Here we find the first of the laws concerning cleanliness, which I shall deal with in sections as they appear.
Clean and unclean food The text here is typically longwinded, but in essence, the people were allowed to eat any animal that both had cloven hooves and chewed the cud, fish with fins and scales, any birds not specifically forbidden and winged insects with jointed legs. These animals were considered clean, while all others were unclean and considered detestable. Anyone who touched or ate an unclean animal became unclean too, although only until evening. There is no apparent logic or method to the distinction between clean and unclean, and it is unclear why certain animals were clean and others unclean. Maybe the apparent arbitrariness is the key. Maybe it was a random set of rules intended to test the people’s obedience and resolve. Whatever the case, it is clear why the people must keep themselves clean. God tells them: “consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy”. We are made in His image and we are designed to be like Him. We are at our best when we follow in His footsteps.
Purification after childbirth If a woman gave birth to a son, she was ceremonially unclean for seven days, and on the eighth day she had to take the boy to be circumcised. She then had to wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. If a woman gave birth to a daughter, she was unclean for fourteen days, and had to wait sixty-six days to be purified. After the days of purification, she had to offer a burnt offering and a sin offering, in order to make atonement and be purified. This puzzles me immensely. Why should such a natural and necessary process make a woman unclean? Why did a girl make her unclean for longer than a boy? Why did she have to offer a sin offering as atonement? Childbirth isn’t a sin, is it? The second question I have no answer to, except to repeat that the Old Testament is patriarchal and misogynistic. As for others, I will hazard a guess. Maybe unclean simply means ‘not like God’. Childbirth is a very physical act, and as such it separates us from the spiritual world. Maybe it is this separation that distanced the woman from God and made her unclean. Once she was unclean, she was in the same position as if she had sinned, and so she needed to make the sin offering to put her right with God. That doesn’t mean that childbirth was a sin, just that it had the same spiritual result.
Regulations about infectious skin diseases The basic rules are these – if a person has any imperfection of the skin he must be examined by a priest. If the skin has not turned white and the problem is no more than skin deep, the person is to be quarantined for seven days. At the end of this time, if the affected area has improved, he will be pronounced clean. But if the skin and hair in the affected area have turned white and the problem appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease and the person is unclean. That person “must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” and he must live alone outside the camp. It doesn’t sound like a particularly caring way to treat a sick person, but in the absence of any cure it at least prevented the infection from spreading. It was kind on the community, if not the individual. Sometimes we need to put the needs of others first, however hard that may be.
Regulations about mildew These are not too dissimilar to the regulations about infectious diseases. If any item of clothing showed signs of mildew, it was to be isolated for seven days. If after that time the mildew had not spread, the item was to be washed; but if it had spread, the item was to be destroyed. In a country where there are half a dozen clothes shops on every high street, this may seem a little over dramatic, but we must remember that the Israelites were living in the desert. They couldn’t just pop down to the local bazaar for a replacement, so they had to take care of their property. They may not have been able to save infected items, but isolating and destroying them at least prevented other items from being damaged too. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to take a lesson from this and start taking better care of what we have instead of giving in to the disposable culture that surrounds us.
Cleansing from infectious skin diseases Once a person had been declared clean, the priest was to take two birds, kill one over fresh water, then dip the live one in its blood together with cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. The priest was then to sprinkle the person being cleansed seven times (presumably with the blood) then release the live (but probably rather distressed) bird. The person being cleansed then had to shave off all his hair and bathe in water, before he could be declared ceremoniously clean. He was then allowed back into the camp, but even then he had to stay outside of his tent for seven days, at the end of which time he had to shave and wash again. On the eighth day, he was to bring a guilt offering of a lamb (or two pigeons if he couldn’t afford a lamb) and some oil. The lamb was to be slaughtered, and the cleansed person marked with its blood and the oil. It’s an odd ritual, and I’m not even going to pretend I understand it, but sometimes you just have to go with God whether you know what He’s on about or not.
Cleansing from mildew This section starts with something that feels like it should have been in the last section on mildew – what to do with an infected house. All objects were to be removed, and the house shut up for seven days. If the mildew had not spread, the house was clean; but if it had spread the infected stones were to be removed and taken out of camp, and the walls were to be scraped and replastered. The house can then be purified, using the same ritual as for the purification of a person healed of a skin disease.
Discharges causing uncleanness When a man had a bodily discharge or a woman menstruated, they were considered unclean, and anything or anyone that touched them was unclean until evening. After the discharge or bleeding had stopped, they were unclean for a further seven days. On the eighth day they were to bring a burnt offering and a sin offering to make atonement. An emission of semen also made a man unclean, but only until the evening, and no sacrifice was needed. This raises the same questions as the laws regarding childbirth. Why make natural bodily functions seem so dirty? It’s no wonder so many people are so uptight about talking about such things. Well, I can only give the same answer (guess, to be more precise) as I did before. I don’t think it means these things are dirty, because it would be totally illogical for God to condemn us for something we have no control over and which only happens because He designed us that way. I think that maybe it’s simply that these reminders of our physical nature separate us from the spiritual nature of God. So do these rules still apply? No, I don’t think they do. If our sins have already been atoned for by Jesus, then why not the imperfections of our physical bodies?
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