Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I started this on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed blogging from that book on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. Since then, I have begun adding material from his Bible commentaries. I also re-blog many of the old posts.
Showing posts with label sanctuary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sanctuary. Show all posts

Friday, August 23, 2024

Levivitus 19:30-37

 "30 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God. 32 Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD. 33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. 34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. 35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. 36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the LORD." — Leviticus 19:30-37 KJV

30. Sanctuary — The tabernacle, the place of Jehovah’s abode among men, was reverenced when Israel approached in ceremonial and moral purity, bringing the required offerings in humility and penitence.

31. Familiar spirits — The Hebrew אֹבֹת֙ signifies skins used for bottles, Job 32:19. Its secondary meaning is the hollow belly of conjurers, supposed to be inflated by the spirit. Hence the אוֹב properly denotes, not the conjurer himself but the spirit which is conjured by him, and is supposed to speak in him. See the Seventy, who render it by ἐγγαστριμύθοις, ventriloquists. The “familiar” is not in the Hebrew; it comes from the idea that the necromancers, soothsayers, and the like had spirits or demons whom they could summon from the unseen world to wait upon them as famuli, servants, and execute their commands. The ventriloquists “peeped and muttered,” (Isaiah 8:19; 29:4,) to imitate the voice of the revealing “familiar.” All the descriptions of the ancient necromancy are strikingly like the practices of modern spirit-circles. The sin in such consultations of the dead is the implied abandonment of God and his word as man’s only and sufficient light on all questions respecting the future state, and the resort to unauthorized sources of revelation, whose utterances are repugnant to the Holy Scriptures, and frequently grossly immoral.