Commentary Compass

For Commentary Compass, recent means published in 2020 or later. I use that boundary quite strictly because the point of this series is not simply to recommend good commentaries but to ask what genuinely new work has appeared after the standard older discussions were already established.

That creates an unusually short list for Leviticus.

The older literature remains extraordinarily strong. Wenham’s NICOT commentary continues to offer conceptual clarity that many newer works have not displaced. Milgrom’s Anchor Yale Bible trilogy remains foundational for ritual and priestly scholarship. Levine’s JPS commentary remains outstanding for Hebrew and realistic cultic interpretation. Hartley is still an excellent technical resource. Gane remains one of the clearest guides to the operation of the ritual system.

A new Leviticus commentary therefore has to do more than be current. It needs to show that it has absorbed this mature conversation and either improves the exegesis, integrates the material more successfully, or brings a genuinely useful new perspective.

Among the post-2020 works examined here, only two full commentaries merit recommendation. One of them is not merely the best recent commentary but my best overall one-volume commentary on Leviticus.

1. Jay Sklar — Leviticus (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament, 2023)

Rating: 5/5

Sklar’s ZECOT volume is the clear first choice among recent Leviticus commentaries and, in my assessment, the best overall balance of originality and usefulness among all the commentaries considered.

Its importance lies partly in timing. Sklar writes after the major ritual and anthropological discussions of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have matured. He can therefore work with Milgrom’s reconstruction of the priestly system, Wenham’s conceptual synthesis, Gane’s ritual analysis, Levine’s philology and Jewish interpretation, the continuing discussion of Mary Douglas, and newer work on sin, impurity, sacrifice, and discourse.

But the book is not merely an updated digest of earlier scholarship.

Sklar brings substantial independent expertise to the central problems of Leviticus. His previous work on sin, impurity, sacrifice, and atonement feeds directly into the commentary. His discussions of unintentional, intentional, and high-handed sin are especially useful because they prevent the sacrificial system from being reduced to a crude distinction between “sins sacrifices can forgive” and “sins sacrifices cannot forgive.”

His treatment of kippēr is likewise nuanced. He does not simply return to the old “covering” etymology, nor does he make purification the only possible meaning. Ransom and purgation can both be relevant to the priestly conception of atonement, depending on what is being acted upon and what the ritual is accomplishing.

The ZECOT format adds another important dimension: discourse analysis. Sklar asks not only what individual Hebrew clauses mean but how units communicate as larger wholes. This is particularly useful in a legal book where repeated speech formulas, ritual sequences, commands, motivations, and conclusions can easily be atomized.

His larger theology holds the detail together. The LORD is Israel’s covenant King who has redeemed his people and now dwells among them. Leviticus gives life-giving instruction explaining how sinful and impure people can live with this holy King and how their society can manifest his justice, mercy, goodness, holiness, and love. Creation and Eden therefore form an important backdrop: God’s purposes in Leviticus recall his purposes for humanity from the beginning.

Sklar also handles Christian interpretation particularly well. He is unapologetically evangelical, but Christological fulfilment normally comes after serious engagement with the Old Testament text rather than functioning as a shortcut around it.

No commentary is flawless. Readers wanting exhaustive ancient Near Eastern, rabbinic, or source-critical discussion will still need Milgrom. Levine remains stronger as an independent Jewish and philological control. Wenham occasionally achieves greater conceptual economy.

But Sklar brings more of the important strands together successfully than anyone else. If someone asked me for the best recent commentary on Leviticus, the answer would be easy. More significantly, if someone asked me for the best one-volume commentary regardless of date, my answer would still be Sklar.

2. Christine Palmer — Leviticus in the ESV Expository Commentary (2025)

Rating: 4.5/5

Palmer’s contribution to the ESV Expository Commentary is a very strong recent evangelical exposition and an excellent example of what a newer commentary can contribute even when it does not attempt to overturn the major interpretive models.

Her strength is mature synthesis.

Palmer has clearly absorbed the major modern conversations about ritual impurity, sacrifice, sanctuary, creation, holiness, and atonement, but she translates them into an exposition that is substantially more accessible than the technical literature from which they emerge.

Her explanation of the basic Levitical categories is particularly clear. Holy/common concerns status; clean/unclean concerns condition; the ordinary Israelite generally exists in the common-and-clean sphere and may move toward holiness through consecration or toward uncleanness through defilement.

That framework helps her deal responsibly with difficult passages where modern readers can easily turn ritual classifications into moral judgments.

Her treatment of Leviticus 11 is a good example of her wider theological method. Food is not reduced to hygiene. Eating participates in covenant identity, creation order, holiness, and fellowship. The Israelite table can in some sense echo God’s table at the sanctuary, so ordinary eating becomes part of a larger sacred ordering of life.

Her discussion of the restored person in Leviticus 14 is another particularly fruitful section. The application of blood and oil to the ear, thumb, and toe recalls the ordination of priests and helps portray the formerly excluded sufferer as being restored from a death-like state of separation to renewed participation in the holy community.

Palmer is also helpful on the purification offering, recognizing its decontaminating function and its ability to address both moral and ritual forms of defilement rather than assuming that every occurrence concerns personal sin in precisely the same way.

The principal limitation is originality. Palmer generally synthesizes and clarifies the mature discussion represented by Milgrom, Wenham, Gane, Sklar, and others rather than constructing a substantially new model. That is not a criticism of the quality of the commentary; it simply explains why I would rank Sklar considerably higher when originality and usefulness are weighted together.

For pastors, teachers, students, and readers who want a recent evangelical exposition that is informed by serious Leviticus scholarship without requiring them to work through the major technical commentaries, Palmer is an excellent choice.

She complements the older standards rather than making them obsolete.

Recent Theological Companion: Mark W. Scarlata — The Theology of the Book of Leviticus (2025)

Rating: 4.5/5 as a theological companion

Scarlata’s book is not a conventional verse-by-verse commentary, so I would not rank it directly against Sklar or Palmer. It is, however, the most important recent theological companion among the works considered.

Its central contribution is a theology of sacred space extending outward.

The tabernacle is God’s holy dwelling, but its holiness is not confined to the sanctuary. The logic of Leviticus moves into Israel’s households, food, sexuality, social relationships, agriculture, land, festivals, Sabbath, and Jubilee. God’s home becomes the pattern for Israel’s home.

This allows Scarlata to explain the movement between Leviticus 1–16 and 17–27 theologically rather than simply source-critically. The first part concentrates heavily on worship, sacrifice, priesthood, impurity, and the maintenance of God’s dwelling. The later chapters increasingly show the whole covenant community living out that holiness in ordinary life.

His language of a “democratization of holiness” is helpful. Priests remain distinct, but all Israelites are called to the imitatio Dei. Eating, farming, sexuality, generosity, family life, and economic justice become part of a sacralized world.

Scarlata’s treatment of sacred time is equally useful. The spatial order of the sanctuary has a temporal counterpart in Sabbath, festivals, sabbatical years, and Jubilee. Holiness structures not only where people may go but how time, land, labour, rest, debt, and freedom are understood.

His treatment of Leviticus 19 is particularly good at showing how holiness and love belong together. Care for the poor is not simply social ethics added to an otherwise ritual religion; leaving part of a subsistence harvest for the vulnerable embodies the holiness and generosity of God.

My main reservation concerns atonement. Scarlata rightly emphasizes cleansing, expiation, purification, restored communion, and the maintenance of divine presence. These correct presentations of sacrifice that reduce everything to punishment.

But I think he sometimes pushes the contrast too far when he argues that priestly sacrifice is fundamentally unrelated to appeasing wrath or juridical satisfaction. Leviticus’s wider theology of judgment, ransom, substitution, and divine hostility makes me reluctant to separate relational/purgative and juridical/propitiatory dimensions as sharply as he sometimes does.

The book also synthesizes a considerable amount of earlier scholarship rather than replacing it. Douglas, Milgrom, Wenham, Gorman, Jenson, Morales, Hundley, and others remain visible beneath the constructive theology.

Even so, Scarlata is a valuable recent addition, especially for readers interested in the relationship between sanctuary, household, land, ethics, sacred time, and the presence of God.

How Strong Is the Recent Field?

The answer is: strong at the top but not deep.

Sklar is genuinely important. His 2023 ZECOT commentary deserves attention even from readers who already own older standards because it integrates modern Leviticus scholarship in a way that is simultaneously exegetically detailed, theologically coherent, and practically usable.

Palmer is also genuinely worth owning, particularly for readers wanting a more compact contemporary evangelical exposition.

Scarlata makes a real contribution as theological synthesis.

Beyond those works, I would not recommend adding books merely to make the list longer. “Recent” is not itself a scholarly virtue. A new commentary that mainly restates Milgrom, Wenham, Levine, Gane, or Hartley without significantly improving their work does not deserve recommendation simply because its publication date begins with 202-.

Leviticus is also a case where older scholarship has aged unusually well. Wenham remains enormously useful after more than four decades. Milgrom still sets the terms of many ritual discussions. Levine remains an indispensable Jewish philological resource. Gane continues to offer exceptionally clear systemic analysis.

Recent readers should therefore build around the best books, not around dates.

Bottom Line

The best recent commentary on Leviticus is Jay Sklar’s ZECOT, and I would go further: it is my preferred one-volume commentary on Leviticus regardless of publication date.

Christine Palmer is a strong second recent choice, particularly for readers wanting something more concise and immediately expository.

Mark Scarlata is the recent theological companion I would add when I wanted to step back from verse-by-verse exegesis and think about the larger architecture of holiness, sacred space, household, land, time, and divine presence.

But the appearance of excellent new works has not made the older classics redundant. I would still want Milgrom, Wenham, Levine, Gane, and Hartley in a serious Leviticus library.

The recent field therefore does not replace the older conversation. At its best—especially in Sklar—it absorbs, tests, clarifies, and extends it.