Leviticus 23 to 24: Feast your eyes on this

Chapter 23

Blah blah Keep the Sabbath.

Blah blah lots of bread/lambs etc ya gotta sacrifice before you stuff your cakeholes

Blah blah how to calculate days of atonement, feast of tabernacles etc

And boy, is God the Union Steward enforcing the work to rule tactic:

Verse 30 “And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.”

This is cute:

Verse 40 “And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.”

And then there seems to be one of those Guinness Book of Records attempts- how many people can you fit in a phone box. In my experience, Time Lords always win that one...

Verse 42: “Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths”

Chapter 24

Light pollution and the 24 hour society is nothing new...

Verse 1-2 “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamps to burn continually.”

Cakes equals covenants, it seems

Verse 4-8 “He shall order the lamps upon the pure candlestick before the LORD continually. And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD. Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.”

And who gets to eat it? Who the heck do you think, hmm?

Verse 9 “And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute.”

And the “son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian” gets in a fight, curses the Lord and they make an Example of him:

Verse 14 “Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.”

Remember Shirley Jackson's story “The Lottery”?

Anyhow, there's more of the stuff that Leviticus is justly famous for-

Verse 20 “Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.”

Before they return to the main plot (artful, these suspense raising diversions...)

Verse 23 “And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses.”