June 8, 2018: Day 55 – Leviticus 15

Great to be back, by the way.  Sorry for the long silence, nearly two weeks, wow, that is a long time.  Alaska was awesome, Italy is next.  Back to Leviticus.

I hope you get the idea that cleanliness was next to godliness in the eyes of the people of Israel.  Certainly God required it and certain measures were enacted to ensure that the people were clean to the nth degree.  Back in that day without antiseptic someone could die from just a simple cut if it got infected and gangrene set in and then that would be the end of the story.  But what we find in this chapter is simply natural events that happen in life which Scripture here defines as unclean.  

A man who has a discharge, I guess loose bowel would count as that, as well as a discharge of semen was considered unclean.  Likewise a woman who was in her regular monthly period was considered unclean.  We know that neither of these things can create catastrophic health problems, but the people back then didn’t know it.  Anything that came out of the body was considered unclean and so was seen as potentially dangerous.  

Obviously we no longer follow any of these rules by considering anyone unclean and untouchable for a week or longer because of their physical condition.  It is amazing how detailed these laws are, probably way more information than what we would want to know.  

Imagine living in a culture where certain people are considered unclean.  In India and other countries there remains some of this with the caste system and how much certain levels of the caste can interact with others in different castes.  The more things change…