Background information to Leviticus 11-15

So far in our reflection, we have completed Leviticus 1-10. The key focus has been on the priests, the sanctuary and the worship. The focus is about to be changed from the sanctuary to the worshippers and their everyday living in chapters 11-15. To make clear and to better understand the next five chapters, here is some background information to help make things clearer.

Immediately we see the thrust of the texts in differentiating between the clean and the unclean. Being unclean has nothing to do with the physical state of one’s life. It’s not about a person who has washed clean from dirt. It is about whether a person is ready and qualified to worship the Lord. Cleanness defines a person’s fitness to come before God in worship. Then there is the term holiness that needs to be understood. Holiness has to do with being set apart and consecrated for God. In the Old Testament, holiness is a state of being where one subjected himself to washing, fasting, abstaining from certain food or even sexual relationship, to make him ready to worship and serve God.  

   

Chapters 11-15 of Leviticus deal with regulations pertaining to what’s clean and what’s unclean. These chapters define for us what is clean and what’s unclean. They are set to show how the people could be cleaned from the polluting and defiling effects of the unclean. Leviticus 11 deals with clean and unclean food. Leviticus 12 deals with the uncleanness as a result of childbirth. Leviticus 12-13 deals with uncleanness brought about by skin and fungus diseases, and Leviticus 15 deals with the uncleanness of genital discharge.

Why food regulation? Was it for hygienic and health reasons as some have proposed? The instruction of God in Genesis 9:3-5 was: “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely, I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.” Mankind could partake of any animal except for its blood. So, God forbade the eating of blood. Then in Leviticus 11, God specified the clean animals that the Israelites could partake. He delineated the clean from the unclean animal. This seems to set forth the regulation that would distinguish the people of Israel from the rest of the world. While the rest could eat any animal, the people of Israel were set apart by the dietary regulation. God wants His people to be distinguished from the rest of the world. By extension, this implies that God wants us to be His unique people, known by our relationship with Him. We can understand why He wants us not to be conformed to this world. Let us be God’s transformed people for His glory!