What does a holy person look like?
When we hear the word holy, we may picture someone in prayer, gathered for worship, or carefully avoiding sin. Those things certainly have something to do with holiness. But if we asked Leviticus 19 what holiness looks like, some of its answers might surprise us. It looks like leaving part of your harvest for someone who is hungry. It looks like paying a worker what he is owed, refusing to gossip, treating vulnerable people with dignity, refusing revenge, conducting business honestly, and even loving a stranger.
All of this follows one remarkable command: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).
By this point, Israel had been redeemed from Egypt and brought into covenant with God. Leviticus was teaching them what life in the presence of a holy God should look like. Notice that God did not merely say, “Be holy.” He gave them a reason: “for I the LORD your God am holy.” Israel’s standard was not Egypt, Canaan, or the nations around them. It was God Himself. Holiness certainly involved being set apart, but they were set apart to God, and therefore their lives were supposed to reflect His character.
That helps explain a phrase repeated throughout the chapter: “I am the LORD.” God attaches His identity to command after command. Israel was to reverence father and mother, keep His Sabbaths, reject idols, and worship Him properly (vv. 3–8). Then holiness moves out of what we might consider “religious” life and into a field.
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field” (v. 9). Israelites were instructed to leave some of their crops for the poor and the stranger. In an agricultural society, this meant intentionally leaving something valuable behind. Holiness sometimes meant not taking everything you could have taken. God built concern for vulnerable people into the ordinary economic life of His people.
Then the chapter becomes even more personal. Do not steal. Do not deceive. Do not lie. Do not defraud your neighbor. Do not withhold a worker’s wages. Do not take advantage of the deaf or blind. Do not pervert justice. Do not gossip. Do not hate. Do not take revenge. Do not hold a grudge.
And then comes the command Jesus would later identify as one of the greatest in Scripture: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (v. 18).
The verses around it show us what loving your neighbor actually looks like. Love does not steal from someone, lie to him, exploit him, spread damaging stories about him, secretly hate him, or look for an opportunity to get even. Leviticus does not leave “love your neighbor” as a sentimental slogan. It shows us what that love looks like in ordinary relationships.
One command is especially revealing: “You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God” (v. 14). A deaf person might never know what had been said about him. A blind person might never know who placed an obstacle in his way. But God would know. That is why the command ends, “fear your God.” Holiness affects how we treat people even when they cannot retaliate, cannot expose us, and no one else is watching. Holiness requires integrity.
The next verse shows the same concern in the courtroom. Israel was told, “You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty” (v. 15). God had already demonstrated His concern for the poor, yet justice could not be distorted. Neither could wealth or influence purchase favorable treatment. Compassion and justice are not enemies. God commands both.
Leviticus also reaches beneath outward behavior into the heart. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor” (v. 17). The alternative to hatred was not pretending nothing happened. Wrongdoing could be addressed honestly. But anger could not be allowed to grow into revenge or a lasting grudge. Biblical love is neither avoidance nor vengeance.
Verses 19–31 contain several regulations that sound stranger to modern readers…commands involving mixtures, fruit trees, divination, bodily practices, and mediums. Some clearly guarded Israel from practices connected with the nations around them; the reason for others is less certain, and we should be careful not to invent explanations Scripture does not provide. Yet the larger point remains: Israel belonged to God. Even seemingly insignificant areas of life were lived beneath that covenant identity.
Then God turns again to the way people are treated. Israel was to honor the elderly (v. 32). Then comes an especially striking instruction concerning foreigners living among them: “The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself” (v. 34). Why? “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Their memory of vulnerability was supposed to produce compassion. Verse 18 says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Verse 34 says essentially the same thing about the stranger. Holiness extended beyond “our people.”
Finally, holiness entered the marketplace. Israel was commanded to use honest weights and measures (vv. 35–36). A dishonest scale might have seemed far removed from worship, but God did not see it that way. The God worshiped at the altar was also watching the scales in the marketplace.
That brings us back to the phrase echoing throughout the chapter: “I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19 is not merely saying, “Be generous. Be honest. Be fair. Be kind.” Beneath all of those commands is something deeper: You belong to Me.
Thousands of years later, Peter would quote the same command: “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct… ‘Be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Christians are not ancient Israelites living under the Mosaic Covenant, but the God revealed in these commands has not changed.
So what does holiness look like? Leviticus 19 gives a surprisingly ordinary answer. Holiness worships God, but it also goes to work. It controls the tongue, refuses revenge, notices vulnerable people, acts honestly when no one is watching, loves the neighbor, and loves the stranger. Holiness is belonging to God so completely that His character begins shaping every corner of life.
If someone watched the ordinary parts of my life…the way I speak, work, forgive, give, and treat people…would they see anything of the God to whom I belong?
