Scripture Daily

Context No. 1772 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 11:26-38: in context

26“‘Every animal which has a split hoof that isn’t completely divided, or doesn’t chew the cud, is unclean to you. Everyone who touches them shall be unclean. 27Whatever goes on its paws, among all animals that go on all fours, they are unclean to you. Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening. 28He who carries their carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. They are unclean to you. 29“‘These are they which are unclean to you among the creeping things that creep on the earth: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, 30the gecko, and the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink, and the chameleon. 31These are they which are unclean to you among all that creep. Whoever touches them when they are dead shall be unclean until the evening. 32Anything they fall on when they are dead shall be unclean; whether it is any vessel of wood, or clothing, or skin, or sack, whatever vessel it is, with which any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the evening. Then it will be clean. 33Every earthen vessel into which any of them falls and all that is in it shall be unclean. You shall break it. 34All food which may be eaten which is soaked in water shall be unclean. All drink that may be drunk in every such vessel shall be unclean. 35Everything whereupon part of their carcass falls shall be unclean; whether oven, or range for pots, it shall be broken in pieces. They are unclean, and shall be unclean to you. 36Nevertheless a spring or a cistern in which water is gathered shall be clean, but that which touches their carcass shall be unclean. 37If part of their carcass falls on any sowing seed which is to be sown, it is clean. 38But if water is put on the seed, and part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.

This part of the law spells out, in careful detail, which animals are clean and which unclean, and how uncleanness is transmitted: touching a carcass, carrying it, the vessels it falls into. An earthen pot that a dead creature falls into must be broken; food and drink in it become unclean. The instructions are minute, tedious to modern ears, all concerned with distinguishing the clean from the unclean and guarding against defilement in the ordinary handling of daily life.

Whatever else these detailed laws did, they trained Israel in a habit: attentiveness to what defiles. Day by day, in the ordinary business of cooking, eating, and handling things, the people were taught to notice the difference between clean and unclean, to be careful about what they touched and what touched them, to guard against defilement rather than being careless about it. The laws cultivated a sensitivity, a watchfulness about holiness woven into the details of daily life. The specific rules about carcasses and pots do not bind us now; the New Testament makes clear that no food defiles us. But the habit the laws cultivated is worth recovering in a deeper form: attentiveness to what defiles the heart and shapes the soul. We are prone to carelessness about what we allow to touch us, what we take in through our eyes and ears, what we consume, watch, dwell on, keep company with; we let things soak into us without a thought for whether they defile. Israel was trained to notice, to distinguish, to be careful; and Scripture calls us to a like attentiveness about the things that shape our inner life. What am I letting touch me, absorb into me, form me? The porous earthen vessel that took in defilement had to be broken; and some things we let soak into us cannot simply be rinsed away but must be renounced. The old laws about clean and unclean are gone, but the underlying summons remains: not to be careless about what we let touch and shape us, but attentive, discerning, guarding the heart from what defiles it.

Am I careless about what I allow to touch and shape me, what I take in through my eyes and ears and dwell on, letting things soak into me without a thought for whether they defile, or can I recover the attentiveness these laws cultivated, guarding my heart and being discerning about what I let form my inner life?

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