Our whole week has to do with Leviticus, beginning with chapter 5 and ending with chapter 23, dealing largely with laws relating to sacrifices and offerings, the consecration and duties of the priests, and the various feasts of the year. We have also in chapter 11 the law of clean and unclean animals, based not on arbitrary commands of God, but on the very nature of the animals themselves. Admirable laws are given regarding leprosy and the unsanitary condition of houses. While God declared Himself as "I am the God that healeth thee," yet He demanded proper precaution on the part of His people. While it may not be comparatively profitable for us to spend much time on the meaning of the details of all these sacrifices, yet each detail had its meaning. We now find their fuller meaning in the sacrifice, life, and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. One obtains a fairly good comparison between the laws which God gave to Israel, and the customs of the nations around them, as for instance in chapter 19. The nations which the Lord cast out of the Holy Land before Israel had given themselves up to pagan abominations; Satan absolutely ruled through the flesh. God had in mercy extended hope to them for four hundred years, sending His servants to sojourn among them in order to win them to the right way; but they had at last filled up their cup with iniquity, so it was a blessing to future generations to blot them from the earth. Chapter 23, the closing chapter of the week, is interesting because it gives the feasts of the year. Each and all of these are typical, and are distinguished from the Sabbath of Jehovah. See verse 38.
