Fragments from lectures given at the recent Biblical Horizons Summer Conference. The notes that follow examine the opening verses of Leviticus 18.

1) “I am Yahweh” or some equivalent phrase is used 49 (7 x 7) times in Leviticus. The phrase is never used before chapter 11, when the “holiness” section begins, and the concerns turn away from the rules of the sacrificial liturgy to the rules of cleanness and the land. Of the 49 uses in Leviticus, 24 are in chapters 18-20. This is the place where Yahweh most emphatically declares His name, and declares what it means for Israel to be bearers of that name.

2) The specific phrase “I am Yahweh your God” is used 21x in the book, and 12 of those are in chapters 18-20. Again, Yahweh is speaking to His twelve-fold people.

3) Verse 3 sets the context for these instructions . . . .

Israel is at Sinai, and that means they are between Egypt and Canaan , between the place they dwelt and have left, and on the way to the place Yahweh is bringing them to. Neither Egypt nor Canaan sets the pattern that Israel is supposed to follow. They have been removed from Egypt , and in so doing they have left the “doings” of Egypt behind; they are on their way to Canaan , but they aren’t supposed to conform to the “doings” of Canaan either. The word “doings” is used to mean “works” or “products,” like the produce of a land; and that’s the way the text phrases the issue – as if the lands Egypt and Canaan produced these things.

4) In addition to forbidding the “doing” of things that Egypt and Canaan does, Israel is prohibited from “walking in their ordinances” (v 3). The word here is not simply about behavior or action, but about what is established as a norm for action and behavior, whether that norm is explicitly a legal norm or simply a customary norm. The reference to the “statues” of the Canaanites and Egyptians at the end of verse 3 opens up an important dimension of this whole passage.

The combination “statutes and ordinances” is very familiar, but it is comparatively rare in Leviticus. Perpetual ordinances are mentioned earlier in Leviticus, but they have to do with specific rules in specific situations (like the ordinance that priests are not to drink wine in the sanctuary). The combination occurs twice in vv 4-5, underscored by the declaration of Yahweh’s name, and then is used regularly throughout the remainder of Leviticus ( 19:19 , 37; 25:18; 26:3, 15, 43, 46). These are the things that Israel must do to live, and particularly to live in the land that Yahweh has given them.

Again, this is not just about behavior, but about what is established as expected norm. Israel is to “guard” the judgments and statutes of Yahweh. Israel is not only to do what Yahweh requires, but to protect and defend Yahweh’s words as the norms, as the expected walk and life of Israelites.

5) “Guarding statutes and ordinances” is particularly important in situations, like our own, where biblical sexual norms are ignored or attacked. Our responsibility is not only to pursue sexual purity, but to defend publicly God’s public norms of sexual behavior.