Leviticus 19: 30-37, “Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the LORD.”
The Lord created the heavens and the earth in six days and He rested on the seventh day, not because He was tired but because He was finished. This established a principle that the Lord finishes what He starts and when He is finished the work is perfect. The Lord also understood that the people He created in His own image would get tired and would need a rest so He established the day of rest. The Sanctuary was an earthly picture of God’s dwelling place in the heaven and needed to be treated with respect because God should always be treated with respect. Because the Lord’s people had direct access to the Lord through the ceremonial system that He established there was no need for them to have to contact ghosts, spirits or anything like that. After all, the knew exactly what the Lord required of them because it was carefully written in the book of the Law. As soon as they tried to contact ghosts or spirits they were replacing the Lord with something else and were breaking the Law. The Lord also established an ordered world and older people, as well as parents, are evidence of this ordered world so they should be treated with respect because the Lord is worthy of respect. Israel also were told to remember that they were strangers in the Land of Egypt so they were to treat all strangers with compassion. The Lord has integrity and always deals with His people in ways that demonstrate this integrity. For this reason His people were not to use false measures to cheat other people and so enrich themselves. After all, the Lord promised them prosperity if they kept the Law and lived in a way that showed the Lord’s perfect integrity on earth. They were not to have a measuring stick that was less than a yard or weights or measures that were too heavy or too light. This was one way that the profane people of their day conducted business to cheat their clients. The Lord told them that they had a contract with Him and if they didn’t keep to the conditions of the contract He would invoke the penalty clauses of the contract and drive them out of the Land after a long period of hardship.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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