Bible Commentaries
Leviticus 24

Verses 1-23

Oil for the Lamps. The Shewbread. Laws on Blasphemy

1-4. Oil for the Lamps in the Tabernacle.

On the construction of the Lampstand see Exodus 25:31-40, and with the present passage cp. Exodus 27:20-21 and notes there.

5-9. The Table of Shewbread is described in Exodus 25:23-30 (see notes there). On this table, which stood in the Holy Place, twelve new unleavened loaves were laid each sabbath day, and after lying for seven days were removed and eaten by the priests, fresh loaves being again substituted. These loaves, the number of which corresponded to that of the tribes of Israel, are called the ’bread of the Presence,’ as being laid before God, or ’bread of the pile’ as being arranged in two rows (Leviticus 24:6), or ’the continual bread,’ as lying continually before God (Numbers 4:7). The shewbread was a kind of meal offering (see intro. to Leviticus 2), and the rite probably had its origin in the crude notion that the deity required food like his worshippers (cp. on Leviticus 3:11). In the Levitical law, however, it attained a higher significance. It was an acknowledgment that man owes his ’daily bread’ to God. It was a kind of perpetual grace over meat.

10-23. Punishment of a Blasphemer. A half-Israelite blasphemes the name of Jehovah. As there is some uncertainty whether such a person is subject to the same penalty as full-born Israelites the matter is referred to God, and the decision is given that there is one law for the stranger and for the home-born.

10. See on Exodus 12:38.

11. Blasphemed the name of the Lord] RV ’blasphemed the Name,’ i.e. blasphemed Jehovah. The peculiar expression is due to some copyist who shrank, out of a feeling of reverence, from inserting the name of Jehovah in this connexion: see pn Exodus 3:13.

14. Lay their hands] devoting him to death and solemnly dissociating themselves from complicity in his guilt: cp. Deuteronomy 17:7.

16. As well the stranger] This is the important legal point which the above incident is inserted to illustrate: cp. Leviticus 24:22.

17-22. Cp. Exodus 21:12; and notes there.