Bible Commentaries
Leviticus 11

Verses 1-33

VI

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CLEAN AND UNCLEAN

Leviticus 11-15

The scope of Leviticus 11-15.

The minds of commentators, Bible students, and people generally have been very much perplexed to account for this feature of the Levitical law. In other words, that only certain animals must be used for food, and then, uncleanness coming from three other directions, one of which is exceedingly delicate; that, you will have to read about and not have the discussion of it. First, the sexual uncleanness of man or woman; and second, the touching of dead bodies, whether they are clean or unclean; and third, leprosy. And when you have taken those three, you have taken all except what is based on the distinction between the clean and the unclean animals. This applies in two directions, viz.: as to use in sacrifices and more largely as to use in eating. This Levitical distinction between the clean and the unclean and remedies for removing uncleanness have perplexed the minds of more Bible students, perhaps, than any other one thing. And their difficulty is, to account for the principle which determines such legislation, and various opinions have been entertained as to the principle which accounts for this Levitical legislation. I am quite sure that no man could rationally account for the principles that were in the Divine Mind as to these distinctions apart from what the Divine Mind has said. He may attempt philosophically to account for the state which depended only upon the law, but that does not account for the reason or principle underlying it. And there is always a reason for every law. Whether that reason is assigned or not, there is a reason. My own mind is pretty well settled on the subject, though I have tried hard enough to confuse it by reading the literature of various men that have tried to account for it in various ways.

There are certain antecedent facts that are necessary to a settlement of the question, and the first fact is that as God made man before he was a sinner he was a vegetarian. I mean to say that he was permitted to eat only fruits, cereals, and salads and things of that kind. This is the first fact. The second significant fact on the eating question is found in the beginning of Genesis 9. When Noah came out of the ark, this language is used: "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth." You see this is an entirely new race commission. The first race commission begins with Adam. Now the race starts anew with an entirely new head. "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth . . ." Now comes the clause, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all." Now, the reference there, "as I have given you the green herb," refers to the first law on the subject, the law of Eden. I quote: "And God said, Behold I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food" (Genesis 1:29).

Now, that is the original commission about what man must eat, but in this more enlarged commission given to the race through Noah in chapter 9 before there were any Jews, Noah and his family standing for the race, God says, "As I gave you the green herb for food so now I give you every living thing that moveth." In no discussion that I have ever seen are the facts brought out that I am giving you now. So you see the race is spoken of, Noah being the head of the race; there is no legislation against what you shall eat, either vegetable or animal food, no clean or unclean animals.

Now, the third fact, and I am discussing only the eating now, is that when God gave to Peter the key to the kingdom of heaven that opened the door to the Gentiles, as recorded in Acts 10, he let down a great ark or white sheet from heaven and in that ark were all the animals, whether brutes, that is, beasts, or birds, or creeping things; and he says, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." Peter says "Not so, Lord; I have never been accustomed to eat anything unclean." And God says, "What I have cleansed call thou not common." The import of all which is, that whatever legislation was made by Moses with reference to distinction of meats in eating, stops with the Jews; and hence the apostle Paul elaborately argues his liberty to eat anything if it is received with thankfulness. So that it is a fact that in the New Testament the Levitical law as to the distinction between clean and unclean animals is abrogated.

Now, notice the bearing of this fact on the New Testament, i.e., the principle that led to the legislation. When you come to the New Testament times and the kingdom of God is taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles, again there is no limitation. These facts force us to look for a reason in the Divine Mind that applied to this people, that is, the Jews as a people in order to get at the distinction. Now I venture to say that you never get beyond the reach of these facts.

The next thing is the distinction between clean and unclean, not as to eating, but as to sacrifice. When did that originate? It did not originate with Noah, as far as sacrifices are concerned, for God commissioned Noah to take into the ark with him one pair of unclean animals and birds and seven pairs of clean animals and birds, as if Noah understood it, and Noah did understand it. And so when Noah came out of the ark he took of the animals and offered sacrifice to God; so this question is forced upon us: Where did the distinction between the clean and unclean animals for sacrifice originate? Not with Adam, not with Noah. Now I will give you the origin. It is equal to a plain statement. It originated as soon as man sinned; when he was expelled from the garden and the symbolical, or typical, method of approach to God was appointed. We know this to be true. In Genesis 4, when one of Adam’s sons brought the clean beast from the flock and God received it, and the other offered simply the produce from his farm, his was rejected; so that I offer to you as the conviction of my mind that the distinction between clean and unclean animals for sacrifice originated when man sinned.

Now, when an issue stands perfectly clear in my own mind, I am on pretty sure ground and my conviction is very clear so far as clean and unclean animals are concerned, that it originated when man sinned, by the appointment of God and would necessarily cease when the Antitype came. So that we find God’s own distinction in animals for sacrifice going back to the sin of man, further back than we carry the distinction of eating. Now, these facts will help us to get at the origin of the distinction between the clean and the unclean in the Divine Mind establishing this regulation. So I point out, first, that the distinction between clean and unclean animals both as to sacrifice and eating was to symbolize certain great spiritual truths and when the symbol was fulfilled, the obligation to continue would then cease. That is principle one. Principle two is for hygienic reasons, sanitary reasons. You know what "hygienic" means. You have studied medicine enough to know that. Sanitary reasons had something to do with it but modern scientists claim that it had everything to do with this distinction between the unclean and the clean animals. Now it is a sad truth that they consider only one principle and that is the sanitary reason, claiming that, as far as eating is concerned, it is the only one worth discussing. I admit the sanitary reason, but I do not give it the prominence that they do, since the commission to Noah did not include it as a race commission. Therefore, the sanitary reason for the whole race does not explain it.

It is wise to use those foods, the use of which is the least dangerous to human health. God knew that this law would last only until the Messiah came and that it applied to the Jews, and that the Jews would simply be around the Mediterranean Sea, in a tropical country, and if I were living in that country now, I wouldn’t eat swine meat, for sanitary reasons. In the tropics it is not best to eat hog meat, and this law proscribes some food that can’t be eaten. Whether in the tropics or out of it, it is not best to eat blood. Statistics have been carefully gathered, that to me are intensely significant. You take the Jews living now in any country of the world, and where they follow the regimen of diet prescribed in the book of Leviticus, these Jews average a longer life than other people, better health than other people and less liable to contagious diseases than other people. Read an account of an epidemic sweeping clear over the country and it is astonishing how very few Jews have it. Now, that fact shows that the food we eat has a great deal to do with the health of the body. Look at those people in the camp life in the wilderness, in the blazing hot country, and for sanitary reasons, these Levitical reasons, they were forbidden to eat certain things. I mention that as the second principle.

Now the third principle. It was the purpose of God to isolate Israel from all the nations of the earth; and in order to isolate Israel) her worship was to be separated from that of other people. .For if they came to the table with the Gentiles, then intermarriage is permitted, and with intermarriage comes the idolatry of the heathen. The history, as you will see when you study Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, shows the introduction of idolatry to come with the association of the Jews with the heathen. A Jewish king with a heathen wife came near blotting religion from the world, and in it all Elijah stood alone with the exception of 7,000 people that had not bowed their knees to Baal. But he thought he was alone in the world and asked God to take him out of the world. So these people must be kept separate from the other people, there must be things that separate them; things that would not permit that degree of intimate association that permits marriage. So these things were given to make a line of demarcation between the Jews and the Gentiles. But when the Jewish policy had served its purpose, then the same God that drew that line tore it down and blotted out the distinction between the clean and the unclean. Those are the three reasons that are satisfactory to my mind, and while I might cite fifty others, advocated by commentators, none of them seems to be of any force but these three. Now note carefully: First, the distinction was made in order to symbolize certain great spiritual truths that would be brought out; second, hygienic or sanitary reasons led to this distinction, and third, this legislation was to isolate Israel and tend to keep it as a separate and particular people.

I come now to another feature of the case, viz.: the touching of dead bodies. If one was defiled, there was a ritual prescribed by which he could become clean ceremonially, before God. It is easy to see in that case the spiritual truth that is embodied in that symbolism. Death is the wages of sin, and the body without the spirit is dead. Now then, in order to make these people realize the necessity of holiness, they must keep apart from the dead. "Let the dead bury their dead." And if propriety would admit of the discussion of the sexual feature of it, I could make that explanation perfectly satisfactory to you also.

Now we come to the case of leprosy. Why was leprosy and no other form of sickness selected? The commentaries discuss much whether the leprosy of Leviticus is the leprosy of modern times as we understand it. I say to you that it is. I have not time to prove it, but you may just take my assurance that when Leviticus says leprosy it means leprosy in its most loathsome form. Why, now, was leprosy put along beside the bodies of dead men? Simply because one declared to be leprous was as one dead. It was a living death. As it progressed and disfigured the body, it would eat away the nose and the different parts of the body. In other words, -the soul was confined in the charnel house of corruption. He must be segregated, he must hide himself, must not allow other people to come near him. The law commanded him to cover his upper lip, and when he saw any one coming toward him he must cry out, "Unclean, unclean, unclean!" Therefore we find leprosy selected both in the Old and the New Testaments as expressive of sin, and the healing of leprosy as the exercise of the power of God. Medicine cannot cure leprosy when it gets to a certain stage.

A great many things commence like leprosy, and such cases had to be tested, therefore some of these regulations. A man is segregated and the high priest examines him and keeps him segregated until it is known not to be leprosy. Here are the symptoms: First, if the skin turns perfectly white, this is the first step; second, there appear growing out of that spot hairs that are white; that man is pronounced a leper, and then that last fearful sloughing off, eating form comes. Sometimes people would have this white spot and the white hair appearing in this spot and not have leprosy. It was because it did not develop a case in full, but the high priest was to count them lepers until it was shown not to be leprosy. Lepers regarded leprosy as a stroke from God, and indeed that is the etymological meaning of the word. The Hebrew word means a stroke, that is, stroke from God. When the application was made to the king of Israel to heal Naaman, who was a leper, he says, "They seek occasion against me; am I God, that I can make alive?" He meant that it required supernatural power, divine power, to heal a leper. Some of the most noted sermons that have ever been preached have been sermons on leprosy as a type of sin.

Now we come to consider the distinction, not as to the reason of its appointment, but what the distinction itself was between the clean and the unclean, and that is easy to tell. Of the beasts, there must be two things to make it a clean beast, and it did not merely apply to sacrifices. I will show you the limitation directly. No beast could be offered as sacrifice or be eaten as food, unless it possessed two characteristics, viz.: a cloven hoof and the chewing of the cud. Now, the camel’s hoof is not cloven but it chews the cud; the sheep’s hoof is cloven and it does chew the cud; the hog’s hoof is cloven but it does not chew the cud. A number of wild animals are good for food because they divide the hoof and chew the cud, but only domestic animals that divide the hoof and chew the cud could be used as sacrifice. The others were unclean, but any animal, domestic or otherwise, that chewed the cud and divided the hoof could be eaten, for instance, the antelope, the deer, and all other animals of that kind. Now this is the distinction of beasts.

Now we come to the birds and there the distinction is expressed in classes. Certain birds are mentioned, for instance, the dove, the pigeon. They could be used as sacrifice. They had the characteristic generally attributed to them, of innocence. They were not birds of prey. Certain others are specified. All carnivorous birds were excluded, and some birds eat bad flesh, as you know, and that applied to the beasts. There were graminivorous beasts; that means "grass-eating" beasts. They did not have tusks. They had molars, or grinders. The graminivorous beast perhaps would be clean, but none could be clean that was not a grass-eating beast. The eagle, the vulture, the owl, the bat, the stork, the heron, and the crane are mentioned by name as not clean. The goose, the duck, the chicken, and all the variety of quail could be eaten, but only certain ones could be used as sacrifice.

Now we come to another class, and here is what the Hebrew, literally translated, says about a certain class of things that were clean: First, he must be winged, and second, he must have four legs beside the hind legs used for hopping and jumping; as locusts, crickets, etc. Many people eat them. John the Baptist was a "bug-eater," and in some countries the locust is a general article of food. Now think of that, fellow. First) he must be able to fly; he must be able to walk on all fours; he must have wings to fly, and his hind legs must be hopping legs. There is, of course, in this country, a great deal of prejudice against eating grasshoppers, but I am sure that if you were over in those countries and did not know what they were, you would eat them. They are dried in the sun and then ground up into flour and baked into a kind of cake. So you would not know what it was. I confess I don’t want any myself.

Now, have you got that perfectly clear? The animal in order to be eaten, must divide the hoof and chew the cud, and in order to be used as a sacrifice, must not only do that but it must be domestic; as, the cow, the sheep, the goat. The birds are specified by classes and must not be carnivorous birds. The grasshopper class must have four legs, two hoppers, and be able to fly. Now, there is one more class and that is the fishes. Two characteristics the fish must have in order to be Levitically fit to eat. It must have fins and it must have scales – fins and scales both. The catfish wouldn’t do. It has no scales; but there are others that would not do; as, the oyster. There people didn’t eat many oysters and we leave them out in the hot months. Now suppose it was hot all the time, as it is there; we would eat very few oysters. The rule will not apply to fishes as to birds. The fishes that have fins and scales are carnivorous; for instance, take a big trout. He eats the smaller fish and is carnivorous and voracious. There are four distinctions in fact, and I have discussed the principles.

Now the method of removing uncleanness, and the details are elaborate. I recommend again the volume on Leviticus in the Expositors Bible, as one of the best expositions of the book I ever read, by Kellogg. He is not poisoned by higher criticism, as most of these books are. When I go over a book, I am sure to tell you what books to use. The Expositor’s and the Cambridge Bibles are widely used; while some parts of them you cannot rely on, you can rely on the Leviticus volume of the Expositor’s Bible.

Dr. Wilkinson, of Chicago, came down to Texas to deliver a series of lectures. One of his subjects was "The Book of Leviticus" and all his lectures were on the introduction to the book. He came to me and said, "What have you on Leviticus that is any account?" I said, "Take Kellogg, of the Expositor’s Bible." He says, "It is in mighty bad company." But when he brought the book back, he said, "I thank you that you called my attention to that book. I had such a dislike for the Expositor’s Bible that I never thought to look in there for anything good, but it is superb."

Now, I will tell you of another that will bring out the spiritual, and that is Mackintosh. He is spiritual, though a premillennialist. They do stand foursquare for the truth and I have always loved that kind of a man. If they stand square and do not yield to the higher critics; if they are spiritually minded and their teaching is spiritual, I am going to take them close to my heart and convert them as fast as I can. There are some mighty good people among them. Moody was one. A. C. Dixon, W. B. Riley, and others are among them and they are mighty good people.

Our next lesson is on Leviticus 17 and we take up the law of holiness in that. That refers to eating, which has been discussed in this study, but solely with reference to the distinction of meats. That law of holiness governs eating in other respects, viz.: the purity of life, the purity in the marriage relation – all that comes under the head of this law. The most interesting part of Leviticus after we pass chapter 16 is the times, the set times in which Israel is to appear before God. It follows out this idea viz.: that Leviticus is the developments of that part of the law which is the altar and shows the way of approach to God, through what one shall approach God, through whom he shall approach God, and then gives the inauguration of the service after it has been established, the culmination of that service in regard to the clean and the unclean animals, and the times to come before God, i.e., the set times: First, the evening and the morning; second, the weekly sabbaths; third, the monthly, or lunar sabbaths; fourth, the great annual sabbaths; fifth, the landsabbath, or the seventh-year sabbath; and sixth, the Jubilee sabbath, the seven times seven, or fiftieth-year sabbath, the Jubilee.

QUESTIONS

1. What puzzling question relative to the distinction between, the clean and the unclean in eating and in sacrifice?

2. What is the real difficulty with Bible students on this question?

3. What three divisions of uncleanness as relating to persons?

4. Who two classes, or divisions, as relating to animals?

5. How, then, account for these principles?

6. What antecedent facts necessary to a settlement of this question as it relates to eating?

7. What is the import of the revelation to Peter in. Acts 10?

8. What, then, does Paul say on this question?

9. What bearing has this principle on New Testament revelation?

10. What do these facts force us to look for?

11. When did the distinction between the clean and unclean animals for sacrifice originate?

12. Then, when would this distinction between the clean and unclean animals for sacrifice necessarily cease?

13. According to these facts, what is principle number one as to the distinction between clean and unclean animals relating to both sacrifice and eating?

14. What, then, is principle number two?

15. What is the contention of modern scientists on this and your reply?

16. How did this principle apply to the Jews?

17. What evidence of its influence on the Jewish life?

18. What is principle number three?

19. What three things were essential to accomplish the isolation of Israel?

20. When were these distinctions blotted out?

21. Why did the touching of a dead body render one unclean?

22. Why was leprosy and no other form of sickness selected?

23. Why was leprosy selected in both Testaments as expressive of sin?

24. What are the symptoms of leprosy?

25. How did lepers regard leprosy and why?

26. What distinction between clean and unclean beasts as to eating?

27. What distinction as to sacrifice?

28. What distinction as to birds?

29. What is said of the grasshopper class?

30. What distinguishes the clean from the unclean in fishes?