LEVITICUS
Lesson 22 - Chapters 14 and 15
We’ve been dealing with the subject of Tzara’at. The principle behind Tzara’at is that it is
caused by an act of God whereby the Lord determines that He wants to make visible an evil or
unclean spiritual condition of a person. We’ve even seen it applied to cloth and leather.
Tzara’at is explicitly a spiritual disease. Starting with verse 33, Leviticus deals with Tzara’at
on a house. Let’s reread a short portion of Leviticus 14 to get reacquainted with this Scripture
portion.
RE-READ LEVITICUS 14:33 - end
As made clear in verse 34, it is Yehoveh who puts this plague on someone’s home. For God
says, “when I place an affliction on your house in the land……” This is a punishment for a
transgression of some sort against God, just as Tzara’at on a human is a divine judgment.
And, naturally, dealing with this disease on a house was very similar to dealing with skin
disease on a person. First if a greenish or reddish discoloration is discovered on a wall it must
be reported to a priest. It is the priest who will make the determination whether or not it is
Tzara’at.
If the priest suspects Tzara’at of the house, it is put into quarantine for 7 days. After 7 days the
priest returns and inspects the house; if the discoloration has spread it is deemed to be
Tzara’at. To eradicate the disease the stones that have been infected are to be removed and
put outside the camp in a special place. They are placed in an unclean place. In addition, since
most houses were made of stones, or mud brick, and then a layer of mud (used like plaster)
was applied over the stones or bricks to waterproof it, the mud plaster must be scraped off
around the discolored area and it, too, must be placed outside the camp in an unclean place.
The diseased stones are to be replaced with new ones, and then re-plastered. But if after
some time passes the affliction returns to the house…..pretty much ANYWHERE on the
house……it is deemed to be an acute case of Tzara’at and the house is to be demolished. The
remains of the house are then to be transported outside the camp, to an unclean place, and
deposited there.
If someone enters the house during the period of its quarantine that person becomes
unclean…..but it is not of a serious nature. He doesn’t become afflicted with Tzara’at; he is
simply unclean until sunset (that is to the end of the current day). If a person enters the house
AND lies down in the house, or eats inside the infected house, then in addition to having to
wait until sunset to become clean, his garments are to be washed as in indication that a slightly
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higher level of impurity was contracted.
Now over the course of centuries, several questions regarding details about determining
Tzara’at surfaced. For instance: how large did the discolored area……called a nega in
Hebrew……have to be in order for it to be considered a problem? It was determined that the
discolored spot on a wall must be at least the twice the size of a qualifying nega on a person’s
skin or a person’s garment in order to be considered Tzara’at. The Mishnah states that the
nega must be the size of two grissin…or, by modern measure, about the size of a penny, to
qualify as Tzara’at on skin (therefore twice that for a wall). Further the discoloration…..the
nega…..must appear on two of the building’s stones. Another consideration was the color: did it
have to be all red, or all green? The answer was that it could be a combination of colors.
Notice some of the similarities between treating Tzara’at on a house and on a person. If an
eruption occurs the priest must be called to make the determination. If it is not blatantly clear
that it IS Tzara’at then quarantine is called for, for a period of 7 days. If it is Tzara’at then the
affected object, be it a building stone or a person, is declared unclean and must be put outside
the camp into an unclean place. Part of the treatment for Tzara’at is that the surface of the
object must be scraped off; the hair of a person must be scraped off, so likewise the mud
plaster of the building must be scraped off.
Point being: the pattern for dealing with Tzara’at on a person, a house, a garment, or a leather
object, remains the same. By now this should hardly be surprising.
So as we see in verse 49 in order to decontaminate the house……meaning the stones and mud
plaster were removed, but the house was not destroyed and dismantled…..we again see the
same formula as for purification of a person. And it involves a ritual using a pair of clean birds,
hyssop, scarlet dye, and cedar wood. The blood of one of the birds is placed into a bowl that
has mayim chayim….living water…..in it, and the mixture is sprinkled onto the house 7 times.
The live bird is then set free, and the house is now clean.
The chapter ends without offering any sacrifices. Remember that the slaying of the bird is NOT
considered a sacrifice….it is a different classification of ritual killing. So why are no sacrifices
offered for the house? As I showed you over the past several weeks there is a process for
being purified from a defiled state……from an unclean condition…..into a state of cleanness. And
then from cleanness a person can be made holy by means of blood sacrifices. Since a house
has no requirement to be holy, only clean, no sacrifices are needed for the house. Holy is not a
necessary state for a house, because it is never going to be in communion with God. The bird,
living water, hyssop, scarlet, cedar wood procedure is all that is needed.
A very reasonable question to ask at this point is: does Tzara’at still happen? In fact it is
generally agreed by Rabbis that it does not, at least outwardly. They assume this according to
observation; in other words they have observed that there has not been any known cases of
Tzara’at for centuries. Naturally they are puzzled by it as well. There is a variety of reasons
offered by Jewish Sages as to possible reasons for this and the one that is most accepted is
that it is because there is no Temple. Since there is no Temple, there is no priesthood. Without
a priesthood there is no authority to discern Tzara’at or perform the cleansing and atoning
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rituals; and without a Temple there is no place to perform those rituals anyway.
Further it is thought that while the Lord no longer afflicts people’s skin with Tzara’at He does
afflict their soul; so while not becoming visible, the soul of person can be made unclean. And
that in death the Tzara’at of a person’s soul not only follows them into their afterlife, it
determines that they cannot exist with the community of the righteous dead and so they are
ostracized.
I find it fascinating how well that system of thought intersects with Christian beliefs. That
indeed our uncleanness is visible only to God, and it must be purified by Messiah Yeshua or
one’s soul is not clean and therefore cannot be in God’s presence; this results in an afterlife in
Hell, away from the community of the righteous dead in Christ for all eternity.
Let’s leave the subject of Tzara’at and move on to Leviticus 15.
Leviticus Chapter 15
Let me warn you in advance that chapter 15 is pretty graphic and explicit. It addresses the
subject of human discharges…..both normal and abnormal……from the sex organs of males and
females. And it does this very matter-of-factly. It would be easy enough to skip this chapter due
to the discomfort it might cause for some; yet this is the Word of God….Holy Scripture. It is
Torah. It was given to us that we study and read it and know it. The first book of Torah usually
taught to religious Jews is Leviticus, and chapter 15 is not skipped over. So if 6 year olds can
handle it, we should be able to.
READ LEVITICUS 15 all
Chapter 15 is the final in a series of chapters discussing various aspects of clean and unclean,
pure and impure. The next chapter we’ll discuss when we’ve completed this one (chapter 16)
discusses the all-important Yom Kippur ritual. I tell you this because these 5 preceding
chapters on uncleanness set up the NECESSITY for the Yom Kippur ritual.
The Yom Kippur ritual (the yearly Day of Atonement) is primarily about cleansing the
Tabernacle (the Sanctuary itself) from uncleanness that been brought about because of the
constant daily contact the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, has with humans……many of whom
were in unclean conditions and didn’t know it, or willingly violated God’s rules of purity by
entering the Tabernacle in their impure state or accidental things……such as woman entering
and without warning her period begins.
Now I think that the thing I want to do my best to establish and explain about chapter 15….and
which is demonstrated by the totality of the last 4 chapters plus our current one…… is that
entering into a state of impurity does not necessarily equate with committing a sin. Let me
repeat that: we cannot, and should not, make unclean and sinful synonyms. Being unclean
does not necessarily make a person sinful nor indicate that they have sinned. This is an
important Biblical fundamental to comprehend.
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Let me demonstrate this to you using situations we have previously discussed. In the Torah
Yehoveh tells us that He sees the world as divided into two basic groups of people and things:
CLEAN people and things and UNCLEAN people and things. Clean people are those people
who are part of the camp of Israel. Unclean people are those who are OUTSIDE the camp of
Israel. In general terms Israelites are clean people, gentiles are unclean people (there are
several caveats to all that that we have discussed).
So what makes gentiles UNCLEAN and Israelites CLEAN? Is it sin? Are gentiles inherently
sinners and Israelites not? Do gentiles trespass against Yehoveh’s commands but Israelites
do not? Do gentiles have sin natures, handed down from Adam, but Israelites have some how
or another avoided it? No of course not. Sinning (as do our sin natures) lead to uncleanness.
The Hebrews who followed Torah had a remedy for their impurity; all others did not.
Gentiles are born into a clean state; but in very short order our sin natures will cause us to sin.
Sin brings on uncleanness; therefore we can say that all Gentiles are unclean because “all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. So unless we join Israel we have no way to
regain purity from the uncleanness caused by our sin.
By accepting the work of our Savior we are accepting the provisions of the covenant God
made with Israel. By trusting Yeshua we become Israelites (from a spiritual, not a physical,
standpoint) and so there IS a remedy both for our sin and the uncleanness it generates.
Now that this pattern is established…..that is, that it is God’s choices of what defines clean and
unclean and how it can (or cannot) be remedied…..we find it carried through these pivotal 5
chapters we’ve been discussing. And we find a number of situations…..such as a mother giving
birth or entering her monthly cycle…..or contacting a dead body…… that cannot be (in any way
we can comprehend) be directly tied to the commission of a sin. We find certain foods are
acceptable, clean, while others are forbidden, unclean. Are some of these foods GOOD foods
and others BAD foods? No. We find certain animals are considered clean for sacrificial
purposes and others unclean. Are some animals GOOD animals and others BAD animals? No.
The pattern is that God made some choices. Period. And by faith we have to accept those
choices, without explanation.
Carrying these clean and unclean principles into modern Christian terminology; were you
elected by God to be admitted inside the Kingdom…..by this I mean saved…..because you were
inherently BETTER than other people? Or did Yehoveh accept you because you exhibited
better behavior than others? The principle of election to the Kingdom of God…..that mysterious
choice God makes among humans that theologians have tried for centuries to comprehend
and explain……is simply the extension and pattern for clean and unclean. You are drawn in and
declared clean because Yehoveh, in His sovereignty, chose you. Others are NOT drawn in,
and they remain unclean because Yehoveh, in His sovereignty, because He did not choose
them.
Conversely if you have been draw in and admitted into the Kingdom, as a Believer, if you sin
again do you become unclean again? We better hope not; because if that is possible that
means the Holy Spirit MUST leave us. Because regardless of the reasons for contracting
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uncleanness and impurity, the primary effect is that a barrier is erected between the unclean
person and God. Nothing unclean is allowed to come into contact with the holy. So to say that
a Believer in an unclean state is an oxymoron……I do not see how you can be both at the same
time.
So in demonstrating all of this the Lord has also shown us what holiness is all about. God, as
holy, avoids all contact with the unclean. We, as holy, (only because of our trust in Yeshua) are
to follow Yehoveh’s example and commands and ALSO avoid contact with that which is
unclean. As a holy people (a priesthood actually) it is incompatible for us to come into contact
with unclean things.
In this chapter we’ll find many reasons for a man or woman to be declared unclean and yet
they did nothing wrong. Further we’ll find the second great principle that we’d rather not have
to deal with, that not all uncleanness is the same. There are degrees of uncleanness. Some
uncleanness is permanent. Some uncleanness is temporary. Some is a direct punishment of
God. Some comes from normal and unavoidable bodily functions. And depending of the nature
of the uncleanness we’ll find that a quick dunk in the river will return one to purity; at other
times simply waiting until sunset….which ends one day and starts the next…..purifies; on other
occasions an extensive and costly series of rituals must be performed that involves a priest. In
some cases the impurity is so severe that the person is excommunicated from their society and
from their relationship with God. At other times it is but a very short and limited separation.
The first 18 verses of chapter 15 concerns only males, and verse 1 hits the ground running by
saying, “if any man has a discharge issuing from his flesh……” Bibles will use different words for
exactly where this discharge is coming from. The Hebrew word used here is “basar”…..and it
means flesh or body. But here it is used as a euphemism that is referring the male organ. And
as when we studied Tzara’at, and had a fairly detailed list of what constituted Tzara’at and
what didn’t, we now get a list of what constitutes a discharge…….meaning an ABNORMAL
discharge……and how to recognize it as such. There are two basic forms: the first is that the
discharge is a flow……a liquid that runs; and the second is a much thicker fluid that acts to block
or seal an opening. A male with this condition is unclean.
Next we find that this particular type of uncleanness can be transmitted to inanimate objects.
Specifically whatever he has laid on becomes unclean…..his bed, a mat, a cushion, whatever.
Further anyone who comes along and touches this object after the infected man has
transmitted his uncleanness to it ALSO becomes unclean. So here we have impurity going
from a person, to an object, and then from that object to another person. The 2nd person,
having become unclean from touching that object, now HIMSELF becomes a carrier of
impurity……a real domino effect begins. So in some ways this impurity from a discharge is even
MORE infectious than Tzara’at…..because uncleanness from Tzara’at does NOT transmit
itself from one person to the next.
Yet while the uncleanness from a discharge is more infectious than Tzara’at it is not nearly as
SERIOUS a matter as Tzara’at. A person who touches an object that the one with a discharge
has laid on, is purified with a wash and a wait……he is immersed in water and then he waits until
sunset. No atonement sacrifices are necessary.
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Transmission of the uncleanness of the affected person can also be accomplished by touching
another human. And in what was (and I honestly don’t know if it still is) a rather gross custom
of that day, if the person with a discharge were to spit on another, that would transmit his
uncleanness to his target.
Verse 9 goes on to tell us that not only what the impure person lies on, but also what he rides
on, becomes unclean. Who ever touches the object he rides on…..something like a
saddle……becomes unclean until sunset. Verse 11 indicates, though, that if the infected man
washes his hands with water, he can touch something or somebody else with those washed
hands, and the uncleanness he has will NOT transfer to someone else. Now isn’t that an
interesting twist?
Let’s pause here for a second. I’m not going to go into more detail or revisit all these rules for
transmitting or not transmitting uncleanness from the one with a discharge to another. But
notice how complex and how many different instances with differing outcomes are addressed. I
point this out because several lessons ago we discussed how we, as Believers, were not to
come into contact with unclean things, yet if we did, we didn’t necessarily become unclean.
But, conversely, how we are even instructed not to only huddle together among ourselves, as
a clean and holy people, and thereby avoid taking the Good News to the unclean world. In
other words we are actually told to seek out the unclean and love them. We’re to reach out
and seek out gays, prostitutes, imprisoned criminals, and unbelievers of every kind…….unclean
people of all kinds. Somehow, though, we don’t contract uncleanness from them. Yet Paul
cautions us that it’s one thing to “touch” a prostitute, to lay a hand of kindness on her
shoulder….. and to show these unclean people Godly love and mercy, and another to “join
with” or “come into union with” a prostitute for instance…..that is to have sex with them or to
become one of them. In the one case we’re carrying out a holy command to take the Good
News to everyone, in the other we’re violating a holy command to be separate from unclean
things. Both involve contact with uncleanness; yet it is uncleanness of different degrees, with
different consequences. We shouldn’t be confused or shocked by this seeming contradiction;
Leviticus illustrates that all uncleanness is not the same, and neither is the way to purity from
the different kinds of uncleanness all the same…..except that it ALWAYS involves Living
Water…..mayim chayim.
We just saw in Leviticus that an infected man could by washing (in other words purifying)
ONLY his hands keep from transmitting his uncleanness to another; so it is for us. That
protective and cleansing barrier of Living Water that prevented the transmission of his
uncleanness to another, for us, is Yeshua. We are covered not just in His blood but flooded
with His Living Water. So we are immune to transmission of uncleanness…. as long as we
remain in union with Him.
Yet just as with this infected man here in Leviticus 15, did that mean that because there was a
way to keep from transmitting his uncleanness that uncleanness suddenly ceased to exist? Of
course not; folks listen to me: uncleanness is alive and well in this world despite all the
uninformed doctrines you may have been taught. Jesus did not abolish
uncleanness…..although at some point after His return He will. Uncleanness abounds on planet
earth and where possible, as holy people and as we are commanded, we are to avoid coming
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into contact with it, certainly NEVER into union with it, and never knowingly participate with
it……except in the rare cases where we are demonstrating Christ’s love and grace.
Interestingly despite the threat of so easily transmitting his uncleanness there is no
requirement for this man to be quarantined or to leave his home or his family. In verse 13
we’re told that when the discharge stops……that is his disease and therefore the cause of the
impurity is gone….. the steps to regain purity are pretty mild. He must wait 7 days until AFTER
he notices the symptoms have ended, and then he bathes and washes his clothes. After that
he takes two birds……the least expensive and valuable of all possible sacrifices………to the
Tabernacle where a priest officiates the ritual sacrifices of the birds. The original Hebrew text
tells us that one bird is used FIRST for the Hatta’at (Purification) sacrifice and then the 2nd
bird is used for the ‘Olah (burnt offering) sacrifice.
Now watch this: The first sacrifice is a Hatta’at, which atones for the man AFTER he has been
cleansed…..that is he is brought back from uncleanness to cleanness by means of water. Only
after the Hatta’at is he a fully restored member of Israel……holy; and only a full member of
Israel (by definition one who is holy) is ABLE to approach God with a “thank-you” gift, the
burnt offering (the ‘Olah). So even the sequence of the sacrificial offerings has important
significance to us.
Verses 16 – 18 deal with what I would term “normal” male discharges…..the type which occur
naturally and have nothing to do with disease or dysfunction. This also includes the results
from the normal and god-ordained act of man and wife joining together physically. Even so the
man and his wife enter into the least possible state of uncleanness for a short period of time. A
wash and a wait…….a bath and a wait until sunset…..is the only requirement for regaining purity.
There are a couple of important things to know about all this; first even though this state of
ritual impurity the man and wife are in for a short time is the least severe it is, nonetheless,
uncleanness. Neither can participate in religious practices until clean again. In fact the male, if
a warrior in the Israelite army, is not allowed to fight in battle that day. This is because when
the Israelites fought against foreign armies it was considered a Holy War. Did you get that? No
unclean person can participate in a Holy War led by God; this because it is a holy endeavor
(and besides there are strict rules set down by the Lord concerning holy warfare). Second, and
most interesting, involves a question I was asked some time ago. When a male with an
abnormal discharge bathes the Hebrew Scripture says the immersion must be fully into
something called Living Water….mayim chayim. Yet under most of kinds of ritual immersions
the water can be a mixture of mostly regular water with Living Water added to it….in Hebrew
this is called Mikvah mayim. Most Mikvahs….those stone immersion pools of old……were
usually filled up with well or lake water, and then some amount of Living Water was added.
However that was not ALWAYS the case; some Mikvahs, which were near springs and rivers
and were located in more sophisticated cities (like Jerusalem) were completely filled using only
Living Water. This was a much greater burden for the priests and the population than being
able to use water that was more available and convenient. If a man with a discharge lived in an
outlying village (which was the norm), he might have to travel some distance in order to bath in
a Mikvah filled with 100% mayim chayim.
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I point this out because the man with the discharge was required to bathe in 100% Living
Water to become pure again; while the man and his wife, under just normal conjugal situations,
could bath in the more typical water mixture that had only a little bit of Living Water in it. So
here is yet another example of the different levels of cleansing required for the different levels
of uncleanness contracted.
Third, and finally, it is helpful to notice that God put a strict and impassible barrier between the
religion of the Hebrews and all other known religions. Sex was a usual and customary part of
religious ritual for most of the world’s religions…usually, but not always, associated with fertility
rights. Yehoveh went to great lengths to bar anything regarding the means of reproduction and
human sexuality from the holy grounds He inhabited.
Beginning in verse 19 female discharges is now dealt with.
The first kind of discharge is a normal one: a woman’s monthly cycle. And she is unclean for 7
days after the onset. This condition is called in Hebrew niddah and while it is most often
associated with menstruation, it is also often used in the Bible as a catchall term for a female
being in a state of impurity. Anyone who touches this impure woman also becomes unclean,
though it is a mild level of uncleanness. Like the male with his ABNORMAL discharge, this
woman with her NORMAL discharge is infectious; and she can transmit her uncleanness to
anything she might lie or sit upon. The route to purity involves the same rituals (washing and
waiting until sunset) although the ritual washing also involves laundering one’s clothing. If a
husband and wife have sexual relations during this time her impurity is transmitted to him and
he, too, will be unclean for the same amount of time that she is: 7 days.
Now while it is difficult to find too many corollaries between the Biblical cause of uncleanness
and modern science, there IS one between the rules of a woman’s period and fertility. I
suspect that many ladies in this room wince at what the Hebrew woman’s life must have been
like having to regularly go through all this ritual and such. Well in reality it was not as bad as it
might seem (and I know a few Orthodox Hebrews who don’t find these rituals as anything but
satisfying and honoring). It is a medical fact that in ancient times the typical Israeli woman did
NOT have to deal with a regular monthly cycle. First she was usually married off very shortly
after puberty and almost immediately she would become pregnant and start giving birth to child
after child. Second it was not unusual for a woman to continue nursing her child until that child
was at least 3 years old, and often 4 or even 5 years of age. A nursing mother generally does
not have regular periods during that time, so she isn’t subject to that cause of ritual impurity.
So the typical Western woman’s experience is not at all the typical Biblical woman’s
experience. It was likely that while the younger girls, just after puberty, dealt with the
uncleanness issues month after month the average married woman did not.
In verse 25, we switch from the subject of normal discharges to abnormal discharges in
females. Generally the definition for this type of discharge is that it occurs OUTSIDE the time
of her cycle and it is ongoing. A woman experiencing this health problem is unclean, and
remains so the entire time she remains in this condition. Now this condition must have been
terrible for a woman because she cannot touch, nor be touched, by another person. She was
not required to live outside of her home nor outside the camp, but she would have been
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avoided because to just brush up against her put YOU into an unclean state. Understand: this
is NOT Tradition; this is straight Biblical Law taken directly from Scripture. So in the New
Testament when we read the story of the woman that an ongoing discharge for 12
years…..well…..this was a physically and emotionally devastated person who was also a social
outcast.
With what we’ve learned today let’s try to understand a little better the story contained in Mark
5 where this incident of he woman with the discharge occurs. This unclean woman, who has
been in this same impure state for 12 years, hears of this Jewish faith healer named Yeshua
and seeks him out for help.
READ MARK 5:22-34
This woman, unclean from her discharge and poverty stricken from paying money to phony
healers who didn’t help her, takes an enormous risk. If she intentionally touched a
man…..particularly a Rabbi like Yeshua……she would have transmitted her uncleanness to him.
The penalty for doing such a thing in Jesus day was for her to be put outside the camp. She
could have even been executed, although that was quite rare. She knew this, Jesus knew this,
and everyone in the crowd knew this.
But she was so confident that Yeshua was who He said He was that she risked everything to
simply touch his garment in hopes of being healed of her UNCLEANNESS. By all the Levitical
rules Yeshua should have been declared unclean the instant she touched His garment. Instead
she was instantly healed; and of course since Yeshua IS the Living Water of purification there
is no mention of His entering an unclean state. However you can be sure that as word raced
around the area about what had happened it is He that would be added to the ranks of the
unclean (as far the religious authorities were concerned). Christ demonstrates how it is that a
Believer can be touched by uncleanness, and yet does not become unclean. This story further
demonstrates He did not rebuke this unclean person (unclean by no fault of her own) who was
searching for a way to be healed from her impurity, but rather showed her love and mercy as
she reached out in a simple (but risky) act of faith.
Now by reading the last few verses of Leviticus 15 we know the following would have
happened with the woman in the story of Mark 5: First, once her discharge ended she would
have to wait for a period of 7 days. After that she would be clean and able to go to the Temple
to make a sacrifice of a bird; this was the Hatta’at sacrifice (the purification sacrifice). Then
she would have used a second bird (a very inexpensive sacrificial animal) to make the burnt
offering, the ‘Olah. Now I cannot help but notice that there is no mention of a ritual washing.
This is puzzling, and I really don’t have a solution. One possibility is that it was so well
understood that a ritual bath was required for such matters it is not mentioned. We find in
several Biblical passages when it speaks of the sacrifices that a kind of a short-hand formula is
used to describe it; for example, a passage will speak of the requirement for a Minchah, but an
‘Olah is not mentioned at all. Yet we know that an ‘Olah was required whenever a Minchah
was performed, because these two sacrifices went hand-in-hand. You don’t DO a Minchah
without also doing an ‘Olah. But as for there being no mention of a ritual immersion for the
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woman getting well from her long-term abnormal discharge, we simply can’t be sure why that
is.
The final verse of Leviticus 15 is really more of a summary of chapters 11,12,13, 14 and
15…..the chapters concerning ritual impurity. And it tells us in a nutshell the practical reasons
why the Israelites need to scrupulously obey these purity regulations; it is because if they don’t
they might defile Yehoveh’s holy sanctuary, and the penalty for this can be death.
The wording, in the original Hebrew, of verse 31 is interesting. The Hebrew begins ve-
hizzartem……and this phrase is used here and nowhere else in the Bible. And, in it’s most
literal sense, it means “….you shall cause the Israelites to avoid”…..or “you shall cause the
Israelites to be separate from” all uncleanness. And, of course, goes on to say that their
uncleanness could defile God’s sanctuary the penalty could well be their death. So, the point
is, Yehoveh is saying don’t become unclean in the first place. And, if you do, don’t even think
about parking it near my holy Tabernacle.
Now, while this ends chapter 15, I cannot help but point out that the first words of chapter 16
are: “The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they
drew too close to the presence of the Lord……” So all these new laws were pretty fresh in the
peoples’ minds, and they knew God meant it when He threatened to kill them if they defiled
His Holy Dwelling Place (which, of course, is exactly the threat the entire world lives under
today). The requirement is a simple one: be made clean and holy and remain that way, or
die……eternally….at God’s hand.
Next week we’ll take up Leviticus chapter 16.
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