Leviticus 22 · a question people ask
What does "I will be made holy" mean, if the LORD is already holy?
Leviticus is plain that the LORD is holy: "You shall be holy; for I, the LORD your God, am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). Here he says, "You shall not profane my holy name, but I will be made holy among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who makes you holy" (22:32). For this form of the verb (tap made holy), Brown-Driver-Briggs lists both "shew oneself sacred, majestic" and "be honored or treated as sacred". Readers take the verse in two main ways. Both agree that the verse sets "I will be made holy" against profaning his name, and that the same verse calls the LORD the one "who makes you holy" (22:32).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Treated as holy by his people
Those who read it this way note that the verse comes right after "Therefore you shall keep my commandments, and do them" (22:31), and sets "I will be made holy" against "You shall not profane my holy name" (22:32). Elsewhere the LORD tells Moses and Aaron, "you didn’t believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel" (Numbers 20:12), and in Isaiah the LORD says, "they will sanctify my name" (Isaiah 29:23). They read 22:32 as the LORD being honored as holy when his people keep his commandments.
Leviticus 22:31-32 · Numbers 20:12 · Isaiah 29:22-23
Shows himself holy
Those who read it this way note that the same verb is used when the LORD acts: "I will show myself holy to those who come near me" (Leviticus 10:3), and in Ezekiel, in the same form as 22:32, "when I have executed judgments in her, and am sanctified in her" (Ezekiel 28:22). At Meribah, "he was sanctified in them" (Numbers 20:13). They read 22:32 as the LORD showing himself holy among Israel, as the one "who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (22:33).
Leviticus 10:3 · Ezekiel 28:22 · Numbers 20:13 · Leviticus 22:32-33
The verses
““Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘You shall be holy; for I, the LORD your God, am holy.”
““Therefore you shall keep my commandments, and do them. I am the LORD. You shall not profane my holy name, but I will be made holy among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who makes you holy, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. I am the LORD.””