Prophecy in Leviticus

The one who brings a burnt offering “shall lay a hand on the head of the burnt offering, so that it may be acceptable.” (1:4)

Reading

The opening chapters set out five kinds of offering: the burnt offering, the grain offering, the communion sacrifice, the purification offering and the reparation offering. Through them Israel gave thanks, sought communion with God, and made atonement for sin. The animal had to be “without blemish” (1:3), and the worshiper's hand on its head joined the giver to the gift.

Fulfilled

Hebrews says plainly that these sacrifices could not do what they pointed to: “it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Christ “offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God,” and “by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated” (10:12, 14). The Catechism teaches: “This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices” (CCC 614). Isaiah had already seen the Servant giving his life “as a reparation offering” (Isaiah 53:10), and Peter speaks of “the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb” (1 Peter 1:19).

See also

The communion sacrifice, in which the worshipers ate of the offering, is a figure the Church sees completed in the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Cross made present and shared at the Lord's table.

Moses anoints Aaron and his sons. When the first offerings are made, “the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people.” (9:23)

Reading

Moses pours “the anointing oil on Aaron's head” to consecrate him (8:12), and the new priests offer sacrifice for themselves and for the people. Fire comes forth from the Lord and consumes the offering, and “all the people shouted with joy and fell prostrate” (9:24).

Fulfilled

The Catechism says the priesthood of the Old Covenant “remains powerless to bring about salvation,” needing to repeat its sacrifices, and that “everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus” (CCC 1540, 1544). Christ “has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day”; “he did that once for all when he offered himself” (Hebrews 7:27). The Church also sees in Aaron's priesthood “a prefiguring of the ordained ministry of the New Covenant” (CCC 1541).

“For on this day atonement is made for you to make you clean; of all your sins you will be cleansed before the LORD.” (16:30)

Reading

Once a year the high priest passes through the veil into the inner sanctuary and sprinkles blood “in front of the cover on the ark” (16:2, 14), the place traditionally called the mercy seat. So “he shall purge the inner sanctuary of all the Israelites' impurities and trespasses” (16:16). The bodies of the sin offerings are burned outside the camp (16:27).

Fulfilled

Hebrews 9 reads the whole rite as a figure of Christ. In the old tabernacle “the high priest alone goes into the inner one once a year, not without blood” (Hebrews 9:7). Christ “entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood” (9:12), and not into a sanctuary made by hands “but heaven itself” (9:24). “But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice” (9:26). Even the burning outside the camp is fulfilled: “Jesus also suffered outside the gate, to consecrate the people by his own blood” (13:12).

The mercy seat

St. Paul calls Christ the one “whom God set forth as an expiation” by his blood (Romans 3:25). The Catechism explains that the mercy seat “was the place of God's presence,” and reads Paul's words to mean that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself (CCC 433). The NABRE renders the Hebrew word in Leviticus as “cover”; its note says the exact meaning is uncertain.

“The goat will carry off all their iniquities to an isolated region.” (16:22)

Reading

Two goats are chosen by lot: one is offered for the people, the other is “for Azazel” (16:8). Aaron lays both hands on the living goat, and “he shall confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and their trespasses” (16:21). Then it is sent away into the wilderness, bearing the sins out of the camp. The section heading in many Bibles calls it “the scapegoat.”

Fulfilled

The New Testament does not name the scapegoat, but its picture of sins carried away is everywhere in it: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The early Christian Letter of Barnabas (chapter 7) reads the two goats of this day as figures of Christ, and the Fathers often followed that reading.

Why mystery

Who or what “Azazel” is remains unsettled. The NABRE note takes it as the name of a demon; others have read it as a place or as “the goat that departs.” The meaning of the rite is clear: God himself provides for sin to be removed from his people.

“…since the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement on the altar for yourselves, because it is the blood as life that makes atonement.”

Reading

This verse gives the reason behind the whole sacrificial system and behind the strict ban on eating blood. Blood stands for life, and life belongs to God. He gives it back to Israel on the altar as the means of atonement.

Fulfilled

Hebrews sums up the law in the same terms: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). What no animal could give, Christ gives: his own life, poured out. And the law that forbade drinking blood is reversed at the Last Supper, where Jesus gives his disciples the cup of his blood, the blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:27–28), and promises eternal life to those who drink it (John 6:54). The life that makes atonement is now given to us to receive.

“Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.” (19:2) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” (19:18)

Reading

These are commandments, not predictions. They stand here because the New Testament takes them up as the heart of the law, and because the call to holiness carries a promise within it: “I, the LORD, make you holy” (20:8). The same chapter extends the love of neighbor to the stranger: “you shall love the alien as yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt” (19:34).

Fulfilled

Peter repeats the command to the Church: “as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, ‘Be holy because I [am] holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Jesus joins Leviticus 19:18 to the first commandment: “The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). When asked “And who is my neighbor?”, he answers with the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37).

Unfolding

The holiness Leviticus asked of one nation is now offered to all, through the Spirit. It is still being worked out in every Christian life.

“The Passover of the LORD falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening twilight.” (23:5)

Reading

Chapter 23 sets out Israel's year of feasts. In spring come the Passover and Unleavened Bread; then, “on the day after the sabbath,” the offering of “the first sheaf of your harvest” (23:10–11); and seven weeks later, counting “fifty days,” the feast of Weeks with its new grain offering (23:15–16). Christians know that fiftieth day by its Greek name, Pentecost.

Fulfilled

The New Testament places the saving events of the Gospel on these very feasts. “For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). He rose on the day after the sabbath, and Paul calls him “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled” (Acts 2:1), the Spirit came, and about three thousand persons were added that day, the first harvest of the Church (Acts 2:41).

“On the first day you shall gather fruit of majestic trees, branches of palms, and boughs of leafy trees and valley willows.” (23:40)

Reading

The feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, falls in autumn after the harvest. For seven days Israel lives in huts, “that your descendants may realize that, when I led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, I made them dwell in booths” (23:43). It is a feast of joy, of God's care in the desert and of a harvest gathered in.

Fulfilled

John sets a great scene at this feast (John 7:2). “On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink’” (7:37). The Word who “made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14), literally pitched his tent, is God's true booth among his people.

Future

Revelation sees a great multitude “from every nation, race, people, and tongue,” standing before the throne and the Lamb, “wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands” (Revelation 7:9). The feast of the final harvest is still to come, when the one on the throne “will shelter them” (7:15). Zechariah foresaw the nations going up to keep this feast (Zechariah 14:16).

“You shall treat this fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.” (25:10)

Reading

After “seven weeks of years” comes the jubilee, announced by the ram's horn on the Day of Atonement (25:8–9). Debts are released, slaves go free and families return to their land, because “the land is mine, and you are but resident aliens and under my authority” (25:23). Scholars differ on how fully Israel ever kept it; the law stands as a picture of what God intends for his people.

Fulfilled

In the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus reads from Isaiah 61, a prophecy built on the jubilee: “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives… and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Then he says, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18–21). The release the jubilee promised is the forgiveness of sins and freedom from every bondage that Christ brings.

Future

The Church keeps holy years of jubilee as times of pardon and renewal, and they point beyond themselves to the final release, when creation itself will be set free (Romans 8:21) and God's people come home to the inheritance that cannot be lost.

“I will set my tabernacle in your midst, and will not loathe you. Ever present in your midst, I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

Reading

Leviticus closes its law with blessings and curses. Even the warnings of exile end in mercy: God will remember his covenant with Jacob, Isaac and Abraham, and will not reject his people (26:42–45). At the center of the blessings is the oldest hope of the covenant: God living among his people.

Fulfilled

“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Paul quotes this promise to the Church: “For we are the temple of the living God; as God said: ‘I will live with them and move among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16).

Future

Revelation hears its final form: “Behold, God's dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people” (Revelation 21:3). In that city there is no temple, “for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb” (21:22).

See also

The Temple of His Body; Exodus 29:45; Ezekiel 37:27.