Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel. — The importance which the Lawgiver Himself attaches to this epitome of the whole Law, as this section is called, may be seen from the fact that God commands Moses to address these precepts “to all the congregation of the children of Israel — a phrase which occurs nowhere else in Leviticus in this formula, and which is only to be found once more in the whole Pentateuch (Exodus 12:3), at the institution of the Passover, the great national festival which commemorates the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt.
I the Lord your God. — Around this solemn declaration, which is repeated no less than sixteen times, both in its full and shorter form (see Leviticus 19:1), cluster the different precepts of this section. It is this solemn formula which links together the various injunctions in the chapter before us. As the Lord who is their God is Himself holy, they who are His people must also be holy, or as the saying which obtained during the second Temple expresses it, “the surroundings of the king must bear the moral impress of the sovereign;” or, in other words, your nearness to God not only demands. that your conduct should not be in contradiction to His holy nature, but that your life should bear the impress and reflect the image of God. (See Leviticus 11:44; Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:15.)