Armenia in comments -- Book: Leviticus (tLev) Ղեւտական
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tLev 19:19 The words, "Ye shall keep My statutes," open the second series of commandments, which make it a duty on the part of the people of God to keep the physical and moral order of the world sacred. This series begins in Lev 19:19 with the commandment not to mix the things which are separated in the creation of God. "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment of mixed stuff." כּלאים, from כּלא separation, signifies duae res diversi generis, heterogeneae, and is a substantive in the accusative, giving a more precise definition. שעטנז is in apposition to כּלאים בּגד, and according to Deu 22:11 refers to cloth or a garment woven of wool and flax, to a mixed fabric therefore. The etymology is obscure, and the rendering given by the lxx, κίβδηλον, i.e., forged, not genuine, is probably merely a conjecture based upon the context. The word is probably derived from the Egyptian; although the attempt to explain it from the Coptic has not been so far satisfactory. In Deu 22:9-11, instead of the field, the vineyard is mentioned, as that which they were not to sow with things of two kinds, i.e., so that a mixed produce should arise; and the threat is added, "that thy fulness (full fruit, Exo 22:28), the seed, and the produce of the vineyard (i.e., the corn and wine grown upon the vineyard) may not become holy" (cf. Lev 27:10, Lev 27:21), i.e., fall to the sanctuary for its servants. It is also forbidden to plough with an ox and ass together, i.e., to yoke them to the same plough. By these laws the observance of the natural order and separation of things is made a duty binding upon the Israelites, the people of Jehovah, as a divine ordinance founded in the creation itself (Gen 1:11-12, Gen 1:21, Gen 1:24-25). All the symbolical, mystical, moral, and utilitarian reasons that have been supposed to lie at the foundation of these commands, are foreign to the spirit of the law. And with regard to the observance of them, the statement of Josephus and the Rabbins, that the dress of the priests, as well as the tapestries and curtains of the tabernacle, consisted of wool and linen, is founded upon the assumption, which cannot be established, that שׁשׁ, βύσσος, is a term applied to linen. The mules frequently mentioned, e.g., in Sa2 13:29; Sa2 18:9; Kg1 1:33, may have been imported from abroad, as we may conclude from Kg1 10:25.
Lev 19:20-22
Even the personal rights of slaves were to be upheld; and a maid, though a slave, was not to be degraded to the condition of personal property. If any one lay with a woman who was a slave and betrothed to a man, but neither redeemed nor emancipated, the punishment of death was not to be inflicted, as in the case of adultery (Lev 20:10), or the seduction of a free virgin who was betrothed (Deu 22:23.), because she was not set free; but scourging was to be inflicted, and the guilty person was also to bring a trespass-offering for the expiation of his sin against God (see at Lev 5:15.). נחרפת, from חרף carpere, lit., plucked, i.e., set apart, betrothed to a man, not abandoned or despised. הפדּה redeemed, חפשׁה emancipation without purchase, - the two ways in which a slave could obtain her freedom. בּקּרת, ἁπ. λεγ., from בּקּר to examine (Lev 13:36), lit., investigation, then punishment, chastisement. This referred to both parties, as is evident from the expression, "they shall not be put to death;" though it is not more precisely defined. According to the Mishnah, Kerith. ii. 4, the punishment of the woman consisted of forty stripes.
Lev 19:23-25
The garden-fruit was also to be sanctified to the Lord. When the Israelites had planted all kinds of fruit-trees in the land of Canaan, they were to treat the fruit of every tree as uncircumcised for the first three years, i.e., not to eat it, as being uncircumcised. The singular suffix in ערלתו refers to כּל, and the verb ערל is a denom. from ערלה, to make into a foreskin, to treat as uncircumcised, i.e., to throw away as unclean or uneatable. The reason for this command is not to be sought for in the fact, that in the first three years fruit-trees bear only a little fruit, and that somewhat insipid, and that if the blossom or fruit is broken off the first year, the trees will bear all the more plentifully afterwards (Aben Esra, Clericus, J. D. Mich.), though this end would no doubt be thereby attained; but it rests rather upon ethical grounds. Israel was to treat the fruits of horticulture with the most careful regard as a gift of God, and sanctify the enjoyment of them by a thank-offering. In the fourth year the whole of the fruit was to be a holiness of praise for Jehovah, i.e., to be offered to the Lord as a holy sacrificial gift, in praise and thanksgiving for the blessing which He had bestowed upon the fruit-trees. This offering falls into the category of first-fruits, and was no doubt given up entirely to the Lord for the servants of the altar; although the expression הלּוּלים עשׂה (Jdg 9:27) seems to point to sacrificial meals of the first-fruits, that had already been reaped: and this is the way in which Josephus has explained the command (Ant. iv. 8, 19). For (Lev 19:25) they were not to eat the fruits till the fifth year, "to add (increase) its produce to you," viz., by the blessing of God, not by breaking off the fruits that might set in the first years.
Lev 19:26-32
The Israelites were to abstain from all unnatural, idolatrous, and heathenish conduct.
Lev 19:26
"Ye shall not eat upon blood" (על as in Exo 12:8, referring to the basis of the eating), i.e., no flesh of which blood still lay at the foundation, which was not entirely cleansed from blood (cf. Sa1 14:32). These words were not a mere repetition of the law against eating blood (Lev 17:10), but a strengthening of the law. Not only were they to eat no blood, but no flesh to which any blood adhered. They were also "to practise no kind of incantations." נחשׁ: from נחשׁ to whisper (see Gen 44:5), or, according to some, a denom. verb from נחשׁ a serpent; literally, to prophesy from observing snakes, then to prophesy from auguries generally, augurari. עונן a denom. verb, not from ענן a cloud, with the signification to prophesy from the motion of the clouds, of which there is not the slightest historical trace in Hebrew; but, as the Rabbins maintain, from עין an eye, literally, to ogle, then to bewitch with an evil eye.
Lev 19:27
"Ye shall not round the border of your head:" i.e., not cut the hair in a circle from one temple to the other, as some of the Arab tribes did, according to Herodotus (3, 8), in honour of their god Ὀροτάλ, whom he identifies with the Dionysos of the Greeks. In Jer 9:25; Jer 25:23; Jer 49:32, the persons who did this are called פאה קצוּצי, round-cropped, from their peculiar tonsure. "Neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard," sc., by cutting it off (cf. Lev 21:5), which Pliny reports some of the Arabs to have done, barba abraditur, praeterquam in superiore labro, aliis et haec intonsa, whereas the modern Arabs either wear a short moustache, or shave off the beard altogether (Niebuhr, Arab. p. 68).
Lev 19:28
"Ye shall not make cuttings on your flesh (body) on account of a soul, i.e., a dead person (נפשׁ = מת נפשׁ, Lev 21:11; Num 6:6, or מת, Deu 14:1; so again in Lev 22:4; Num 5:2; Num 9:6-7, Num 9:10), nor make engraven (or branded) writing upon yourselves." Two prohibitions of an unnatural disfigurement of the body. The first refers to passionate outbursts of mourning, common among the excitable nations of the East, particularly in the southern parts, and to the custom of scratching the arms, hands, and face (Deu 14:1), which is said to have prevailed among the Babylonians and Armenians (Cyrop. iii. 1, 13, iii. 3, 67), the Scythians (Herod. 4, 71), and even the ancient Romans (cf. M. Geier de Ebraeor. luctu, c. 10), and to be still practised by the Arabs (Arvieux Beduinen, p. 153), the Persians (Morier Zweite Reise, p. 189), and the Abyssinians of the present day, and which apparently held its ground among the Israelites notwithstanding the prohibition (cf. Jer 16:6; Jer 41:5; Jer 47:5), - as well as to the custom, which is also forbidden in Lev 21:5 and Deu 14:1, of cutting off the hair of the head and beard (cf. Isa 3:24; Isa 22:12; Micah. Lev 1:16; Amo 8:10; Eze 7:18). It cannot be inferred from the words of Plutarch, quoted by Spencer, δοκοῦντες χαρίζεσθαι τοῖς τετελευκηκόσιν, that the heathen associated with this custom the idea of making an expiation to the dead. The prohibition of קעקע כּתבת, scriptio stigmatis, writing corroded or branded (see Ges. thes. pp. 1207-8), i.e., of tattooing, - a custom not only very common among the savage tribes, but still met with in Arabia (Arvieux Beduinen, p. 155; Burckhardt Beduinen, pp. 40, 41) and in Egypt among both men and women of the lower orders (Lane, Manners and Customs i. pp. 25, 35, iii. p. 169), - had no reference to idolatrous usages, but was intended to inculcate upon the Israelites a proper reverence for God's creation.
Lev 19:29
"Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of vice" (zimmah: see Lev 18:17). The reference is not to spiritual whoredom or idolatry (Exo 34:16), but to fleshly whoredom, the word zimmah being only used in this connection. If a father caused his daughter to become a prostitute, immorality would soon become predominant, and the land (the population of the land) fall away to whoredom.
Lev 19:30
The exhortation now returns to the chief point, the observance of the Lord's Sabbaths and reverence for His sanctuary, which embrace the true method of divine worship as laid down in the ritual commandments. When the Lord's day is kept holy, and a holy reverence for the Lord's sanctuary lives in the heart, not only are many sins avoided, but social and domestic life is pervaded by the fear of God and characterized by chasteness and propriety.
Lev 19:31
True fear of God, however, awakens confidence in the Lord and His guidance, and excludes all superstitious and idolatrous ways and methods of discovering the future. This thought prepares the way for the warning against turning to familiar spirits, or seeking after wizards. אוב denotes a departed spirit, who was called up to make disclosures with regard to the future, hence a familiar spirit, spiritum malum qui certis artibus eliciebatur ut evocaret mortuorum manes, qui praedicarent quae ab eis petebantur (Cler.). This is the meaning in Isa 29:4, as well as here and in Lev 20:6, as is evident from Lev 20:27, "a man or woman in whom is an ob," and from Sa1 28:7-8, baalath ob, "a woman with such a spirit." The name was then applied to the necromantist himself, by whom the departed were called up (Sa1 28:3; Kg2 23:24). The word is connected with ob, a skin. ידּעני, the knowing, so to speak, "clever man" (Symm. γνώστης, Aq. γνωριστής), is only found in connection with ob, and denotes unquestionably a person acquainted with necromancy, or a conjurer who devoted himself to the invocation of spirits. (For further remarks, see as Sa1 28:7.).
Lev 19:32
This series concludes with the moral precept, "Before a hoary head thou shalt rise up (sc., with reverence, Job 29:8), and the countenance (the person) of the old man thou shalt honour and fear before thy God." God is honoured in the old man, and for this reason reverence for age is required. This virtue was cultivated even by the heathen, e.g., the Egyptians (Herod. 2, 80), the Spartans (Plutarch), and the ancient Romans (Gellius, ii. 15). It is still found in the East (Lane, Sitten und Gebr. ii. p. 121). Leviticus 19:33