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Levítico 24

VBL · Chapter 24/27

1El Señor le dijo a Moisés,

2“Ordena a los israelitas que te traigan aceite de oliva puro y prensado para las lámparas, para que siempre estén encendidas.

3Desde la tarde hasta la mañana Aarón debe cuidar las lámparas continuamente ante el Señor, fuera del velo del Testimonio en el Tabernáculo de Reunión. Esta regulación es para todos los tiempos y para todas las generaciones futuras.

4Debe cuidar constantemente las lámparas puestas en el candelabro de oro puro ante el Señor.

5“Usando la mejor harina hornea doce panes, con dos décimas de un efa de harina por cada pan.

6Colócalos en dos pilas, seis en cada pila, sobre la mesa de oro puro que está delante del Señor.

7Poner incienso puro al lado de cada pila para que vaya con el pan y sirva de recordatorio, una ofrenda al Señor.

8Cada sábado se pondrá el pan delante del Señor, dado por los israelitas como una señal continua del acuerdo eterno.

9Es para Aarón y sus descendientes. Deben comerlo en un lugar santo, pues deben tratarlo como una parte santísima de las ofrendas de alimentos dadas al Señor. Es su parte de las ofrendas de comida para siempre”.

10Un día un hombre que tenía una madre israelita y un padre egipcio entró en el campamento israelita y tuvo una pelea con un israelita.

11El hijo de la mujer israelita maldijo el nombre del Señor. Así que lo llevaron ante Moisés. (Su madre se llamaba Selomit, hija de Dibri, de la tribu de Dan).

12Lo detuvieron hasta que quedó claro lo que el Señor quería que hicieran al respecto.

13El Señor le dijo a Moisés,

14“Lleva al hombre que me maldijo fuera del campamento. Que todos los que le oyeron maldecir pongan sus manos sobre su cabeza; y que todos le apedreen hasta la muerte.

15Diles a los israelitas que cualquiera que maldiga a su Dios será castigado por su pecado.

16Cualquiera que maldiga el nombre del Señor debe ser ejecutado. Todos ustedes lo apedrearán hasta la muerte, tanto si es un extranjero que vive con ustedes como si es un israelita. Si maldicen mi nombre, deben ser ejecutados.

17“Cualquiera que mate a alguien más debe ser ejecutado.

18Cualquiera que mate a un animal tiene que reemplazarlo. Una vida por otra.

19Si alguien hiere a otra persona, lo que haya hecho debe serle hecho:

20un hueso roto por un hueso roto, ojo por ojo, diente por diente. Sea cual sea la forma en que hayan herido a la víctima, se les debe hacer lo mismo.

21Cualquiera que mate un animal tiene que reemplazarlo, pero cualquiera que mate a alguien más debe ser ejecutado.

22A los extranjeros que viven con ustedes se les aplican las mismas leyes que a los israelitas, porque yo soy el Señor su Dios”.

23Moisés dijo esto a los israelitas, y ellos llevaron al hombre que maldijo al Señor fuera del campamento y lo apedrearon hasta la muerte. Los israelitas hicieron lo que el Señor le ordenó a Moisés que hiciera.

📖 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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