This begins a new section of the book which continues through chapter 15. It seems to interrupt the narrative leaving chapter 10 which picks up again with 16.
While this chapter deals with foods and animals, 12 covers a mother's ritual cleanness after childbirth, 13 and 14 cover skin diseases and 15 deals with people unclean due to bodily discharges.
This is new material but it was previewed in 10:10
View these chapters as what the priests were to teach the Israelites to understand, "the clean and the unclean"
This chapter begins by specifying animals, which were clean and which were not
Then gives description of how people could become unclean and what to do when it happened
Concludes by noting the purpose of identifying clean animals. God defining what His people could and could not eat (11:46-47)
Clean and unclean animals goes back to the time of Noah (Genesis 7:2-3, 8; 8:20)
1. First few verses describe four legged animals. Two characteristics necessary for them to be used for food:
a. Split hooves
b. Chewed the cud
Allowed: Cattle, sheep, goats, gazelles, antelopes
Deuteronomy 14 is parallel to this chapter and specifies oxen, sheep, goats, deer, gazelles and roebucks (type of deer), goats, ibex (type of mountain goat), antelope and mountain sheep
Verse 5 - Rock hyrax: looks like a guinea pig. Although it looks like a rodent, it's a pachyderm...doesn't chew the cud
Verse 6 - The hare (rabbit): Doesn't really chew cut like cattle
"The text doesn't claim scientific precision; it simply makes it possible for an observer to know how to identify a clean animal."
Verse 8 - "You shall not" same absolute form as laws of the Ten Commandments. Notice touching an unclean animal if it was alive didn't make one unclean. If it had, horses, donkeys or camels couldn't have been used and ridden
2. Verses 9-12 deal with fish
Clean animals had to have two characteristics, so did fish
a. Fins
b. Scales
Eliminates shellfish: shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, mussels, oysters, scallops
You better know Acts 10 and 11 and Galatians 2!
3. Verses 13-19 deal with birds
Here, God didn't bother to give a list of what was clean or not, nor did He give reasons why some were clean and others weren't. He simply listed 20 kinds of unclean birds
What made them unclean? One common characteristic: they were meat eaters. Their diet consisted of other dead creatures
Four times this passage lists a bird then adds "in its kind" or "in its kinds" which communicates that all varieties of that bird should be regarded as unclean
Verse 19 - The bad: not a bird, it's a mammal. Of course it has a lot in common with birds. Again, not concerned about scientific exactness
4. Winged Insects Verses 20-23
Who would eat locusts? Matthew 3:4, John the Baptist "locusts and wild honey"
(Side note) R.K. Harrison in the Leviticus book of the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: "As a food, locusts have been eaten in the Near East for millennia. A royal banquet scene from the palace of Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC), the last great Assyrian king, depicted servants bringing locusts on sticks for the guests to eat."
Notice no penalty is given if they ate unclean foods. What would happen? Death like Nadab and Abihu? Most scholars believe that eating unclean foods made a person unclean. To be clean again, he'd have to follow the same procedures required if he became unclean by touching something unclean.
Verses 24-40 deal with uncleanness in people
Rules can be summed up:
1. Touching a dead animal made you unclean
2. The remedy was washing with water and allowing time to pass
3. Dead animals contaminated things and the things contaminated had to be made clean. If this wasn't possible, they'd be destroyed
24-28: Contact with unclean animals
Touch it, wash yourself
Pick it up, also wash clothes
You'd be unclean until evening. Consequence: Can't enter the tabernacle area or give a sacrifice
29-38: Contact with unclean swarming animals and reptiles
Q: What if carcass fell in an oven or stove?
A: Destroy it (Verse 35)
Q: What if carcass fell into or touched a spring or cistern?
A: Didn't make it unclean, perhaps because over time water replenishes it (Verse 36)
Q: What if it touched a seed?
A: Seed was clean unless it was also touched by unclean water (verses 37-38)
The reason for these requirements (41-45)
First and last statements say the same thing. God gave the reason for the law in the middle statement twice, at the beginning and at the end
Also, perhaps avoiding practices connected to idolatry
distinguish God's people from others
promote general welfare of people
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