Rules, rules, and more rules should be the title of this particular book. I mean we have rules on what we can eat, rules on what we can wear, rules on what offerings need to be made to the priests, and rules on how you treat the sick. Replace the word rule with regulation and we have the US Government today, zing.
In all seriousness though it started in Exodus, but it's very apparent now, God is giving bureaucracy and Government to the people of Israel in this book. It's a very crude government with very obvious room for exploitation, a man could potentially be banished if he has a long lasting zit, but still for a crude initial government for a wandering people, it does lessen the incidence of people going: OH GOD I HAVE SINNED, WHAT SHOULD I DO? He told them what to do, or what his ruling were on certain situations. I mean we even have difference of punishment. If you eject semen, take a bath and you are unclean. If you have sex with your father's wife, you shall be put to death. Some of things even have exile from everyone, which may be a fate worse than death in those days. This again leads into my assertion back in Exodus that God is growing. It's very obvious in Leviticus that he's learning and making judgements on all the things that have popped up before.
The last thing I want to do with this is make a very special comment on the obvious elephant in the room with this book. This is the book that called gays an abomination. That is slightly misleading. Yes a man having sex with a man is an abomination; yes a man having sex with an animal is an abomination; yes a woman having sex with an animal is an abomination; however, I found no text saying that a woman having sex with another woman is an abomination. So unless I missed something, Lesbians are not an abomination in this book, and are not even mentioned. Take that as you will.
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