Week 6 Leviticus 14-Numbers
About 80% of Leviticus is legal-religious directions and practices.
So after reading the absorbing (and unnerving) story of Aaron’s sons I’m not surprised to land in five chapters of what’s clean and what isn’t clean.
I decided to read 11-15 all at once: there are lists of animals that can or can’t be eaten; there is uncleanness related to childbirth, and uncleanness related to seminal discharges. In between there’s a long section on leprosy. Maybe not Top-100 reading, but pretty manageable.
The big idea that’s staring right at me is this: being clean is important (I ran the numbers: there’s about 60 references to cleanness and more than 100 to uncleanness in these five chapters – 1 reference every 1.25 verses).
What do I make of it?
I think there are two answers: nothing much and something.
I don’t know anyone who says that after sexual intercourse a contemporary man and woman have become ritually unclean. So in one sense I disregard these rules. There’s really nothing much to them for me.
But Leviticus says that there’s a why-do-I-do-it behind the what-do-I-do. The author quotes the Lord: for I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy.
Only two verses out of 200. But they link cleanness with the holy.
So even if there’s nothing much here for me, there is something.
Note: quote is from Leviticus 11:44-45 (NASB version)