Leviticus 13-14
Today we see the LORD’s care for the people of Israel expressed in very practical terms: disease control and prevention. With our recent experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, the notion of testing an individual for disease and then declaring that person “clean” or “unclean” sounds remarkably familiar. Both then and now, isolating the contagious person serves to protect the broader community from infection.
Note that here “clean” and “unclean” do not carry any moral implications. That is, there is no sin in being “unclean”. Obviously, “clean” (healthy) is better than “unclean” (unhealthy), but it is not a character issue (at least not here). Nevertheless, conforming to the restrictions imposed on the “unclean” is a character issue — just like how crashing a party while actively carrying COVID would be bad behavior.
That’s a bit of what I see in these chapters. How about you? What do you notice? Does anything strike you as interesting? Please share your thoughts with the rest of us.
What I see in these chapters is not so much the clean-unclean issues as evaluated by the priests, but the purification/atonement rituals that take place after cleanliness has been proclaimed. They are extensive and well detailed. I particularly like the ritual of the ceremonial cleansing for a person who has been healed of a defiling skin disease: …the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields. (Lev. 14:4-7) What I like is the two birds, one that is sacrificed and one that is set free. Many of us in our own lives have gone through a difficult ordeal and then come out “on the other side”. Our response (typically) is thankfulness to God for His deliverance – and then we move on. The Leviticus rituals speak more completely to that deliverance with a visual, interactive ritual of the sacrifice and the release. Maybe we could use something more than a “thank and move on” activity in our lives; maybe we could use a visual, interactive ritual of our own, acknowledging God’s deliverance from those trials.
Thanks for pointing out that “unclean” in these chapters doesn’t mean sinful, John, but also noting that the moral obligation of following regulations is still there. The human condition seems to be to rebel against any form of authority—“I did it my way”—but to follow God’s way leads to holiness, separating us perhaps simply because we are not insisting on our rights. That makes us different from many others around us! Recently I saw a book review for an author who suggested we need to give up “our right to be offended,” which I thought was appropriate for following God’s word.
I’m seeing God’s holy echo (as David Brannen used to say) lately. In the book that the Thursday women’s group is studying, the author maintains that submitting to God’s ways makes us “peculiar” in today’s society. Sad that being kind, humble, joyful, etc. is such a strange way to act!