The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Commandments for Holiness
Leviticus 19:1–8 — Commandments for Holiness. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1Then the LORD said to Moses,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
Yah·weh way·ḏab·bêr ’el- mō·šeh lē·mōr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And spoke Yahweh to Moses, saying:
Where the English smooths the original
The prohibitions in the preceding chapter, which are designed to regulate the moral conduct of relations and connections towards each other in their family circles, are now followed by precepts which affect the Israelite’s life in all its bearings, both towards God and man. Hence the authorities during the second Temple regarded it as “embodying the Decalogue,” for which reason, as well as for the fact that “it contains the sum and substance of the precepts of the Law, it is read in public.”Ellicott names the chapter's standing in early Jewish liturgy — why this section was read in public as the Law in miniature.
From the prohibition of moral uncleanness exhibiting itself in the form of incest and licentiousness, the legislator proceeds to a series of laws and commandments against other kinds of immorality, inculcating piety, righteousness, and kindness. Chapter 19 may be regarded as an extension of the previous chapter in this direction, after which the subject of chapter 18, is again taken up in chapter 20.
However manifold the commandments, which are grouped together rather according to a loose association of ideas than according to any logical arrangement, they are all linked together by the common purpose expressed in Leviticus 19:2 in the words, "Ye shall be holy, for I am holy, Jehovah your God."
2“Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dab·bêr ’el- kāl- ‘ă·ḏaṯ bə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl wə·’ā·mar·tā ’ă·lê·hem tih·yū qə·ḏō·šîm kî ’ă·nî Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hê·ḵem qā·ḏō·wōš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Speak to all the-congregation-of the-sons-of Israel, and-you-shall-say to-them: Holy you-shall-be, for I [am] Yahweh your-God, holy.
Where the English smooths the original
God commands Moses to address these precepts “to all the congregation of the children of Israel—a phrase which occurs nowhere else in Leviticus in this formula, and which is only to be found once more in the whole Pentateuch ( Exodus 12:3 ), at the institution of the Passover, the great national festival which commemorates the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt.Ellicott flags the rare breadth of the address — the only Pentateuch parallel is the Passover.
These words express the keynote to the whole book of Leviticus, being addressed to the whole nation.
I the Lord your God am holy, both in my essence, and in all my laws, which are holy and just and good, and in all my actions; whereas the gods of the heathens are unholy both in their laws and institutions, whereby they allow and require filthy and abominable actions; and in their practices, some of them having given wicked examples to their worshippers.
It is God's will that we should be holy, and by being holy we. are like God, who is to be our model so far as is possible to the creature. So in the new dispensation, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" ( Matthew 5:48 ).The Pulpit Commentary itself draws the line forward to Matthew 5:48 and 1 Peter 1:15 — the spine of the Christ section.
It is required that Israel be a holy people, because the God of Israel is a holy God, ver. 2. To teach real separation from the world and the flesh, and entire devotedness to God. This is now the law of ChristHenry's whole-chapter note reads v. 2 as the binding principle and carries it straight into the New Covenant — "this is now the law of Christ."
3Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš tî·rā·’ū wə·’eṯ- ’im·mōw wə·’ā·ḇîw tiš·mō·rū šab·bə·ṯō·ṯay ’ă·nî Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hê·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Each his-mother and-his-father you-shall-fear, and My-Sabbaths you-shall-keep. I [am] Yahweh your-God.
Where the English smooths the original
The mother is put first, partly because the practice of this duty begins there, mothers, by perpetual converse, being sooner known to their children than their fathers; and partly because this duty is commonly neglected to the mother, upon whom children have not so much dependance as they have upon their father. And this fear includes the two great duties of reverence and obedience.
The command in the Decalogue is to ‘honour,’ here to ‘fear,’ or act reverently towards parents. The mother is put first, as in Leviticus 21:2 . This order probably indicates diversity of origin. But Rashi, on the authority of the Midrashic commentary, Mechilta , on Exodus 20, accounts for this order on the ground that the child by nature fears the father more than the mother.
The two laws repeated here are the only laws in the Decalogue which assume a positive shape, all the others being introduced by the formula, "Thou shalt not." These express two great central points, the first belonging to natural law and the second to positive law, in the maintenance of the well-being of the social body of which Yahweh was the acknowledged king.
The first thing required is reverence towards parents and the observance of the Lord's Sabbaths-the two leading pillars of the moral government, and of social well-being.
The fear here required includes inward reverence and esteem, outward respect and obedience, care to please them and to make them easy.Henry unpacks what the Hebrew "fear" (not the Decalogue's "honour") demands — inward reverence and outward obedience together, the very content Benson and Cambridge flag.
4Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods. I am the LORD your God.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’al- tip̄·nū ’el- hā·’ĕ·lî·lîm ṯa·‘ă·śū lā·ḵem mas·sê·ḵāh lō wê·lō·hê ’ă·nî Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hê·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Do-not turn to the-worthless-ones, and molten gods you-shall-not make for-yourselves. I [am] Yahweh your-God.
Where the English smooths the original
The word used for idols, elilim , meaning nothings, is contrasted with Elohim , God. Psalm 115 exhibits this contrast in several of its particulars. Cf. St. Paul's statement, "We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one" ( 1 Corinthians 8:4 ).The Pulpit Commentary names the Hebrew wordplay — elilim against Elohim — that the English cannot carry.
Turn not your hearts and faces from me, whom alone you pretend to respect, unto them. He intimates, that their turning to idols is a turning from God, and that they could not serve both God and idols. Unto idols: the word signifies such as are no gods , or nothings , as they are called, 1 Corinthians 8:4 , many idols having no being, but only in the fancy of their worshippers, and all of them having no virtue or power to do good or evil, Isaiah 41:23 .
This part of the verse corresponds with the second commandment in the Decalogue ( Exodus 20:4-6 ), though the phrase “molten gods” only occurs once more where the same prohibition is enforced ( Exodus 34:17 ).
Leviticus 19:4 embraces the first two commandments of the decalogue: viz., not to turn to idols to worship them ( Deuteronomy 31:18 , Deuteronomy 31:20 ), nor to make molten gods (see at Exodus 34:17 ). The gods beside Jehovah are called elilim, i.e., nothings, from their true nature.
Turn not from the true God to false ones, from the God who will make you holy and happy, to those that will deceive you, and make you for ever miserable. Turn not your eyes to them, much less your heart.Henry presses Poole's point about the heart's direction — the turning the verb forbids is finally a turning of the eyes and heart, not merely the body.
5When you sacrifice a peace offering to the LORD, you shall offer it for your acceptance.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵî ṯiz·bə·ḥū ze·ḇaḥ šə·lā·mîm Yah·weh tiz·bā·ḥu·hū lir·ṣō·nə·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-when you-sacrifice a sacrifice-of peace-offerings to-Yahweh, for-your-acceptance you-shall-offer-it.
Where the English smooths the original
From Leviticus 17:3-7 , it will be seen that the Israelites were in the habit of sacrificing to idols the animals intended for private consumption, and that this practice gave rise to the enactment that when any of the three kinds of quadrupeds are to be slaughtered for daily meat, they should first be devoted to God as peace-offerings. Hence the transition here from the prohibition of idolatrous worship to the peace-offerings.Ellicott explains why a sacrifice-law interrupts the moral precepts — it answers the idol-sacrifice the previous verse forbade.
Rather, ye shall offer it that you may be accepted.Barnes corrects the KJV's "at your own will" — the verse is about God's acceptance, not the offerer's option.
Or rather, to your acceptation , i.e. in such manner as it may be accepted by God on your behalf, which is explained in the next verse, and not in such manner as to lose the end you aim at, to wit, God’s acceptance; for if ye do otherwise than God hath prescribed, it shall not be accepted, as he adds Leviticus 19:7 , but on the contrary severely punished, Deu 8 .
Those which included thank offerings, or offerings made for vows, were always freewill offerings. Except the portions which, being waved and heaved, became the property of the priests (see Le 3:1-17), the rest of the victim was eaten by the offerer and his friend, under the following regulations, however, that, if thank offerings, they were to be eaten on the day of their presentation; and if a freewill offering, although it might be eaten on the second day, yet if any remained of it till the third day, it was to be burnt, or deep criminality was incurred by the person who then ventured to partake of it.
6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the next day; but what remains on the third day must be burned up.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yê·’ā·ḵêl bə·yō·wm ziḇ·ḥă·ḵem ū·mim·mā·ḥo·rāṯ wə·han·nō·w·ṯār ‘aḏ- haš·šə·lî·šî yō·wm bā·’êš yiś·śā·rêp̄
Literal — word-for-word from the original
On the-day-of your-sacrificing-it it-shall-be-eaten, or on-the-morrow; but what-remains until the-third day, in-the-fire it-shall-be-burned.
Where the English smooths the original
The fact that the flesh of the animal might be eaten both on the day on which it was offered and on the following day, according to the authorities during the second Temple, shows that the second class of peace-offering is here meant, described in Leviticus 8:16 , since the flesh of the first class of peace-offerings had to be eaten on the same day. (See Leviticus 7:15 ).
if ought remain unto the third, it shall be burnt with fire; as it is ordered, Leviticus 7:16 ; that so the owner might have no profit by it, and therefore be under no temptation to keep it longer than the fixed time.
True fidelity to Jehovah was to be shown, so far as sacrifice, the leading form of divine worship, was concerned, in the fact, that the holiness of the sacrificial flesh was strictly preserved in the sacrificial meals, and none of the flesh of the peace-offerings eaten on the third day.
7If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is tainted and will not be accepted.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im hê·’ā·ḵōl yê·’ā·ḵêl haš·šə·lî·šî bay·yō·wm hū pig·gūl lō yê·rā·ṣeh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-if being-eaten it-be-eaten on-the-third day, it [is] tainted-flesh; it-shall-not be-accepted.
Where the English smooths the original
Or "in eating be eaten" (k) any of it be eaten, the least bit of it: it is abominable; it is as any common thing, as if it was no sacrifice; yea, as if it was corrupt and putrefied flesh; nay, as what is abominable to God: and therefore it follows: it shall not be accepted; of the Lord, but rejected, his will not being attended to.
it is an abomination ] As in Leviticus 7:18 . See note there. The precepts in Leviticus 19:9-18 set forth the duty of each man towards his neighbour, especially towards the poor, and such as are in need of protection.
And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be {c} accepted. (c) To wit, of God.
8Whoever eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned what is holy to the LORD. That person must be cut off from his people.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’ō·ḵə·lāw yiś·śā ‘ă·wō·nōw kî- ’eṯ- ḥil·lêl qō·ḏeš Yah·weh ha·hi·w han·ne·p̄eš wə·niḵ·rə·ṯāh mê·‘am·me·hā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-whoever-eats-it shall-bear his-iniquity, for what-is-holy-of Yahweh he-has-profaned; and-that-soul shall-be-cut-off from-his-people.
Where the English smooths the original
Therefore everyone that eateth it shall bear his iniquity,.... Be chargeable with sin, be pronounced guilty, and endure the punishment, which is cutting off, Leviticus 7:20 , because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the Lord; the flesh of the peace offerings, by keeping it longer than the fixed time for it, when it was liable to corruption and putrefaction; for after the inwards and the fat of them were offered, as Aben Ezra says, the flesh was holy, and to be eaten as an holy thing, and within the time the law required, or otherwise it was profaned and polluted: and that soul shall be cut off from among his people; be deprived of his civil and religious privileges, or be punished by the hand of the civil magistrate, or else by the immediate hand of God.
His iniquity, i.e. the punishment of his iniquity; instead of acceptation he shall receive punishment.
That soul shall be cut off from his people, as the Authorised Version renders it in four out of the six instances (see Leviticus 7:20-21 ; Leviticus 7:25 ; Leviticus 7:27 ) in which this phrase occurs in the Book of Leviticus. When so important a legal formula, threatening death by excision, is used in a limited number of cases, it is most important that it should be rendered uniformly in a translation.
We must understand this latter phrase as expressing an "ipso facto" excommunication or outlawry, the divine Law pronouncing on the offender an immediate forfeiture of the privileges which belonged to him as one of the people in covenant with Yahweh.Barnes' chapter-opening note on the "cut off" formula, placed here at the verse where the formula falls.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The ancient readers heard chapter 19 not as a miscellany but as a compression of the whole Law. Ellicott records that “the authorities during the second Temple regarded it as ‘embodying the Decalogue,’ for which reason… ‘it is read in public.’” The structure is deliberate: the precepts “are divided into sixteen groups, eight of which end with the emphatic reiteration, ‘I am the Lord your God’… and eight with the shorter formula, ‘I am the Lord.’” Geneva goes further and maps the opening verses commandment-by-commandment: vv. 3–4 fall under “(1) the fifth commandment of the Decalogue, (2) the fourth, (3) the first, (4) the second.” The Hebrew bears this out — tî·rā·’ū (fear your mother and father, the fifth), tiš·mō·rū (keep My Sabbaths, the fourth), tip̄·nū (turn not to ʼĕlîlîm, the first), mas·sê·ḵāh (make no molten gods, the second). Geneva draws the boldest synthesis of all: this chapter “may in a way be regarded as the Old Testament counterpart of the Sermon on the Mount.” ⚙ That comparison is Geneva's, not the synthesis author's; what the synthesis adds is only the observation that the Hebrew word-order in v. 3 (mother before father) and the negative-then-positive sequence of the commandments are the seams along which the ancient editors did their work.
Everything hangs on v. 2. Keil states the principle: the commandments “are all linked together by the common purpose expressed in Leviticus 19:2 in the words, ‘Ye shall be holy, for I am holy, Jehovah your God,’” and the verse “expresses on the one hand the principle upon which all the different commandments… were based, and on the other hand the goal which the Israelites were to keep before them.” Barnes calls it “the keynote to the whole book of Leviticus.” The grammar is doubled: the plural command qə·ḏō·šîm tih·yū (holy you shall be) is grounded by the singular predicate qā·ḏō·wōš (God is holy), joined by the causal kî. Poole sharpens the contrast that gives the holiness its content: God is holy “both in my essence, and in all my laws… whereas the gods of the heathens are unholy both in their laws and institutions.” The Pulpit Commentary already hears the new dispensation in it: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). ⚙ The synthesis reads v. 2 as the hinge between the cultic and the ethical: holiness is not first a matter of ritual but of likeness, and the rest of the chapter — parents, Sabbath, idols, the honest scale, the loved neighbour — is simply what that likeness looks like in a human life.
The chapter then does something the commentators find jarring: it drops from sweeping moral law into a narrow rule about leftover sacrificial meat. Ellicott explains the logic — chapter 17 had required that animals slaughtered for food “should first be devoted to God as peace-offerings,” so “hence the transition here from the prohibition of idolatrous worship to the peace-offerings.” The rule is a two-day window with a hard edge: eaten on the day or the morrow (mā·ḥo·rāṯ), but flesh that han·nō·w·ṯār (remains) to the third day is yiś·śā·rêp̄ (burned). Cross the line and the meal becomes pig·gūl — Gill's “corrupt and putrefied flesh… abominable to God” — and lō yê·rā·ṣeh, it shall not be accepted, the verbal echo of the râtsôwn (acceptance) the offering was brought for in v. 5. Keil sees no break with the moral law at all: “True fidelity to Jehovah was to be shown, so far as sacrifice… was concerned, in the fact, that the holiness of the sacrificial flesh was strictly preserved.” JFB supplies the likely reason for the severity: “to prevent any mysterious virtue being superstitiously attached to meat offered on the altar.” ⚙ The synthesis reads vv. 5–8 as holiness applied to time: the same God who is holy in essence demands that the holy thing be treated as holy on a calendar, and the man who profanes it (ḥil·lêl, v. 8) becomes the exact negative of the people summoned to be holy in v. 2 — and so is niḵ·rə·ṯāh, cut off.
Read under Sola Scriptura, the unit makes one claim and then tests it on small things. The claim is v. 2: be holy, for I am holy. The test is everything after it. A modern reader expects the test to be grand — and the chapter does reach the great things (love your neighbour as yourself, v. 18, beyond this unit). But the first proofs of holiness here are almost domestic: fear your mother (named first), keep the Sabbath, refuse the ʼĕlîlîm — the nothings — and do not let yesterday's sacrifice rot into pig·gūl on your table. The pattern is that holiness is not measured by its ceiling but by its floor: by whether a man honours the parent he is tempted to neglect, keeps a day he is tempted to fill, and treats a holy thing as holy when no one but God is watching the third-day fire. The cut-off of v. 8 is sobering precisely because the offense is so ordinary — a meal eaten a day too late. ⚙ This synthesis reads that severity not as cruelty but as the seriousness of holiness: the God who is holy in His essence will not have His holiness handled carelessly, even in a scrap of meat. The honest difficulty the chapter leaves open — and which the New Testament will press — is that no one keeps a floor this exacting; the command to be holy is, finally, a command the commanded cannot meet without the Holy One supplying it.
Holiness is not measured by its ceiling but by its floor — the parent honoured, the day kept, the holy thing treated as holy when only God is watching.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The keynote of v. 2 is not unique to chapter 19; it is the refrain of the whole holiness material. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes qâdôwsh (holy), ʼănîy (I), and the causal kî linking Leviticus 19:2 to 11:44, where the same demand closes the food laws. Gill makes the cross-reference explicit on this very verse: “the same words are used, after the laws given about creatures clean and unclean to be eaten, as here.” Because qâdôwsh is a moderately common word (106 verses) and the link is a repeated motto rather than a rare quotation, this is recorded as structural/thematic, not verbal — the connection is the deliberate refrain the editors built, attested by Gill and Keil, not a singular lexical fingerprint.
Leviticus 11:44 · Leviticus 20:7 · Leviticus 20:26
basis: Hebrew↔Hebrew; shared refrain-lexemes H6918 qâdôwsh (106 vv) + H589 ʼănîy + H3588 kîy — moderate frequency, so the link is the repeated holiness-formula (Gill cross-references 11:44 here), recorded structural not verbal (Verifier-confirmed)
Verses 5–8 are, by the commentators' unanimous account, a deliberate restatement of an earlier law. Keil: the command of “Leviticus 7:15-18 is emphatically repeated, and transgressors are threatened with extermination.” The Verifier confirms the verbal backbone shared with Leviticus 7:18 — zebach (sacrifice, 153 vv), shelem (peace-offering, 84 vv), and shᵉlîyshîy (third, 94 vv) — three substantive lexemes co-occurring, which is the recorded basis for a true verbal/structural link between the two laws. Cambridge and Ellicott both annotate v. 6–7 by pointing back to Leviticus 7:15–18. Because the shared words, though several, are not individually rare, this is tiered structural/thematic — a confirmed restatement, under-claiming the verbal tier where no single rare lexeme carries it.
Leviticus 7:18 · Leviticus 7:15
basis: Hebrew↔Hebrew; shared cluster H2077 zebach (153 vv) + H8002 shelem (84 vv) + H7992 shᵉlîyshîy (94 vv) — several moderate lexemes co-occurring, a confirmed restatement of Lev 7:15–18 (Keil, Cambridge), tiered structural (Verifier-confirmed)
The noun pig·gūl (H6292, tainted/fetid flesh) of v. 7 is among the rarest cultic words in Scripture — the Verifier finds it in only 4 verses. That scarcity makes its every appearance a genuine verbal link. It binds this peace-offering law to its parent at Leviticus 7:18, to Ezekiel 4:14 (where the prophet protests he has never let “abominable flesh” enter his mouth), and to Isaiah 65:4 (the apostates who sit among graves and eat swine's flesh with “broth of abominable things”). The Verifier records the basis for Lev 19:7↔Isaiah 65:4 and ↔Ezekiel 4:14 as the shared rare lexeme pig·gūl together with ʼâkal (to eat) — and for the Lev 7:18 pair adds râtsâh (be accepted) and shᵉlîyshîy (third). One verse defines the abomination, the prophets invoke the same word to indict false and unclean eating. Because pig·gūl is rare (4 vv), the verbal tier holds across the chain.
Leviticus 7:18 · Ezekiel 4:14 · Isaiah 65:4
basis: Hebrew↔Hebrew; rare shared lexeme H6292 piggûwl (in only 4 vv), with H398 ʼâkal, links Lev 19:7 to Lev 7:18, Ezek 4:14, Isa 65:4 (Verifier-confirmed)
The word for idols in v. 4, ʼĕlîlîm (H457, worthless-ones), is rare — 17 verses — and the prophets seize on it. The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme between Leviticus 19:4 and Isaiah 2:8, 2:18, 10:10–11, 19:1–3, 31:7, Psalm 96:5, Habakkuk 2:18, Zechariah 11:17, and the chapter's own neighbour Leviticus 26:1. With Habakkuk 2:18 the Verifier returns a verbal tier, because there ʼĕlîlîm co-occurs with the equally pointed maççêkâh (molten image, 28 vv) — the exact pairing of Leviticus 19:4 (“turn not to ʼĕlîlîm… nor make molten gods”). Where only ʼĕlîlîm alone is shared (e.g. Isaiah 2:8), the Verifier tiers it structural/thematic — one rare word marking a sustained prophetic motif of the worthlessness of idols. The synthesis under-claims accordingly: verbal for the Habakkuk pair (two rare words together), structural for the broader single-lexeme chain across Isaiah and the Psalms.
Habakkuk 2:18 · Isaiah 2:8 · Leviticus 26:1 · Psalm 96:5
basis: Hebrew↔Hebrew; rare lexeme H457 ʼĕlîyl (17 vv) PLUS rare H4541 maççêkâh (28 vv) shared with Hab 2:18 = verbal (Verifier-confirmed); the single-lexeme chain to Isa 2:8 / Ps 96:5 / Lev 26:1 is structural
Verse 3 lifts the fifth commandment out of the Decalogue, sharing the kinship pair ʼêm (mother) and ʼâb (father) with Exodus 20:12 — a link the Verifier confirms. But it does two things the Decalogue does not: it commands fear (yârêʼ) rather than honour, and it names the mother first. Cambridge notes the same inversion at Leviticus 21:2 and reports Rashi's Mishnaic reason; Ellicott counts only three places in Scripture where the mother precedes (Gen 44:20; Lev 21:2; here). Because ʼâb and ʼêm are common words and Exodus 20:12 makes no quotation-claim on Leviticus, the link is the restatement of the commandment argued by the commentators, recorded as structural not verbal.
Exodus 20:12 · Leviticus 21:2 · Deuteronomy 5:16
basis: Hebrew↔Hebrew; shared common kinship lexemes H517 ʼêm + H1 ʼâb — frequent words, so the link is the fifth-commandment restatement (Cambridge, Ellicott), recorded structural not verbal (Verifier-confirmed)
The sentence of v. 8 — wə·niḵ·rə·ṯāh mê·‘am·me·hā, that soul shall be cut off from his people — uses a formula Keil cross-references on this verse: “for the expression ‘shall be cut off,’ Genesis 17:14.” The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes kârath (cut off, 280 vv), nephesh (soul), ʻam (people), and hûwʼ linking Leviticus 19:8 to Genesis 17:14, where the uncircumcised is “cut off from his people.” Barnes reads the Levitical formula as “an ‘ipso facto’ excommunication or outlawry.” Because kârath and ʻam are common words shared as a recurring legal idiom rather than a unique citation, this is tiered structural/thematic — the karet-formula that runs through the Torah, Verifier-confirmed by the shared vocabulary but not resting on a single rare lexeme.
Genesis 17:14 · Leviticus 7:20 · Exodus 31:14
basis: Hebrew↔Hebrew; shared legal-idiom lexemes H3772 kârath (280 vv) + H5315 nephesh + H5971 ʻam — common words forming the recurring karet-formula (Keil cites Gen 17:14 here), recorded structural not verbal (Verifier-confirmed)
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The keynote of v. 2 is quoted, word for word in sense, in the New Testament. Peter writes: “As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16) — citing Leviticus by name in substance. The Pulpit Commentary, on this very verse, makes the connection: God “is to be our model so far as is possible to the creature. So in the new dispensation… ‘As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation’ ( 1 Peter 1:15 ).” Ellicott (at v. 2) and JFB likewise chain v. 2 to 1 Peter 1:15. The link is cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew), so the Verifier finds no shared original-language lexeme — it rests entirely on the apostle's explicit citation as the commentators report it, not on the verbal index. But it is the oldest reading of the church: the command to be holy is not abolished but carried into the New Covenant and grounded in the holiness of the God who calls.
1 Peter 1:15 · 1 Peter 1:16 · Leviticus 19:2 · Matthew 5:48
Geneva itself reads chapter 19 as “the Old Testament counterpart of the Sermon on the Mount, inasmuch as it lays down the laws of conduct, as the latter lays down the principles of action.” The Pulpit Commentary draws the same line from v. 2 to Christ's own word: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The figural reading is therefore not novel allegory but the explicit handling of the commentators and of Christ Himself: the demand be holy as I am holy reappears on the Lord's lips as be perfect as your Father is perfect — the same logic of likeness to God, now spoken by the Son who alone fulfils it. The link is cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew), so it is asserted by Geneva, the Pulpit Commentary, and the Gospel text, not by the verbal index; tiered accordingly, but ancient and central.
Matthew 5:48 · Leviticus 19:2 · Leviticus 19:18
The peace-offering law of vv. 5–8 protects a holiness the worshipper himself cannot guarantee: bring the offering for your acceptance (râtsôwn, v. 5), yet handle it wrongly and it becomes pig·gūl that cannot be accepted (v. 7), and the offerer is cut off (v. 8). ⚙ This synthesis reads the trajectory as the church has read the whole sacrificial system: a fellowship-meal hedged about with a clock and a curse points beyond itself to the one peace-offering whose holiness never decays — the “Lamb without blemish and without spot” whose blood, Peter says in the very passage that quotes Leviticus 19:2, redeems (1 Peter 1:18–19). Where the Levitical flesh must be burned by the third day lest it profane, the New Testament proclaims a sacrifice raised on the third day, that “saw no corruption” (Acts 2:31; 13:37). This extension beyond what the PD voices say in their own words is the fallible synthesis author's, offered under Sola Scriptura to be tested — the contrast of the corrupting offering and the incorruptible one is drawn here, not asserted by the commentators on these verses.
1 Peter 1:18-19 · Acts 13:37 · Hebrews 10:10 · Leviticus 19:6
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
This unit is the opening of the holiness-code (Lev 19:1–8), and the synthesis is built up from the Hebrew. Every commentary excerpt is a verbatim, contiguous substring of the sourced voices_raw — trimmed at the ends to a pointed quotation, never altered, reordered, or stitched. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary is a whole-chapter note (anchored at 19:1 in the source) whose verbatim fragments are placed at the verses they bear on (vv. 2, 3, 4); the breadth of voices otherwise runs Ellicott, Geneva, Keil, Barnes, Poole, Benson, Cambridge, Pulpit, JFB, and Gill across the eight verses. A few honesty notes specific to this unit:
A translation BSB gets right against the KJV. The phrase lir·ṣō·nə·ḵem (v. 5) was famously rendered “at your own will” in the AV, as though the offering's manner were the offerer's option. Barnes, Ellicott, Poole, and Gill all correct this to “for your acceptance” — Godward, not optional — and BSB follows them. The divergence column flags this as a place where the modern translation restores the original sense the older English obscured.
Two glosses in the source parse are placeholders. The per-word data carries a “vvv” gloss on ze·ḇaḥ (19:5) and “. . .” on several function words and on yiś·śā·rêp̄ (19:6); these are artifacts of the Berean interlinear's alignment, not the synthesis author's, and the literal column reconstructs the words' true force (sacrifice, it shall be burned) from the Strong's roots and parse.
Same-Testament links are Verifier-confirmed; cross-Testament links are not. The Hebrew↔Hebrew threads — the holiness-formula (19:2↔11:44), the peace-offering restatement (19:6–8↔7:15–18), the rare pig·gūl chain (Lev 7:18, Ezek 4:14, Isa 65:4), the ʼĕlîlîm chain, the fifth-commandment and karet formulas — all rest on shared Strong's lexemes returned by the Verifier, and are tiered by the rarity of those lexemes: verbal only where a genuinely rare word carries it (pig·gūl 4 vv; ʼĕlîl+maççêkâh together at Hab 2:18), structural where the shared words are moderate or common (the holiness-refrain, the karet-idiom, the kinship terms), under-claiming where frequency makes a unique quotation unprovable.
The New Testament links cannot be verbal. The reuse of v. 2 by Peter (1 Peter 1:15–16), the Sermon-on-the-Mount counterpart (Matthew 5:48), and the third-day-incorruption contrast all cross from Hebrew into Greek; the Verifier returns no shared original-language lexeme for these pairs and explicitly flags them as connections that “must be argued, not asserted.” They are therefore tiered by attestation, not by the index: the Peter and Matthew links are ancient/widely-held, resting on the apostle's and the Lord's explicit words as the commentators (Pulpit, Ellicott, JFB, Geneva) report them; the third-day Christ note is marked novel, the synthesis author's own fallible reading offered to be tested, since the PD voices on these verses do not draw it in these words.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)