Leviticus 17 serves as a transition. While it shares contents with earlier chapters, its style of exhortation, with emphasis on motivations and penalties, is characteristic of later chapters. The instructions in this chapter counter disloyalty to God by prohibiting Israelites from offering idolatrous sacrifices in the open country to male goats or goat demons, with which the Israelites have committed (spiritual) promiscuity (17:5, 7; cf. 20:5; Exod. 34:15; Deut. 31:16). This material aptly follows instructions for the Day of Atonement since such illicit sacrifices appear related to (and perhaps a reaction to?) dispatch of a male goat to Azazel in the wilderness (Lev. 16:10, 21–22).

Leviticus 17 reinforces earlier instructions regarding the authorized place of sacrificial slaughter (17:1–…