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LEVITICUS
Lesson 19 – Chapters 12 and 13
We finished up the very difficult issue of Kosher eating last week, and moved into preparation for Leviticus chapter 12. But unfortunately we find ourselves out of the frying pan right into the fire, as we must face the matter of clean and unclean, called ritual purity.
Sometimes in the Bible, in place of the terms clean and unclean, we’ll see the terms pure and impure. Are these just synonyms? Are clean and pure, or, unclean and impure just two ways of saying the same thing? Not exactly. Pure is the result of AVOIDING contact and union with the unclean, and IMPURE is the result of COMING INTO contact and union with the unclean. Another important term associated with all of these is “defiled”. Defiled means both loss of holiness and loss of ritual purity. Defiled brings uncleanness.
Here’s an illustration of what I mean: there are things we call diseases. Viruses, germs, bacteria, etc can cause them If you come into contact with them and you get the disease, then you DO get sick, but you don’t BECOME that disease. If you get the measles, you don’t, for a time, become a Measle. Rather the disease (Measles) causes the person to become ill. So, in the same way, touching something unclean DOES make you ritually impure, but it does NOT give you the properties of THAT particular uncleanness which you touched….you don’t become THAT unclean thing. If you touch a dead body, you don’t become a dead body yourself. But touching that dead body defiles you and so you become IMPURE because the state of that dead body was unclean. And the result of impurity is that you are barred from being in the presence of holiness. Unclean brings defilement, which renders the object or person impure.
Knowing the subtle difference between clean and pure, unclean and impure, and their relationship to defilement can be a big help for us as we study the remainder of Leviticus and even in the New Testament, which speaks of defilement on a number of occasions.
Let’s now read Leviticus 12.
READ LEVITICUS 12 all
Chapter 12 is short and directly to the point; it deals with the ritual status of a new mother as well as the newborn child. And it tells us that immediately upon childbirth the mother becomes ritually impure…..unclean. If it’s a male child the mother’s impurity lasts for a total of 40 days; for a girl baby the period of uncleanness doubles to 80 days. Utterly no reason is given for the difference in length of time between the two sexes and we’ll never be given a direct answer anywhere in Scripture for this difference. Now, interestingly, those periods of ritual impurity have been divided into two stages: the first stage (which is 7 days for boys and 14 days for girls); but the second stage is a bit different than the 1st; with the 2nd stage comes a slightly “less” impure state than for the first 7 or 14 days….and that second stage of “lesser” impurity is 33 days for a boy, and 66 days for a girl (note that 33 +7 = 40 and 66 + 14 = 80……40 and 80 being the TOTAL number of days of impurity after childbirth).
The first stage of 7 or 14 days is described as being of the same kind of impurity as for a woman who has entered her period. During this stage she can have no marital relations with her husband, and anything she has sat or laid on during her period is deemed to have become impure; and, as with anyone who is in an impure state for ANY reason, she must stay separate from any holy thing. This means she cannot bring a sacrifice to the Temple, nor touch any sacred thing. We’ll get into slightly more detail in chapter 15 about this, but the type of impurity transmitted by the new mother is not of a very serious nature; usually the item or person that has become impure is only in that state until sundown……that is, until the end of the day and the beginning of a new day.
Our rational/logical thinking immediately asks: why should a new mother be deemed unclean? Since “why” is irrelevant to most Biblical Hebrew thinking…..and since we’re instead on a search for patterns and not a series of proofs and scientific or logical reasons, the closest we can get to “why” is in the fact that the pattern for a woman’s giving birth …..becoming unclean and then regaining purity……is closely related to the woman’s menstrual cycle. And it seems that the whole matter of the CAUSE of the impurity contracted by the new mother is not so much about the baby, but about the associated discharge of blood. As it says in verse 7: RSV Leviticus 12:7 and he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her; then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood . This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. So it is the flow of blood that has made her impure, and from which she needs to be cleansed; it is not that she brought new life into the world. This “flow of her blood” is also called a discharge. And we’re going to find in following lessons that discharges from males OR females are, in certain cases, a cause to make the person ritually impure….unclean. And as childbirth creates a discharge of blood and fluid so does a woman’s monthly cycle……so we can see the reason for the pattern relationship between the two as regards it making a woman unclean.
There have been many interesting theories as to the reason Yehoveh would on the one hand instruct mankind to be fruitful and multiply…..and to constantly glorify women who give birth to many children (but declare as sad those who are barren) and on the other hand declare that the result of both the normal monthly process that readies a woman to become pregnant, and the process of bringing that new child into existence, would render that woman into an unclean state…ritually impure and unable to approach Yehoveh. I don’t even want to take the time to explore those theories with you because after considering them the reality is that they are but men’s theories that try to connect these Biblical purity laws with scientific reasons and health rationales and ancient taboos and such…..none of which is ever discussed in Scripture as a reason for these laws existing. It is in verse 3 that we get the critically important law that it was on the 8th day after birth that a male child was to be circumcised….circumcision was the sign of the covenant that Yehoveh gave to Abraham and therefore says this child is UNDER that covenant. Obviously, the choice of the 8th day has something to do with the mother’s ritual purity, because the 8th day of the boy baby’s life was the 1st day of the second stage of the new mother’s ritual impurity……a lesser impurity. There is quite a bit of symbolism involved with circumcision on the 8th day, but we’ll address that at another time.
During this 2nd stage of ritual impurity that commences (after 7 days) on the 8th day after childbirth for a boy, or (after 14 days) on the 15th day for a girl, and lasts either 33 days for a boy baby or 66 for a girl, marital relations between husband and wife may resume. But because the mother remains in even the least degree of impurity she cannot enter holy grounds nor touch any holy thing. Now the exact definition of what constituted a “holy” or “consecrated” thing varied a little over time and from the teachings of one Rabbi to another. In general a holy thing included anything that was going to be offered for sacrifice in the Temple. So when the new mother was a common Israelite and obligated to participate in regular sacrificial rituals, she could have nothing to do with any sacrificial animal, or food, or procedure during that period of uncleanness; but, when the new mother was a priest’s wife, she was also barred from eating the priest’s portion taken from a sacrifice that she otherwise would have been entitled to (remember, the primary food source for priests and their families was certain specified portions of the animal and grain sacrificial offerings offered by the common folk). Naturally this did NOT mean that she was deprived of daily sustenance or had to eat less during this time; rather the food she ate simply could not have PREVIOUSLY been used as part of a sacrifice. Priests did have money……its primary source coming from certain reparation offerings that required the giving of money in addition to animals……so they were able to buy food and other staple items they needed.
After the 40 or 80 day period of impurity was completed the new mother was required to bring two types of sacrifices to the Temple to complete the process of regaining her purity: the ‘Olah and the Hatta’at……that is, a burnt offering and a purification offering. I’m not going to revisit all the procedures of these two types of offerings; you can refer to our earlier lessons in Leviticus if you want detailed explanation of these. However I would like to point out that along with the ‘Olah sacrifice it was almost automatic that a Minchah sacrifice also be offered, so really 3 sacrifices were required of the new mother.
As concerns the Hatta’at sacrifice, this particular purpose for this type of sacrifice (the end of the new mother’s ritual impurity ceremonies) is part of the reason that I subscribe to calling the Hatta’at a “purification offering” rather than the more typically translated “sin offering”. The “sin offering” rendering for Hatta’at gives us the wrong impression of its purpose…….. that some type of sin has been committed and therefore it must be atoned for. As I think you are beginning to see, uncleanness (ritual impurity) doesn’t necessarily involve sin as we think of it at all. There appears to be NO sin laid upon a new mother that would make her unclean; getting pregnant, being pregnant, and giving birth was in no ways sinful. Rather it is the natural and normal discharge of blood accompanying childbirth that makes her unclean. The Hatta’at is usually performed as the end act in a series of rituals that takes an impure person back to a state of ritual purity……and only occasionally is some defined SIN the cause for the ritual impurity that is being cured.
Let me also take a moment to split a hair with you that I think you’ll find interesting and informative and can also be useful in understanding certain aspects of Yeshua’s atoning work in each of our lives.
We talked awhile back that the normal state for MOST things is clean……ritually pure. The exceptions (in the physical world) would be those animals and other things that Yehoveh, for His own mysterious reasons, has designated as UNCLEAN. Mankind (gentiles) CAN become unclean by engaging in certain behaviors (such as prostitution).
The God-principle here is that normally clean things can be defiled and degraded into a state of ritual impurity…..uncleanness….by committing unclean acts or contacting unclean objects. Or clean things can be sanctified, raised up and made holy, by a decree from God. But no UNCLEAN thing can be elevated directly into a state of holiness; nor can an unclean thing be allowed in the presence of holiness. Let me be clear on this, because it completely applies to the NT as well: a thing that is unclean CAN EVENTUALLY be brought into a state of holiness ONCE it has FIRST been brought into the intermediate state of CLEAN. It’s just that a thing that is in an UNCLEAN state cannot be declared holy directly from its current state of uncleanness. An unclean thing is not eligible to become holy until it has FIRST become clean.
We get the perfect example of this in Leviticus 12. The new mother is declared by Yehoveh to be in a state of uncleanness immediately following childbirth. She may NOT participate or be part of the regular worship practices of her family or her religious community BECAUSE she is unclean, and all uncleanness must be kept separate from holiness. So a block of time is legislated by Yehoveh that she must wait for her ritual impurity to end (40 days for giving birth to a male child, 80 days for a female child). There is NO way to shorten this period of time. And at the end of this block of time, as we’ll see in subsequent chapters, the new mother will engage in a ritual bath (she will be immersed in a Mikvah) that officially marks the end of her period of uncleanness. After the time has gone by and then she has been immersed, THEN she is clean. BUT, she has NOT YET entered back into the state of holiness she enjoyed immediately BEFORE she gave birth. After the waiting period and immersion in a Mikvah, she is made clean, but is not yet back into a renewed relationship with God; the sacrifices accomplish that.
So notice the progression: the new mother is both unclean AND as a result her state of holiness is temporarily suspended. In order to get back to the state of holiness afforded all Israelites by God, she first must become ritually clean because as an unclean person she cannot be in the presence of holiness (the Temple). ONCE she is clean again, NOW she is authorized to bring the sacrifice that allows her to regain her holy status. There is no shortcut. So we have learned that it was NOT that bringing new life into the world; the baby was not the cause of her impurity: rather, as it said in verse 7, it was the discharge, or flow, of blood from the birthing process that brought on the impurity. And we found that the Torah compares the type and level of impurity for the new mother with the woman who is in her monthly cycle; in both cases, she is unclean for a set period of time, and is barred from being in the presence of holiness until that time passes and she is immersed. Stay with me now, because try as I might there is nothing but mere words to explain a spiritual mystery that might seem like a mechanical process, but it is not. To begin I want to reiterate in the strongest possible terms that unclean is NOT a state that a Believer in Yeshua faces any longer. Ladies, as Believers, you do NOT become ritually impure each month, nor during childbirth. As a result of your trust in Christ, YOU remain holy and clean. In fact, as I have explained, by all I can ascertain from Holy Scripture no Believer can ever be defiled into an unclean condition as long as they ARE a Believer……because Yeshua’s atoning blood is at work at every moment. In our temporal world of time and space Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is said to be “once and for all”. That is it was a one-time event. In terms of the Torah and the Old Testament and the sacrificial system, one would say that His single sacrificial offering of His own body satisfied all matters where ritual sacrifice was needed for atonement. Yet, in the spiritual world where there is no time and space, it is as though His sacrifice is ongoing. It’s not another and another and another……it’s the same one, continuing, endless, eternal.
Now, sin…at least in the sense of bad behavior or disobedience or a breaking of the Levitical rules and regulations…..obviously is not at play here in the matter of ritual impurity for the new mother. So we see that we cannot equate the commission of sin with becoming unclean in every case. Yet unclean IS associated with sin. Let me explain: in the same way that some non- Believers……wonderful, caring, loving (but unsaved) people…..can SEEM to be living a nearly perfect life (Gandhi for example), a model life that I wish at times that I lived…..in fact, even if they did not commit any sins their very nature is sinful due to their relationship with Adam and Eve. Christians call this our sin nature, and just as the bad behavior….the commission of identifiable transgressions against the Father….must be atoned for, so must our sin natures be atoned for. That is why it is said that innocent babies who haven’t even had an opportunity to commit disobediences against God, are still in a sinful state……because they carry in their natures the results of the fall of our common earthly ancestors, Adam and Eve. It is in this sense where sin and unclean meet. Our sin nature will eventually produce uncleanness. Not a thing we can do about that….EXCEPT…..to rely on Yeshua’s atoning work for on our behalf.
BEFORE Christ it was the ‘Olah sacrifice….what we typically call the burnt offering…..that was designed to atone NOT for acts of sinful behavior or disobedience…..but for the Israelites’ sinful, and therefore unclean, natures. If you’ll recall our earlier lessons it was in Leviticus that we first discussed the ‘Olah and Minchah sacrifices; and in fact these sacrifices had nothing to do with committing trespasses against Yehoveh. It wasn’t until we got to the Hatta’at, the Asham, and the Zevah sacrifices that the Torah began to deal with sins against God and the impurity that sin produces. And notice that it is the ’Olah sacrifice that is required in Leviticus 12 of the new mother…..a sacrifice that has to do with atoning for her sinful nature. And then of course, the Hatta’at is also required because it has to do with purification……that is it is the price that is paid for her moving from an unclean to a clean state….from impure to pure. Jesus pays the price for our moving from unclean to clean (like the Hatta’at), and for moving from clean to holy (like the ‘Olah).
We also saw that a carefully orchestrated process had to occur to bring the new mother back from her uncleanness, to a state of cleanness, and from there to a restored state of holiness. Step one was waiting the required time, 40 days for a boy baby, 80 days for a girl baby. Step two (which we’ll see in later chapters) was a ritual bath….immersion in a Mikvah. This brought her from her defiled state of ritual impurity, uncleanness, back to a state of ritual purity, clean.
And now that she is clean again, she is ELIGIBLE to be made holy. To attain this holy status she must offer two (3, really) sacrifices of atonement…….the ‘Olah and the Hatta’at. If the sacrifices are properly performed she is consecrated and made acceptable to Yehoveh…..and readmitted to the group (the group being Israel) as a holy person. So, in my ladder of holiness analogy, she presumably enters her pregnancy on an upper rung, in a state of holiness. Childbirth knocks her off that ladder and down into a state of uncleanness. Her goal is now to work her way back up that ladder…..from unclean to clean….and then from clean to holy.
The stages of becoming holy works like that with us, today. First, while we begin life as clean, our sin nature will inevitably take us into unclean behaviors and thus we must come OUT from our uncleanness back to a clean state . As St. Paul explains: KJG Ephesians 5:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. And then in KJG 2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you…..” That is when we hear Yeshua calling to us, and make the decision that we are going to become a member of the Kingdom of God, forsaking that which is against God……this removes us from the status of the world-at-large and joins us to Israel and her covenants (as I have discussed with you at length, this is spiritual true Israel, not physical earthly Israel). Once we are cleansed by Yeshua (as the source of living water), then we can be made holy and acceptable to God by His blood. Now since this a spiritual matter, it all happens rather simultaneously for us….it’s not as though we can discern these separate and distinct steps from unclean, to clean, to holy as we saw here in Leviticus. But the spiritual principle for the process is taught to us here in chapter 12, and in other places in the Torah; how one can go from unclean to holy is broken down into bite-sized chunks that we can see and understand….. which, I maintain, is the primary purpose of Torah; to allow us to see and conceptualize and understand some infinite spiritual principles….chief among these being what sin is and what holiness is….. in a way our finite fleshly minds can grasp.
Now don’t ask me how all this happens in each individual…..or when the exact moment is that we move from unclean to clean, and then from clean to holy. I suspect it’s a little different for each individual….but maybe not. Yet, the process has ALWAYS been the same, and the need for a blood sacrifice to take us from the merely clean to the sanctified and holy is required just as it always has been. In the time before Christ, it was a series of specific sacrifices, performed again and again, to carry out this process; since the advent of Yeshua, it is HIS blood that is required…..not the blood of animals. And, of major importance and Good News for us is that there is no more holiness ladder to climb, fall off, and climb back up again. A Believer remains holy, and generally speaking, NEVER can be in a state of uncleanness….impurity….even if we should come into contact with uncleanness. We most certainly can be in a state of rebellion….which is basically a sustained time of disobedience to Yehoveh….but even THAT doesn’t make us unclean…..or more importantly, we don’t necessarily lose our holy status (but apparently it can lead to losing it). Let us never forget, however, that while disobedience does not generally cost us our salvation, it most certainly is an important matter to our Lord. If we love Him, why would we ever want to be disobedient to Him. As Paul says in NIV Romans 6:1 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” While we’ll cover aspects of the process of becoming clean from a state of uncleanness at a later time let me point out something that I’ll bring up again later: water is the purifying agent, while blood is the atoning agent. It is water that is used (immersion) to make an unclean person or thing clean, but it is blood that makes a clean person or thing holy.
That is why we are told that when the Roman soldier poked his spear into Jesus’ lifeless body, water poured out along with blood. Jesus called Himself “living water”. Living water was needed to purify, blood was needed to atone. We sing mostly of our Savior’s blood; but in fact His blood would have been of no use to us if He had not (in a spiritual sense) FIRST immersed us in His living water. That small little statement in the NT about the water and blood that poured from His side had great meaning to the Jews who witnessed it because they understand the necessity of both water and blood.
OK. That does it as concerns impurity and childbirth. Leviticus 13 and 14 now address ritual impurity as a result of skin diseases. And as odd as it may seem, these chapters even address “skin diseases” of inanimate objects: specifically of clothing and of houses.
So, let’s continue in our learning about ritual purity by reading Leviticus 13.
READ LEVITICUS CHAPTER 13:1-8
Chapters 13 and 14 are pretty lengthy and complex and full of detailed instruction. So, we need to break this thing up into some bite-sized chunks that we can digest. Chapter 13 verses 1-46 deals with skin diseases on humans; verses 47-58 deals with so-called “skin diseases” on leather and fabrics. When we get to Chapter 14, we’ll deal with skin diseases on houses.
For our purposes, though, we’re going to break this up into yet smaller pieces, beginning with the first 8 verses of chapter 13; because here we get instructions for the priests on how to determine whether the general symptoms of the patient are of a serious nature or are something transitory that is not so serious and will likely heal without further problem to the afflicted person or presenting a danger to his community.
Here we see the priests taking on a new role that adds to their already existing list of duties as officiators of rituals, guardians of Yehoveh’s holiness, and teachers. Their new role has a medical aspect to it as they must diagnose skin disease, and decide whether the person should be quarantined. And they must also decide WHEN the disease has fully healed and the person can be allowed back into society. Later the priests will also prescribe and preside over very elaborate purification rites.
Now recall that tzara’at was thought to be the outward manifestation of a person’s inward spiritual condition; that certain skin diseases (not ALL skin diseases) were the Lord’s way of making your secretly inward condition of uncleanness (that up to now was known only to God) to be made visible for all to see. Therefore the thing for us to grasp is that the priests did NOT take on the role of Doctors or healers. They did not tell a person how to get rid of the skin disease, incant some prayer over them, nor give them a potion, a cure, or a medicine or balm to alleviate itching or bleeding or pain. They didn’t instruct the afflicted in how to deal with their skin disease per se; rather, their job was simply to determine if that person indeed HAD a skin disease, in what general category it fell, and whether or not that person needed to be isolated from the group…. and, of course, when (if ever) that person could rejoin his community and what steps (from a ritual standpoint) were needed for that to happen. Actually this new role was simply the extension of one they already had: to distinguish between the clean and the unclean.
What is translated generally as “skin disease” in the Bible is in Hebrew tzara’at. Unfortunately, MOST Bibles will often inject the term “Leprosy” for tzara’at and that is simply not the case. Leprosy, or what is today more commonly called “Hansen’s disease” in the medical community, is not at all what is being described in Leviticus. I hate to be the one to destroy yet another stereotyped and mistaken scene from many Bible movies (oh, that’s not true, actually I love doing it!), but Leprosy was very rare; in Egypt there is no evidence from the vast amounts of their ancient public records or from the thousands upon thousands of skeletons and mummies dug up and examined, that true Leprosy even showed its ugly head in Egypt before the 5th century AD! And, while there is evidence it existed in Canaan and the area of Palestine during the Israelites time there, it was rare indeed; so the mental picture of large leper colonies, with people regularly exiled there, is simply not so. And neither did a priest often encounter someone with Leprosy.
This comes from an error in understanding the NT Greek word “Lepra”, which was chosen to translate the Hebrew word tzara’at; Lepra was eventually English-ized to Leprosy, and Leprosy was, of course, the most dreaded of diseases. Since Leprosy is so dramatically grotesque in its appearance and deadly in its outcome, it made great fodder for Biblical stories and sermons; so the translation of tzara’at to mean Leprosy stuck even though the theological as well as medical communities have long ago determined that what was being referred to in the Bible had little or nothing to do with Leprosy. Interestingly the Greeks DID have a precise word for what we commonly think of as Leprosy, or more accurately Hansen’s disease: elephantiasis . And naturally you won’t find the Greek word elephantiasis in the NT because that is not what it was.
Further, tzara’at is not a specific disease, but rather a general term for a whole range of skin diseases and skin abnormalities, which by the Law render a person ritually impure…unclean. The current general consensus is that the described skin diseases in Leviticus more resemble Psoriasis, Favus, and Leucoderma. Psoriasis is a non-contagious flakiness of the skin, that can involve anywhere from a very small patch of skin to practically the entire body. The scales of Psoriasis are usually a shiny whitish color, but if one scratches them off due to the usual persistent itching associated with the condition, the underlying cells are more reddish in color. For all practical purposes Psoriasis is not something that affects the overall health of the person nor is it considered fatal, but a serious case can be quite debilitating.
Favus, however, is more serious. It is a fungus that attacks hairy areas of the body, normally only the scalp. Favus is quite contagious and because it affects the deepest layers of skin as well as the hair follicles it can leave permanent disfigurement in addition to baldness on the disease-scarred area.
Leucoderma is a skin disease that causes the skin to lose its natural color and turn white. It usually occurs in patches and only affects the pigment, which is present in the top layers of skin.
This list is not exhaustive but it gives us a pretty good idea of what tzara’at looked like. What we see from this is that these various forms of tzara’at are not generally fatal, nor usually damaging to the patient’s overall health, as is Leprosy. Usually these are nuisance skin diseases….although some could last a lifetime; but I don’t want to minimize the affliction as I know that some of these diseases bring an intense itching and some amount of pain that can drive people crazy….and we should not think that the physical scarring and deformities some of these diseases caused, though not usually major, were any less important to the psyche of those ancient Hebrews than to us moderns.
So while there most definitely is a medical aspect to God’s rules concerning tzara’at it is not really about protecting the community from deadly diseases…..because tzara’at weren’t deadly diseases. Rather it was more about ritual purity than about being ill. The consequences of tzara’at were devastating in other ways; a person who is declared unclean from tzara’at is put outside the camp…..away from his family and society…..and depending on the condition, perhaps he or she will be banished for life. And this banishment is not just from spouse, or children, or tribe; this person is separated from God. He is unclean…..impure…..unfit for life in God’s holy community and therefore unfit for acceptance by Yehoveh. If a priest contracted tzara’at he lost his lofty status as a special servant to God in addition to suffering the pain and humiliation of being sent outside the camp. So we need to grasp that the Hebrews’ dread of tzara’at focused primarily on the defilement it brought on, and the prescribed separation from Yehoveh and the people of God that resulted.