidden at its heart. The corners or “wings” of this robe are the background to Malachi 4:2 and Matthew 9:20.

ETHICS: Kingdom
Lampstand / Day 4 / Purification
Leviticus 17-21

• The “covenantal” center of the book highlights the “sacrificial” thread of the Bible Matrix. It puts every Israelite under the consuming fire from heaven, alluding to the original Day of Pentecost and the sin of Israel with the golden calf, as well as the sexual sins of Israel in Numbers, the fourth book of the Heptateuch. As the “kingdom” cycle of Leviticus, the stipulations here relate to the sin of Cain, and to those of the Canaanites living in the land, and also look forward to the “kingly” sins prohibited by Moses in Deuteronomy 17:14-20.⁶See “Guns, Girls and Gold” in Michael Bull, Inquiétude: Essays for a People without Eyes. The sexual sins of Gentile kings were more about dynasty than about lust, but lust was certainly a component.⁷See Big Love: A History of Stolen Fruit. The main point here is that, like Adam, men and women could indeed be “gods,” since that was always God’s intention (see Where Judgment Begins), but it must be on God’s terms — priesthood before kingdom, God’s firstborn before man’s firstborn.
• At the center of the center is Leviticus 19, a chapter that stands out among the others in its holistic description of God’s holiness as the reason for Israel’s holiness. The Lord Himself dwells in the midst of the book. One of the keys to getting a grip on the Bible is visualising movement, particularly the “there-and-back-again” of chiasms. Although his approach to the structure of Leviticus is different to the one presented here, Jewish scholar Moshe Kline nonetheless correctly identifies Leviticus 19 as the “praxic” center of the work:
  

  Mary Douglas argues in Leviticus as Literature that “Bible students have to choose between accepting the muddle made by imposing a Western linear reading upon an archaic text, or trying to read the book through its own literary conventions.” She gives many examples of how to read a text “through its own literary conventions,” as well as a broad overview in the form of an analogical reading…

  The inclusive structure of Leviticus is composed of three concentric arrays of units, with Lev 19 at the focus. Each array has a common organizing element. The outermost array is place-oriented; the middle array is time-oriented; the inner array is person-oriented. The focus, chapter 19, is holiness. The image created by this arrangement is a holy core that emanates outwards through successive arrays of person, time and place. This structure can be interpreted as an analogical representation of the Tabernacle with chapter 19 parallel to the Ark of the Covenant, the inner array the Holy of Holies, the middle array the Holy Place, and the outer array the courtyard.

  The experience of reading Leviticus, according to this analogy, places the reader in a position analogous to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. Like the High Priest, the reader follows the inner path to holiness at the center of the book, passing through the courtyard and the Holy Place to the Holy of Holies. This path is reversed in the second half as the reader-High Priest returns to society when exiting the Tabernacle.⁸Moshe Kline, The Literary Structure of Leviticus.

  No one was allowed to see what the High Priest saw, however, what went on in the Most Holy Place was no secret. Thus, in the structure of Leviticus, as it was read to the people of Israel, the High Priest carried them with Him, along with all Creation — into the grave and out again — as He atoned for sin.

• The placement of judgments upon “uncovering nakedness” in the step that corresponds it to the Day of Coverings relates it to the nakedness of Adam and Eve and the promise to Adam of dominion and historical continuity.

ETHICS: Prophecy
Incense Altar / Day 5 / Transformation
Leviticus 22-24

• The Maturity cycle speaks of Israel as a resurrection body, the fragrant smoke of the sacrifice that has been offered in faith. Thus, it begins with a prohibition against priests making themselves unclean on behalf of the dead. It then moves into “devoted” things set apart for God’s use, and then repeats the stipulations for the perfection of animal sacrifices.
• The placement of the festal calendar at the center of this cycle relates to its nature as a national extension of the Peace Offering as a meal “with God.” The seven feasts correspond with the seven days of the Creation Week, but their position here aligns them with the seven moving lights of heaven. The feasts are also a sevenfold expression of the Heptateuch, the final of which (Booths) speaks of dominion over the Gentiles via faithful ministry on behalf of the Gentiles. The telos of the Law was always the blessing of all nations.
• The oil for the lamps is a bridal metaphor, a fact that is only made clear centuries later in Matthew 25:1-13, where the ten virgins picture the armies of Israel preparing themselves for Yom Kippur, or in that case, the coming of Christ in AD70.
• The mention of the “Facebread” at Conquest/Atonement, with pure frankincense on each stack, speaks of the resurrection of Israel through the ministry of Aaron and his sons.
• Finally, we observe the strange placement of a narrative among the stipulations, concerning the execution of a blasphemer. The crime was committed while the blasphemer, the son of an Egyptian, was fighting with an Israelite man. Perhaps this refers to the rivalry between Hagar and Sarah, between Pharaoh and Moses, and between the Egyptian-hearted generation of Israel and their sons who would inherit the Land. Glorification speaks of rest, rule, and commission as a legal envoy for God. As the final step in this Prophecy sequence, it might indicate that Israel would later be cut off for taking the Lord’s name in vain. Of course, the irony is that after the final Day of Pentecost, the inverse would occur in the stoning of Stephen by the Egyptian-hearted, Spirit-blaspheming, anti-Christian Jews under the supervision of Paul.

OATH/SANCTIONS
Laver & Mediators / Day 6 / Vindication
Leviticus 25-27

• The final cycle, as the “Joshua” sequence, deals with the government of the inheritance of Canaan by the Aaronic priesthood on God’s behalf. This sequence takes the theme of the offerings of the first cycle (self-government) and expands them into a prescription for peaceful rule of the Land.
• It is worth noting that the final straw in the judgment by God of King Zedekiah’s Judah was his change of mind concerning the release of Hebrew slaves (Jeremiah 34:8-17).
• The placement of the blessings and curses at the “Deuteronomy” step aligns it with the famous blessings and curses pronounced from Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim in Deuteronomy 27-28.
• The final chapter supports the position that Jephthah did not offer his daughter as a human sacrifice in Judges 11, since no faithful Israelite would condone such a thing. Instead, like Isaac, and indeed every Israelite, she was “valued” and spared through a substitutionary offering. That was the fundamental purpose of the Levitical law, and indeed the possession of the Land of Canaan — a sacrificial stand in for all the dry land of the world that it might be spared from another global deluge. This book of “sex and death” is actually a book of life.
• This cycle ends without kingly rest. Since the Levites themselves were given no territory in Canaan, this entire priestly book finishes without a Succession cycle. This explains why the saints in Jerusalem sold their houses and lands (Acts 2:45; 4:34). Jerusalem below was in bondage with her children, and she would soon be burned with fire (Leviticus 21:9). But Jerusalem above, though unseen, was a better inheritance, an everlasting Succession for the true sons of Abraham.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

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