This week’s Torah portion is known as Emor—which means “speak”—and it covers Leviticus 21:1–24:23. After God gave Israel the ten commandments, he commissioned Israel to be a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Israel’s requirement for holiness was directly connected to the character of God. Leviticus lays out the nation’s dietary restrictions, religious calendar, purity laws, ritual worship requirements and holiness code. Four times in the process, Leviticus reminds the reader why the nation must set itself apart. Four times, the command is repeated: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7, 20:26).
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By commanding the people to be holy because he is holy, God was instructing Israel to mirror his character through their daily actions and distinguish themselves from the nations around them. The call toward holiness is so central to the biblical narrative that the apostle Peter quoted Leviticus in his letter to Christians. Peter said:
Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14–16)
The Standards for Priesthood
The first major theme of today’s portion, Emor, concerns the standards for priesthood. Because the sons of Aaron served as mediators between God and the people, they were held to a higher level of ritual purity. Their lives were restricted to ensure they remained holy to their God. These rules governed their mourning practices and their marriages. A priest could not encounter a dead body, except for his closest relatives. The high priest faced even stricter limitations. The text provides the reasoning for these boundaries.
He shall not go where there is any dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or his mother. He shall not go out of the sanctuary and thus profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the Lord. (Lev. 21:11–12)
Any priest with a physical blemish was prohibited from offering food on the altar. This requirement was not a judgment on the person’s value. It was a ritual necessity for the symbolic system of the Tabernacle. The priest had to mirror the perfection of the offerings he brought before God.
The Sanctification of Time
In Leviticus 23, the holiness code moves from the purification of the sanctuary and the consecration of the people to the sanctification of time. The chapter lays out the ritual calendar the Jewish people are to follow, a list of holy days and appointed seasons that have sustained Judaism for millennia. Throughout the week, and year, there are holy convocations that pull the people away from their labor and toward the divine.
The sequence begins with the Sabbath, because the Sabbath is the foundation of the entire calendar.
Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no work: it is a sabbath to the Lord throughout your settlements. (Lev. 23:3)
In Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s book, The Sabbath, he explains how the Sabbath sustained the Jewish people for 2,000 years while they had no land or temple. He wrote, “the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the fire can consume nor the sword can destroy.” The Babylonians and Romans could overrun the Jerusalem sanctuaries, and exile the Jewish people from their homeland, but they could not burn down the Sabbath because it is holy in what Heschel calls “the architecture of time.”
Leviticus goes on to describe the annual cycle of spring and fall festivals. These include Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the counting of the Omer, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. What all these holidays have in common is that they are regular reminders that God is the provider of the harvest. God is the one who redeemed them from slavery out of Egypt and brought them to the promised land where they can build houses and plant vineyards. By keeping these dates, the Israelites learned to see the providence of God in both the changing seasons and their shared history.
Counting the Omer
One of the appointed festivals in today’s portion that is least familiar to Christians is the counting of the Omer. God instructed:
And from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the elevation offering, you shall count seven entire weeks; they shall be complete. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a newly manufactured grain offering to the Lord. (Leviticus 23:15–16)
In fact, we are in the counting of the Omer right now. The Counting of the Omer goes for seven full weeks. It starts the second night of Passover and goes until the festival of Shavuot, what we know as Pentecost. On the agricultural calendar, the Omer marks the time between the barley harvest and the wheat harvest in ancient Israel. Spiritually, it traces the journey of the Israelites from their physical liberation in Egypt (Passover) to the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai (Shavuot).
It was a 49−day journey to get from Egypt to Mount Sinai. It took those seven weeks for God to ready his people’s hearts and minds for the great gift he had in store for them. When they first left Egypt, they still thought and acted like an enslaved people. They complained of the lack of food in the desert. They asked Moses if it was better for them in Egypt where they had their basic daily needs. Moses had to remind them that they were slaves in Egypt, and even if the years of wandering were difficult, they were free people!
God used the 49 days to spiritually refine the nation so they would be a worthy vessel to receive the covenant. Every generation since the Sinai generation is supposed to use this 49-day countdown to examine their hearts and lives and make sure they are still worthy vessels. God’s laws and his word are a gift. It is so valuable to have an annual season where believers repent of their unfaithfulness and renew their hearts, so they are good stewards of the divine instructions.
Like all the Jewish feasts, the counting of the Omer also marks a unique period in the life of Christ. Jesus was crucified on Passover, the beginning of the Omer. During the Omer, the risen Jesus spent time with his disciples. He prepared them and taught them about the age to come. The book of Acts points directly to the Omer, saying:
After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)
Ten days separated Jesus’s ascension into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit. These were the last ten days in the counting of the Omer. The disciples stayed in Jerusalem, despite Jesus giving them the great commission to go into the world and preach the gospel. They waited in Jerusalem because Jesus had instructed them not to leave until they received the “promise of the Father.” He promised them, “For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5).
Just as Jesus had promised, at the end of the Omer, on Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit down in tongues of fire on Shavuot. Jesus’s followers were gathered in Jerusalem on their national holiday, just as the Jewish people had done since they had first received their ritual calendar in Leviticus. They were anticipating the promise Jesus had assured them, and sure enough it happened. Acts records:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. (Acts 1:1-2)
For the Jewish people, the goal of counting the Omer is to become a vessel ready to be filled by God’s holy law. For the Christian, we can also count the Omer as we retrace the life of our messiah Jesus from his death, resurrection, and the outpouring of the Spirit. Right now, at this moment, on Day 29 of the Omer, the disciples were still learning at the feet of Jesus. What Jesus did for his followers during those days is the goal of Bible Fiber. He sat with them, and “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27).
The counting of the Omer began on April 2 and will end on May 21. By prayer and study, I suggest that we all retrace the steps from Egypt to Sinai and from the resurrection to Pentecost. Let us ask the Lord to prepare our hearts for a fresh outpouring of his Spirit. We are his ready vessels.
That’s it for this week. Join me next week for the very last Leviticus reading! If you would like to get the study questions that go with this episode, visit our website and sign up for the newsletter: www.thejerusalemconnection.us
Shabbat Shalom and Am Israel Chai
Study Questions
- Leviticus 21 establishes high standards for the physical and ritual purity of the priesthood. How do these specific restrictions for leadership reinforce the broader call for all of Israel to be holy? How does the ancient requirement for physical wholeness in the sanctuary serve as a symbolic model for spiritual integrity in the life of a modern believer?
- The text highlights the 49–day period between Passover and Shavuot known as the “Counting of the Omer.” Why was this duration of time essential for preparing the hearts and minds of the Israelites before they reached Mount Sinai? How can Christians use this biblical rhythm of counting time to focus on personal spiritual refinement and renewal today?
- The reading concludes with the instruction that there must be “one law for the alien and for the citizen” (Leviticus 24:22). How does the pursuit of holiness directly impact the way a community treats its most vulnerable members, such as the poor or the stranger? How does the memory of past suffering—like the Israelite experience in Egypt—prevent a “holy nation” from becoming an oppressor?