Chapters 17-26 form a distinct body of law, having certain marked peculiarities of its own, notably the frequent recurrence of the motive of "holiness"--that is, the avoidance of things and actions tabooed by the religion of Israel--often coupled with the appeal to God's holiness, as in xix. 2, "Ye shall be holy, for I, Jehovah, your God, am holy," or simply asserting his authority, "I am Jehovah." On the other hand, much in the laws of this Holiness Book (H), as it now stands, has close affinity to the mass of ritual and ceremonial laws in Leviticus and Numbers. The hypothesis which seems best to explain the phenomena is that an independent collection of laws (or rather the remains of such a collection), characterized by the motive of holiness, has been expanded and edited in the spirit and manner of the priestly legislation, while some laws which were originally included in this collection have been transposed to other contexts. The Holiness Book closed with an earnest exhortation and warning to observe all these laws, promising the blessing of God on obedience and depicting in strong colours the calamities with which he will punish defection (Lev. 26). The position and prophetic tenour of this chapter resemble Deut. 28, and the book in its original form is apparently the product of the same age with Deuteronomy. The Origins (P) described in Exod. 28 f. and Lev. 8 f. the choice of Aaron and his sons to be priests and their installation in the sacred office. The inferior order of the ministry of the sanctuary, the levites, is not as yet instituted. This is done in Numbers, and indeed with a certain redundancy, for Num. 3 and 4 independently deal with the subject, and c. 18 takes it up afresh without any allusion to a previous appointment. Much stress is laid on the exclusive prerogative of Aaron and his sons in the service of the altar and the ministry "within the veil"; no levite, much less a layman, may presume to these sacred functions on pain of death. The levites are given to Aaron and his sons as temple slaves for the menial work of the sanctuary, in place of the first-born Israelites of all tribes who would naturally be dedicated to God, i.e. to the temple. Yet, as ministers of religion, they are supported by a general tithe of the products of the soil imposed on all the people. The laws in Numbers present the same variety as in Leviticus. There are old laws with modifications and enlargements, and many others which by various signs betray a more recent origin. Num. 28-36 belong as a whole to the latter class; cc. 28 f. exemplify that growth of the law by the formulation of sacerdotal ideals or desiderata which has been noted in the case of Lev. 4. It is to be observed that the narrative of P has reached in Num. xxvii. 12-23 the end of Moses' career; nothing is in place after it but the ascent of Mt. Abarim and Moses' death (Deut. 34). Num. 28-36 thus stand even formally in the place of an appendix.