Commentary - Leviticus 19:19

Bird's-eye view

Leviticus 19 is a central chapter in what is often called the Holiness Code, and it gets right to the point. The foundation for everything in this chapter, and indeed, for the entire Christian life, is found in the second verse: "Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy." This is not a suggestion; it is a command rooted in the very character of God. Our verse today, verse 19, provides three specific, tangible applications of this principle. These are not arbitrary purity laws designed to make life difficult for ancient agrarians. Rather, they are what we might call acted-out object lessons, designed by God to etch a fundamental concept onto the hearts of His people: the concept of created order and the importance of maintaining distinctions.

God is a God of order, not of confusion. When He created the world, He did so by separating and distinguishing: light from darkness, water from water, land from sea. He made creatures "after their kind." This chapter, and this verse in particular, is teaching Israel that holiness in their daily lives means respecting and reflecting this created order. The prohibitions against mixing cattle, seed, and fabric are pedagogical. They are training wheels for the mind, teaching the people to think God's thoughts after Him. In Christ, the ceremonial distinctiveness of Israel is fulfilled and gives way to a deeper, moral distinctiveness. We are no longer concerned with the warp and woof of our shirts, but we are intensely concerned with the distinction between righteousness and unrighteousness, between the church and the world, between Christ and Belial.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

This verse sits squarely in the middle of the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26). After dealing with the sacrificial system and the functions of the priesthood in the first part of the book, the focus shifts to the practical, everyday holiness of the entire congregation. The Lord is speaking to "all the congregation of the children of Israel" (Lev. 19:2). This is not just for the priests. Holiness is for everybody.

The chapter covers a wide range of moral and ceremonial laws, from honoring parents and keeping the Sabbath (v. 3) to loving your neighbor as yourself (v. 18), a command Jesus Himself identified as the second greatest. The specific prohibitions in verse 19 are therefore not isolated curiosities. They are part of a seamless garment of instruction, weaving together what we might separate into moral, civil, and ceremonial categories. The point is that for Israel, all of life was to be lived before the face of God, and every area of life was to be ordered according to His holy character.

Key Issues

Commentary

Leviticus 19:19

‘You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.’

You are to keep My statutes. The verse begins with a general command that frames the three specific prohibitions that follow. The word for "statutes" here is chuqqah, which refers to an ordinance or something prescribed. These are not suggestions from a life coach; they are decrees from the sovereign Creator. He has the right to legislate for His creation, and for His covenant people, obedience is the only faithful response. This is a call to attentiveness. God is about to lay down some rules that might seem odd to the modern ear, but He prefaces them with a reminder: these are My statutes. The authority comes from the Lawgiver, not from our ability to immediately grasp the pragmatic reason for every detail.

You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; The first specific statute deals with animal husbandry. The prohibition is against causing your cattle to gender with a diverse kind. This is a direct command to respect the boundaries of the created order. In the Genesis account, God is emphatic that He created living things to reproduce "after their kind" (Gen. 1:24-25). This law is a practical application of that creation principle. Israel was not to engage in the business of creating hybrids, like mules (the offspring of a horse and a donkey). This was not because mules were inherently sinful animals, but because the act of creating them was an act of blurring the lines that God had drawn in His world. It was a form of rebellion against the taxonomy of the Creator. The lesson is simple: God makes categories. Holiness respects them.

you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed The principle is now extended from the animal kingdom to the vegetable kingdom. Just as animals were to reproduce after their kind, so plants were to grow according to their kind. This is not a prohibition against crop rotation or having a garden with both corn and beans. The issue is sowing a field with a mixture of seeds, a practice that would result in a confused and tangled crop. Again, the pedagogical purpose is paramount. An Israelite farmer, in refraining from this practice, was reminded daily that his God is a God of order and distinction. He was to cultivate his field in a way that reflected the neatness and order of God's own creative work. This tangible, agricultural discipline was meant to cultivate a mind that was opposed to spiritual and moral confusion.

nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together. This third prohibition brings the principle right home to the individual's body. The specific law likely refers to the mixing of linen and wool (shaatnez). This is the most personal of the three commands. It's not about your farm; it's about your shirt. Why would God care about the fiber content of your clothing? Because He cares about the heart, and the external world is the classroom where the heart is trained. Linen comes from a plant (flax), and wool comes from an animal (a sheep). They represent two different realms of the created order. To weave them together was, in this symbolic economy, to create a confusion of categories. The priest's garments, interestingly, were made of fine linen, a picture of purity. This law for the common Israelite was a constant, tactile reminder that they were to be a separate and distinct people. They were not to be a hybrid of pagan and believer. In the New Covenant, Paul picks up this theme, not with fabrics, but with relationships: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). The principle abides, but the application is transformed from the ceremonial to the moral and spiritual.

Application

So, what does a 21st-century Christian do with a verse like this? Do we get rid of our mules and our cotton/poly blend t-shirts? Of course not. To do so would be to misunderstand the movement of redemptive history. Christ is the fulfillment of the ceremonial law (Matt. 5:17). These specific statutes were part of the "tutor" or "schoolmaster" that was the Mosaic law, designed to lead us to Christ (Gal. 3:24). They were the physical picture; Christ is the reality.

The abiding principle, however, is that God loves distinction and hates unholy mixtures. The world loves to blur the lines. It wants to mix truth with error, worship with idolatry, righteousness with sin. It wants to tell us that there are no sharp edges, no black and white, only shades of gray. But the gospel is a message of glorious separation. Through the cross, God separates us from our sin. He separates a people for His own possession. He calls us out of the world, to be holy as He is holy.

Therefore, our application of this verse is not found in our closets, but in our hearts and lives. We are not to mix the worship of God with the worship of idols, which includes the modern idols of self, money, and power. We are not to sow our minds with the seed of God's Word mixed with the seed of worldly philosophies. We are not to be yoked in spiritual enterprise with those who are hostile to the gospel. The command to keep God's statutes remains. The statutes themselves teach us that our God is a God of beautiful, life-giving order, and our lives, in our doctrine, our worship, and our ethics, are to reflect that same holy distinction.