Leviticus is known to be a very difficult book because it not a story book and neither is it a narrative text like most of the Old Testament books. Leviticus is a transcription of one speaker who speaks to Moses and Moses is not an interlocutor but just a listener.
God who is the sole speaker throughout the book, is meticulous with details since every mistake, every sin and every sinner in the community results in either DEATH of the culprit or into the DEFILEMENT OF GOD’S HOLINESS.
The book of Leviticus, therefore, is a book about how God deals with DIRT, the dirt of his people and the ultimate dirt that essentially causes the dirt we see. The approach to this dirt-dealing that God stipulates in the book of Leviticus is through LAWS. And these laws are categorised into three sections:
- The first is the RITUAL LAWS and these are found in chapters 1-7 and 23-27. Under these, we see types of offerings due to a specific reason, types of sacrificial Animals, offered by who and why. We see kinds of religious festivals and special ritualistic days. All these are about God’s ways of dealing with the dirt between him and the human race and am sure if you have been here, some rituals have made meaning to you already
- The second is PRIESTHOOD LAWS the chapters concerned with these are: 8-10 and 21-22. Under these, we saw (especially those at the fellowship): who a priest is, the need of a priest, the Levitical order of the priest, qualifications, consecration/ordination of a priest and the role of a priest.
- The PURITY LAWS is the third section of the Laws in Leviticus and these are in chapters 11-15 and 18-20.
Under this animals are back but not for sacrifice but rather Holiness (clean and unclean) purposes. Dietary and Contact stipulations about all creatures on land, Sea, and Air are stated and characteristic features of clean and unclean animals are stated. What you eat, touch and contact makes you unclean for a day or a week. Then there is Body uncleanness, it could be a disease or a bodily discharge like blood, flu, pus, faeces, and semen all these made one unclean.
It could again be about an unclean Garment. Dress of the sick was unclean and could make others in touch unclean too. Or that garment could be unclean on the part that contacted a diseased body part…sometimes you could tear off that part or burn the whole garment to deal with that dirt.
Mothers were unclean after giving birth and the duration of their uncleanness depended on the sex of the baby…for girls, the duration of uncleanness was longer. Houses-structures could also be unclean and deal with real-estate uncleanness necessitated renovation (breaking, throwing out and rebuilding) or Demolish the entire house and have another in place.
Then there was social uncleanness the details are in chapters 18-20, am sure we will have to read all that again. However, all these purity laws were concerned with one fundamental Biblical theme and that is HOLINESS.
I hope this helps, may God bless you.
I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH
Pr. ITM White
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 