Context No. 2711 of 4322 · Leviticus

Leviticus 19:26-30: in context

26“‘You shall not eat any meat with the blood still in it. You shall not use enchantments, nor practice sorcery. 27“‘You shall not cut the hair on the sides of your head or clip off the edge of your beard. 28“‘You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am the LORD. 29“‘Don’t profane your daughter, to make her a prostitute; lest the land fall to prostitution, and the land become full of wickedness. 30“‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary; I am the LORD.

These commands sit in the Holiness Code, just after "love your neighbor as yourself." They read at first like a jumble: do not eat blood, do not practice divination or sorcery, do not cut the hair of your head or your beard or gash your flesh or mark your skin for the dead, do not force your daughter into prostitution, keep my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary.

A single thread runs through the list. Nearly every item names something the surrounding nations did, in worship, in mourning, in what they did with their own bodies and their children. Israel was to grieve differently, worship differently, treat their daughters and their skin differently, because they belonged to a different God. Holiness was not confined to the temple. It reached into how they mourned the dead and what they let be done to the vulnerable in their own households.

Do I let belonging to God shape the intimate and ordinary corners of my life, or only the parts that other people see?

Sources

Leviticus 19:2: "You shall be holy; for I, the LORD your God, am holy."
Romans 12:2: "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
1 Corinthians 6:20: "For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."