Scripture Daily

Context No. 2545 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 14:43-47: in context

43“If the plague comes again, and breaks out in the house after he has taken out the stones, and after he has scraped the house, and after it was plastered, 44then the priest shall come in and look; and behold, if the plague has spread in the house, it is a destructive mildew in the house. It is unclean. 45He shall break down the house, its stones, and its timber, and all the house’s mortar. He shall carry them out of the city into an unclean place. 46“Moreover he who goes into the house while it is shut up shall be unclean until the evening. 47He who lies down in the house shall wash his clothes; and he who eats in the house shall wash his clothes.

Leviticus gives a strange law about a house infected with a spreading mildew. First the priest tries lesser measures: remove the affected stones, scrape the walls, replaster. But if the plague breaks out again after all that, the verdict is severe. The house is to be torn down entirely, its stones and timber and mortar carried out of the city to an unclean place.

There is a hard wisdom in the law. Some corruption cannot be managed with patches and touch-ups; scrape it and replaster, and it comes back. When an infection has sunk that deep, the only remedy is to tear the whole thing down and haul it away. It is a picture worth holding against our own habits. There are sins and entanglements we keep trying to manage, remove a stone here, replaster there, hoping a partial fix will hold, when what they actually require is radical removal, however costly. Jesus said as much: if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Some things cannot be renovated; they must be demolished.

What am I trying to manage with patches and touch-ups that actually needs to be torn out entirely, however costly the demolition?

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