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Levítico 24

BLIVRE · Chapter 24/27

1E falou o SENHOR a Moisés, dizendo:

2Manda aos filhos de Israel que te tragam azeite de olivas claro, prensado, para a luminária, para fazer arder as lâmpadas continuamente.

3Fora do véu do testemunho, no tabernáculo do testemunho, as preparará Arão desde a tarde até a manhã diante do SENHOR, continuamente: estatuto perpétuo por vossas gerações.

4Sobre o candelabro limpo porá sempre em ordem as lâmpadas diante do SENHOR.

5E tomarás boa farinha, e cozerás dela doze tortas; cada torta será de dois décimos [de efa] .

6E as porás em duas fileiras, seis em cada fileira, sobre a mesa limpa diante do SENHOR.

7Porás também sobre cada fileira incenso limpo, e será para o pão por incenso, oferta acesa ao SENHOR.

8Cada dia de sábado o porá continuamente em ordem diante do SENHOR, dos filhos de Israel por pacto perpétuo.

9E será de Arão e de seus filhos, os quais o comerão no lugar santo; porque é coisa muito santa para ele, das ofertas acendidas ao SENHOR, por estatuto perpétuo.

10Naquela muita o filho de uma mulher israelita, o qual era filho de um egípcio, saiu entre os filhos de Israel; e o filho da israelita e um homem de Israel brigaram no acampamento:

11E o filho da mulher israelita pronunciou o Nome, e amaldiçoou; então o levaram a Moisés. E sua mãe se chamava Selomite, filha de Dribi, da tribo de Dã.

12E puseram-no no cárcere, até que lhes fosse sentenciado pela palavra do SENHOR.

13E o SENHOR falou a Moisés, dizendo:

14Traz o blasfemador para fora do acampamento, e todos os que o ouviram ponham suas mãos sobre a cabeça dele, e toda a congregação o apedreje.

15E falarás aos filhos de Israel, dizendo: Qualquer um que amaldiçoar ao seu Deus, levará sobre si a sua iniquidade.

16E o que blasfemar o nome do SENHOR será morto; toda a congregação o apedrejará; tanto o estrangeiro como o natural, se blasfemar o Nome, que morra.

17Também o homem que fere de morte a qualquer pessoa será punido à morte.

18Mas o que fere algum animal deverá restituí-lo; animal por animal.

19E se alguém que causar lesão em seu próximo, segundo fez, assim lhe seja feito:

20Fratura por fratura, olho por olho, dente por dente: segundo a lesão que houver feito a outro, assim se fará a ele.

21O que fere algum animal deverá restituí-lo; mas o que fere de morte a um homem será punido à morte.

22Um mesmo regulamento tereis; como o estrangeiro, assim será o natural; porque eu sou o SENHOR, vosso Deus.

23E falou Moisés aos filhos de Israel, e eles trouxeram o blasfemador para fora do acampamento, e o apedrejaram. E os filhos de Israel fizeram segundo o que o SENHOR havia mandado a Moisés.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Instructions about the oil for the tabernacle's lamps and the twelve loaves of showbread on the sacred table. The chapter then tells of a man who blasphemed the name of the LORD and was stoned, with the law of 'eye for eye' repeated in that context.

Explanation

The first part of the chapter deals with the tabernacle's ongoing maintenance — light and bread always kept before God, symbolizing his constant provision and presence among the people. The second part narrates an actual case of blasphemy, showing how the law was applied in practice: even a man with an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father (someone on the margins of the community) was under the same law as anyone else. The principle of 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth' (lex talionis) was not meant to encourage personal revenge, but was a legal limit to prevent disproportionate punishment — the penalty had to match the harm, no more and no less. Jesus later teaches an even higher personal ethic on this point (Matthew 5:38-39), without invalidating the principle of proportional justice in the courts.

Fun facts

  • The 'twelve loaves of showbread' represented the twelve tribes of Israel continually before God — replaced every Sabbath and eaten by the priests, never wasted.
  • The law of 'eye for eye' also appears in the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian legal text that predates the Law of Moses, but there the penalty varied according to the victim's social class — in the biblical Law, the same rule applied equally to everyone, 'as well the stranger as the homeborn.'

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Levítico 24:1This opening formula introduces a more technical topic: the daily upkeep of the lampstand and the bread of presence inside the tent.
  2. Levítico 24:2“Beaten” describes a method of extracting oil by pounding the olives, not pressing them with a millstone. It was a more labor-intensive process that produced purer oil, reserved only for keeping this lamp burning without interruption inside the tent.
  3. Levítico 24:3It fell to Aaron personally to keep the lamps burning from evening until morning, outside the veil — a daily maintenance task, nothing glamorous, but assigned directly to the high priest, not to some assistant.
  4. Levítico 24:4The same care for the lamps repeats here, with the focus on the pure gold lampstand — the specific object that needed continuous, ongoing attention.
  5. Levítico 24:5The twelve loaves represent the twelve tribes of Israel, placed on the table inside the tent every week. This is the origin of what would become known as the bread of the presence, renewed every sabbath.
  6. Levítico 24:6The twelve loaves mentioned in the previous verse were arranged in two rows of six on the table — the number twelve almost certainly represented the twelve tribes of Israel.
  7. Levítico 24:7Pure frankincense was placed with the bread as a “memorial” — the same concept of a symbolic representative portion already seen in the grain offering of chapter 2.
  8. Levítico 24:8This bread was replaced with fresh loaves every week, on the sabbath day, a ritual repeated continually on behalf of the whole people of Israel.
  9. Levítico 24:9The old bread, removed at each weekly changeover, became food for Aaron and his sons — one more piece of the priestly support system described throughout the book.
  10. Levítico 24:10Here the chapter interrupts the laws to tell a real story: a man, the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father, got into a fight with an Israelite inside the camp — a concrete case that prompts the law that follows.
  11. Levítico 24:11This is one of the rare moments where Leviticus interrupts the laws to tell a real story: a fight that ends in blasphemy. The concrete case is what triggers the legal decision that follows, and not by coincidence, right after come the eye-for-eye rules, applied to this very episode.
  12. Levítico 24:12While they waited for a decision, they put the man under guard — a rare moment when not even Moses had a ready answer on hand, needing to wait for a new revelation from God to settle the case.
  13. Levítico 24:13This opening formula introduces the divine answer to the specific case just told.
  14. Levítico 24:14The witnesses laid their hands on the condemned man’s head before the execution, a gesture of formally taking responsibility for their own testimony. And the stoning being carried out by the whole congregation, not by a single executioner, turned the penalty into a collective act, not a personal act of revenge.
  15. Levítico 24:15The general rule comes first: whoever cursed “his God” bore his own sin — a broader foundation before the specific rule about blaspheming the Lord’s name in the next verse.
  16. Levítico 24:16The specific law against blaspheming the Lord’s name applied equally to the foreigner and to the native-born Israelite — a relevant detail, since the accused in the story was himself the son of a foreign father.
  17. Levítico 24:17From here the text inserts a small code of laws right into the narrative itself: whoever killed a person had to die — the most basic principle of capital justice in the book.
  18. Levítico 24:18Killing an animal, on the other hand, required only restitution, life for life — a very different penalty from the one for killing a person, clearly distinguishing property from human life.
  19. Levítico 24:19Before the more famous formula of the next verse, the general principle appears here: injuring your neighbor brought back the same kind of harm on whoever caused the injury.
  20. Levítico 24:20This is the famous law of “eye for eye,” also repeated in Exodus. In the ancient world it worked as a limit against disproportionate revenge — the punishment could not exceed the harm caused — and, according to similar codes of the time and later tradition, it was often settled with payment rather than literal mutilation.
  21. Levítico 24:21The summary returns: killing an animal calls for restitution, killing a person calls for death — closing the distinction the text weaves between the “eye for eye” law and the real case that opened this section.
  22. Levítico 24:22The chapter closes here making clear that the same law applied equally to the foreigner living there and to someone born in Israel. That includes the death penalty for blasphemy and the eye-for-eye principle, with no difference in treatment between the two.
  23. Levítico 24:23The chapter closes by returning to the story from the start: the man was taken outside the camp and stoned, exactly as Moses had ordered — the newly given law was applied immediately to the real case.

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