leviticus 19:1-20:27, kedoshim “holiness” chiastic structure

Read Leviticus 19:1-20:27 at Bible Gateway.

This is the chiastic structure for kedoshim, which has eluded me until now:

1a) Lev 19:1-2, You shall be holy, for I the LORD am holy;

1b) Lev 19:3-16, Statutes for holiness, for I am the LORD your God;

1c) Lev 19:17-22 {p} You shall love your neighbor as yourself / purity / unlawful relations;

1) Lev 19:17-19a, You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD + You shall keep My statutes;
2) Lev 19:b, Prohibition against mixtures (livestock, seed, linsey-woolsey);
3) Lev 19:20-22 {p} Unlawful relations, however he shall bring his trespass offering and it shall be forgiven;

1d) Lev 19:23-25, Proper regard for the fruit of new trees: I am the LORD your God;

1e) Lev 19:26-29, You shall not practice the superstitions of paganism nor profit from cult prostitution: I am the LORD;

central axis) Lev 19:30, You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD;

2e) Lev 19:31, You shall not regard mediums and familiar spirits or seek after them: I am the LORD your God;

2d) Lev 19:32 {s} Proper regard for elders: I am the Lord;

2c) Lev 19:33-20:24, You shall love the stranger as yourself / purity / forbidden relations;

1) Lev 19:33-37 {p} You shall love the stranger as yourself: I am the LORD + You shall observe My statutes;
2) Lev 20:1-6, Prohibition against mixtures: Defiling the LORD’s worship with Molech + mediums/ familiar spirits (I will set My face against him);
3) Lev 20:7-24, Forbidden relations: their blood is upon them + they shall bear their guilt;

1a) Lev 20:7a, Consecrate yourselves and be holy;
1b) Lev 20:7b, For I am the LORD your God;
1c) Lev 20:8, You shall keep My statutes, for I am the LORD who sanctifies you;
central axis) Lev 20:9-21, Forbidden relations: their blood is upon them + they shall bear their guilt;
2c) Lev 20:22-24a, You shall therefore keep all My statutes (not the statutes of the nations) that you may retain the Land;
2b) Lev 20:24b, I am the LORD your God;
2a) Lev 20:24c, Who has separated you from the peoples;

2b) Lev 20:25, You shall therefore distinguish between clean and unclean;

2a) Lev 20:26, You shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.

There is a loose end at the end of kedoshim:

Lev 20:27 A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them. {p}

But this verse is necessary to complete the single chiastic structure of Lev 20:1-27 {p} Punishment for violations of the LORD’s holy statutes just expressed, and may also be an element of a larger chiastic structure in Leviticus.

I must admit that the 1e) Lev 19:26-29 stumped me for many years. Here it is:

26a ‘You shall not eat anything with the blood,
26b Nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying.
27 You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges 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 ‘Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness.

Each of these things was practiced in Canaan as a regular act of worship in their idolatry. They ate the blood of their sacrifices with their sacrifice. They practiced divination to receive instruction from their idols. They cut or marred the edges of their beards to mourn their dead. They cut their flesh to mourn their dead. They tattooed their flesh to mourn or remember their dead. Please see Shaving, Beards, Sidelocks for an excellent explanation of the Hebrew and the cultural context of mourning the dead. As well, families sometimes sold their daughters to become temple prostitutes, which were housed at some temples, as their use was a normal part of idolatrous worship. So the single theme is practices and superstitions attached to pagan idolatry.