The ‘Holiness Code’ gets its name from these opening verses of chapter nineteen.

YHWH is
addressing Moses, so we are to listen to the following directions for behaviour and worship as
being fundamental to what it means to be a member of the people of Israel. They are derived
from God’s revelation on Sinai. Furthermore, it is no accident that the only other time God
introduces himself as ‘I YHWH you God’(19:2) is at the beginning of the decalogue (Exodus
20:2). The authors of the Holiness Code want the reader to take these laws as seriously as the
decalogue. This is also the only list of laws that is directed to ‘all the congregation (‘ēdâ) of the
people of Israel’(19:2); another indication of its importance. The Priestly School in its earlier
writing, too, focuses on holiness. YHWH alone is ‘holy’(qādôš); which is to say that YHWH
totally transcends creation, is absolutely other; there is an unbridgeable separation of God from
human beings and from everything that we human beings experience. Because the all-holy God
has chosen to dwell among his people, his dwelling place is a holy place, a sanctuary – not
because of any inherent quality it has, but because, and only because, the Holy One dwells there.
God’s holiness permeates the inner shrine and emanates out through the tent and to the altar in
the courtyard. It also embraces those who alone can minister in the sanctuary – the high priest
who alone can enter the inner shrine, and the priests who alone can serve at the altar. For the
authors of the Holiness Code, holiness is not limited to the sanctuary and its priests. ‘All the
congregation of the people of Israel’ is called to be ‘holy’(qādōš). The separateness of God
remains (God is qādôš, Israel is called to be qādōš), but Israel is called to live within the
ambience of God’s radiant glory. The way to enter into this radiance of YHWH’s unique
holiness is to heed YHWH’s commandments, including those listed in this chapter. We have
already met this call to holiness in chapter eleven: ‘I am YHWH your God; sanctify yourselves
therefore, and be holy, for I am holy’(Leviticus 11:44-45), a statement which reveals the editorial
hand of the authors of this code. We will need trust and courage to heed and to follow the path
that is laid out before us in the following verses.

As chapter nineteen is structured, these verses form the climax of the ethical demands of holiness
(though see 19:34). Tobit captures some of the implications of this command when he states:
‘What you hate, do not do to anyone’(Tobit 4:15). Rabbi Hillel (died c. 10AD), when asked to
give a summary of the Torah, is said to have replied: ‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to
your fellow’(The Babylonian Talmud, Šabbat 31a).

In verses thirty-three to thirty-four the Holiness Code reaches one of its high points in its ethical
commands. The command ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself’(19:18) is extended to the
foreigner dwelling in the land (see 19:10; also Exodus 20:10; 22:21; 23:9; Deuteronomy 10:19).
To support the command the people of Israel are reminded that they were foreigners once in
Egypt. The words of the prophet Amos reinforce the commands of verses thirty-five to thirty-six:
Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When
will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer
wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false
balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings
of the wheat. – Amos 4-5 The conclusion (19:36b-37) links back with 18:4-5. In this way it
includes all the statutes and edicts given to Israel in chapters eighteen and nineteen by YHWH,
who ‘brought you out of the land of Egypt’. They are his people and are answerable to him.

Having spoken of holy persons (priests) in chapter twenty-one, and holy offerings in chapter
twenty-two, the text goes on to speak of ‘designated times’(mô‘ēd) which are to be proclaimed
as ‘sacred proclaimed times’(miqrā’ qōdeš). This introduction (23:2) applies to the spring (23:4-
22) and autumn (23:23-43) festivals that follow. The terms do not normally apply to the sabbath
(23:3). It falls regularly every seven days, and is independent of calculations of the lunar month.
Perhaps this brief statement on the sabbath is inserted here because in exile the other festivals
could not be celebrated. The sabbath took on greater significance as setting them apart from the
surrounding culture. The brief reference to the sabbath echoes the following statement in
Exodus: Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy sabbath of
solemn rest to YHWH. – Exodus 35:2 Both statements rely on the third commandment of the
decalogue (Exodus 20:8-11). The name ‘sabbath’ (šabbāt) is related to the verb ‘to stop’(šābat).
However, the perspective must not be missed: ceasing work is so that the day can be ‘kept
holy’(Exodus 20:8; see Isaiah 58:13). They are God’s ‘holy nation’(Exodus 19:6), consecrated to
God, who ‘rested on the seventh day’(Exodus 20:11). The third commandment has powerful
symbolic value. Positively there is the command to work: we have the obligation and the
privilege of continuing God’s creative and redeeming work. There is, however, a danger that we
will get caught up in ‘pursuing our own interests’(Isaiah 58:13). There is also the danger that the
systems of authority that are basic to social organisation will appear absolute, and that those
under authority will be treated as of lesser dignity than those who exercise authority. The seventh
day, therefore, stands as a symbol of our need for God and of our equality before God. This day
is to be set aside so that everyone (‘you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave,
your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns’, Exodus 20:10) may ‘rest’, may have the
space to attend to the Holy One. We are to remember God’s resting, and so the very purpose of
creation (Genesis 2:1-3), which was to have this special covenant relationship with God. If we
follow the example of God and make every seventh day one of ‘complete rest’(šabbat šabbātôn),
the sabbath will indeed be for us ‘a delight’(Isaiah 58:13).

Sabbatical Year (25:2-7) Verse two speaks of ‘the land’(’ereṣ), a word that recurs twenty times
in this chapter. First of all we are reminded that the land belongs to YHWH, hence the people
must do with it as he says. We are accustomed to hearing about God observing a sabbath
(Exodus 20:11), and the people (23:3). Here it is the land that is to ‘observe a sabbath (šabbāt) to
YHWH’(25:3) – something that will affect everyone living on it. Every seventh year
(agricultural year, beginning in autumn) the land must be returned to its condition on the sabbath
of creation (Genesis 2:3). This text draws on Exodus 23:10-11 For six years you shall sow your
land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the
poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the
same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. The Exodus text comes from the oldest
code in the Bible. It witnesses to the people’s knowledge of the needs of the land, and also to
their awareness of God as one who hears the cry of the poor. The Leviticus text goes further in
requiring that no work at all is to be done on the land. As with the sabbath itself (23:3) and the
Day of Purgation (23:32), every seventh year is to be one of ‘complete rest’(25:4). The priests
who composed this law were enunciating a principle, but must have lost touch with the needs of
the farming community. It is hard to imagine such an absolute prohibition being followed.
Perhaps the original legislation applied to grain farming. When Israel branched out into
viticulture, the vines would have needed some attention during the sabbatical year. In any case,
verses six and seven modify the general principle enunciated in verses four and five, by allowing
the landowner and those of his household to use as food whatever the land yields while it is lying
fallow during the sabbatical year. It is worth recording also that there is no evidence that the
sabbatical year was observed in pre-exilic Israel. For the post-exilic period see Nehemiah 10:31;
1Maccabees 6:49, 53.

Jubilee Year (25:8-22) The idea of the Jubilee year is that every fifty years land would be
restored to its owners who, because of their failure to repay a debt, have had to hand over to
another the use of the land and the fruit of its use. The Jubilee legislation is based on the idea that
the land belongs to YHWH, and that those to whom YHWH has given it cannot alienate it to
another. No one can take advantage of another’s poverty to increase their ownership of land.
They can benefit from it for a while, but every fifty years it must be restored and all debts
cancelled. YHWH’s ownership of the land is reinforced by the word translated
‘property’(’aḥuzzâ, 25:10). They have ‘seized’ (’āḥaz) the land according to God’s instructions,
but it is not for anyone a ‘guaranteed possession’(naḥalâ), because it belongs to YHWH and is
given on condition of loyalty. Israel is like a resident alien in YHWH’s land (see 25:23). The
idea is to ‘release’(25:10) people from getting caught up in a downward spiral of poverty, as
well as put a limit on greed. However, the fact that no sanctions are mentioned for failure to
observe the Jubilee, and that there is no evidence that it was ever actually observed ‘throughout
all your land’(25:10), gives rise to the question whether it ever went beyond the stage of being a
‘utopian’ idea. Besides, who is going to give a loan to someone in need in the years just before
the debt is going to be cancelled? It is envisaged as a holy year (25:12), but not a sabbatical year.
Following straight after a sabbatical year the command not to work the land (25:11-12), besides
being unrelated to the main purpose of the Jubilee, would mean stopping farming for two years
in a row. The law decrees that, having just completed the seventh sabbatical year, after the ten
days of repentance which climax with the Day of Purgation, the ‘horn’(šôpar) is sounded to
proclaim the beginning of Jubilee (yôbēl, ‘ram’, 25:10). Like the sabbatical year, the Jubilee
follows the agricultural year, and so begins in autumn. The ‘you’ in verse eight refers to
Israelites (foreigners could not ‘possess’ land by a perpetual title).