_CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS, AND DEFILEMENT BY DEAD BODIES._
_Lev._ xi. 1-47.
With chap. xi. begins a new section of this book, extending to the end
of chap. xv., of which the subject is the law concerning various
bodily defilements, and the rites appointed for their removal.
The law is given under four heads, as follows:--
I. Clean and Unclean Animals, and Defilement by Dead Bodies: chap. xi.
II. The Uncleanness of Child-birth: chap. xii.
III. The Uncleanness of Leprosy: chaps. xiii., xiv.
IV. The Uncleanness of Issues: chap. xv.
From the modern point of view this whole subject appears to many, with
no little reason, to be encompassed with peculiar difficulties. We
have become accustomed to think of religion as a thing so exclusively
of the spirit, and so completely independent of bodily conditions,
provided that these be not in their essential nature sinful, that it
is a great stumbling-block to many that God should be represented as
having given to Israel an elaborate code of laws concerning such
subjects as are treated in these five chapters of Leviticus: a
legislation which, to not a few, seems puerile and unspiritual, if not
worse. And yet, for the reverent believer in Christ, who remembers
that our blessed Lord did repeatedly refer to this book of Leviticus
as, without any exception or qualification, the Word of His Father, it
should not be hard, in view of this fact, to infer that the
difficulties which most of us have felt are presumably due to our very
imperfect knowledge of the subject. Remembering this, we shall be able
to approach this part of the law of Moses, and, in particular, this
chapter, with the spirit, not of critics, but of learners, who know as
yet but little of the mysteries of God's dealings with Israel or with
the human race.
Chap. xi. may be divided into two sections, together with a concluding
appeal and summary (vv. 41-47). The first section treats of the law of
the clean and the unclean in relation to eating (vv. 1-23). Under this
head, the animals which are permitted or forbidden are classified,
after a fashion not scientific, but purely empirical and practical,
into (1) the beasts which are upon the earth (vv. 2-8); (2) things
that are in the waters (vv. 9-12); (3) flying things,--comprising,
first, birds and flying animals like the bat (vv. 13-19); and,
secondly, insects, "winged creeping things that go upon all four" (vv.
20-23).
The second section treats of defilement by contact with the dead
bodies of these, whether unclean (vv. 24-38), or clean (vv. 39, 40).
Of the living things among the beasts that are upon the earth (vv.
2-8), those are permitted for food which both chew the cud and divide
the hoof; every animal in which either of these marks is wanting is
forbidden. Of the things which live in the waters, those only are
allowed for food which have both fins and scales; those which lack
either of these marks, such as, for example, eels, oysters, and all
the mollusca and crustacea, are forbidden (vv. 9-12). Of flying things
(vv. 13-19) which may be eaten, no special mark is given; though it is
to be noted that nearly all of those which are by name forbidden are
birds of prey, or birds reputed to be unclean in their habits. All
insects, "winged creeping things that go upon all four" (ver. 20), or
"whatsoever hath many feet," or "goeth upon the belly," as worms,
snakes, etc., are prohibited (ver. 42). Of insects, a single class,
described as those "which have legs above their feet, to leap withal
upon the earth," is excepted (vv. 21, 22): these are known to us as
the order _Saltatoria_, including, as typical examples, the cricket,
the grasshopper, and the migratory locust; all of which, it may be
noted, are clean feeders, living upon vegetable products only. It is
worthy of notice that the law of the clean and the unclean in food is
not extended, as it was in Egypt, to the vegetable kingdom.
The second section of the chapter (vv. 24-40) comprises a number of
laws relating chiefly to defilement by contact with the dead bodies of
animals. In these regulations, it is to be observed that the dead
body, even of a clean animal, except when killed in accordance with
the law, so that its blood is all drained out (xvii. 10-16), is
regarded as defiling him who touches it; while, on the other hand,
even an unclean animal is not held capable of imparting defilement by
mere contact, so long as it is living. Very minute charges are given
(vv. 29-38) concerning eight species of unclean animals, of which six
(vv. 29, 30, R.V.) appear to be different varieties of the lizard
family. Regarding these, it is ordered that not only shall the person
be held unclean who touches the dead body of one of them (ver. 31),
but also anything becomes unclean on which such a dead body may fall,
whether household utensil, or food, or drink (vv. 32-35). The
exception only is made (vv. 36-38), that fountains, or wells of water,
or dry seed for sowing, shall not be held to be by such defiled.
That which has been made unclean must be put into water, and be
unclean until the even (ver. 32); with the exception that nothing
which is made of earthenware, whether a vessel, or an oven, or a
range, could be thus cleansed; for the obvious reason that the water
could not adequately reach the interior of its porous material. It
must therefore be broken in pieces (vv. 33, 34). If a person be
defiled by any of these, he remained unclean until the even (ver. 31).
No washing is prescribed, but, from analogy, is probably to be taken
for granted.
Such is a brief summary of the law of the clean and the unclean as
contained in this chapter. To preclude adding needless difficulty to a
difficult subject, the remark made above should be specially
noted,--that so far as general marks are given by which the clean is
to be distinguished from the unclean, these marks are evidently
selected simply from a practical point of view, as of easy recognition
by the common people, for whom a more exact and scientific mode of
distinction would have been useless. We are not therefore for a moment
to think of cleanness or uncleanness as causally determined, for
instance, by the presence or absence of fins or scales, or by the
habit of chewing the cud, and the dividing of the hoof, or the absence
of these marks, as if they were themselves the ground of the cleanness
or uncleanness, in any instance. For such a fancy as this, which has
diverted some interpreters from the right line of investigation of the
subject, there is no warrant whatever in the words of the law, either
here or elsewhere.
Than this law concerning things clean and unclean nothing will seem to
many, at first, more alien to modern thought, or more inconsistent
with any intelligent view of the world and of man's relation to the
things by which he is surrounded. And, especially, that the strict
observance of this law should be connected with religion, and that,
upon what professes to be the authority of God, it should be urged on
Israel on the ground of their call to be a holy people to a holy
God,--this, to the great majority of Bible readers, certainly appears,
to say the least, most extraordinary and unaccountable. And yet the
law is here, and its observance is enforced by this very
consideration; for we read (vv. 43, 44): "Ye shall not make yourselves
abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye
make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby.
For I am the Lord your God: sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye
holy; for I am holy." And, in any case, explain the matter as we may,
many will ask, How, since the New Testament formally declares this law
concerning clean and unclean beasts to be no longer binding (Col. ii.
16, 20-23), is it possible to imagine that there should now remain
anything in this most perplexing law which should be of spiritual
profit still to a New Testament believer? To the consideration of
these questions, which so naturally arise, we now address ourselves.
First of all, in approaching this subject it is well to recall to mind
the undeniable fact, that a distinction in foods as clean and unclean,
that is, fit and unfit for man's use, has a very deep and apparently
irremovable foundation in man's nature. Even we ourselves, who
stumble at this law, recognise a distinction of this kind, and
regulate our diet accordingly; and also, in like manner, feel, more or
less, an instinctive repugnance to dead bodies. As regards diet, it is
true that when the secondary question arises as to what particular
animals shall be reckoned clean or unclean, fit or unfit for food,
nations and tribes differ among themselves, as also from the law of
Moses, in a greater or less degree; nevertheless, this does not alter
the fact that such a distinction is recognised among all nations of
culture; and that, on the other hand, in those who recognise it not,
and who eat, as some do, without discrimination, whatever chances to
come to hand,--insects, reptiles, carrion, and so on,--this revolting
indifference in the matter of food is always associated with gross
intellectual and moral degradation. Certainly these indisputable facts
should suffice to dispose of the charge of puerility, as sometimes
made against the laws of this chapter.
And not only this, but more is true. For while even among nations of
the highest culture and Christian enlightenment many animals are
eaten, as, _e.g._, the oyster, the turtle, the flesh of the horse and
the hog, which the law of Moses prohibits; on the other hand, it
remains true that, with the sole exception of creatures of the locust
tribe, the animals which are allowed for food by the Mosaic code are
reckoned suitable for food by almost the entire human family. A
notable exception to the fact is indeed furnished in the case of the
Hindoos, and also the Buddhists (who follow an Indian religion), who,
as a rule, reject all animal food, and especially, in the case of the
former, the flesh of the cow, as not to be eaten. But this exception
is quite explicable by considerations into which we cannot here enter
at length, but which do not affect the significance of the general
fact.
And, again, on the other hand, it may also be said that, as a general
rule, the appetite of the great majority of enlightened and cultivated
nations revolts against using as food the greater part of the animals
which this code prohibits. Birds of prey, for instance, and the
carnivora generally, animals having paws, and reptiles, for the most
part, by a kind of universal instinct among cultivated peoples, are
judged unfit for human food.
The bearing of these facts upon our exposition is plain. They
certainly suggest, at least, that this law of Lev. xi. may, after all,
very possibly have a deep foundation both in the nature of man and
that of the things permitted or forbidden; and they also raise the
question as to how far exceptions and divergencies from this law,
among peoples of culture, may possibly be due to a diversity in
external physical and climatic conditions, because of which that which
may be wholesome and suitable food in one place--the wilderness of
Sinai, or Palestine, for instance--may not be wholesome and suitable
in other lands, under different physical conditions. We do not yet
enter into this question, but barely call attention to it, as adapted
to check the hasty judgment of many, that such a law as this is
necessarily puerile and unworthy of God.
But while it is of no small consequence to note this agreement in the
fundamental ideas of this law with widely extended instincts and
habits of mankind, on the other hand, it is also of importance to
emphasise the contrast which it exhibits with similar codes of law
among other peoples. For while, as has just been remarked, there are
many most suggestive points of agreement between the Mosaic
distinctions of clean and unclean and those of other nations, on the
other hand, remarkable contrasts appear, even in the case of those
people with whom, like the Egyptians, the Hebrews had been most
intimately associated. In the Egyptian system of dietary law, for
instance, the distinction of clean and unclean in food was made to
apply, not only in the animal, but also in the vegetable world; and,
again, while all fishes having fins and scales are permitted as food
in the Mosaic law, no fishes whatever are permitted by the Egyptian
code. But more significant than such difference in details is the
difference in the religious conception upon which such distinctions
are based. In Egypt, for example, animals were reckoned clean or
unclean according as they were supposed to have more predominant the
character of the good Osiris or of the evil Typhon. Among the ancient
Persians, those were reckoned clean which were supposed to be the
creation of Ormazd, the good Spirit, and those unclean whose origin
was attributed to Ahriman, the evil Spirit. In India, the prohibition
of flesh as food rests on pantheistic assumptions. Not to multiply
examples, it is easy to see that, without anticipating anything here
with regard to the principle which determined the Hebrew distinctions,
it is certain that of such dualistic or pantheistic principles as are
manifested in these and other instances which might be named, there is
not a trace in the Mosaic law. How significant and profoundly
instructive is the contrast here, will only fully appear when we see
what in fact appears to have been the determining principle in the
Mosaic legislation.
But when we now seek to ascertain upon what principle certain animals
were permitted and others forbidden as food, it must be confessed that
we have before us a very difficult question, and one to which,
accordingly, very diverse answers have been given. In general, indeed,
we are expressly told that the object of this legislation, as of all
else in this book of laws, was moral and spiritual. Thus, we are told
in so many words (vv. 43-45) that Israel was to abstain from eating or
touching the unclean, on the ground that they were to be holy, because
the Lord their God was holy. But to most this only increases the
difficulty. What possible connection could there be between eating, or
abstinence from eating, animals which do not chew the cud, or fishes
which have not scales, and holiness of life?
In answer to this question, some have supposed a mystical connection
between the soul and the body, such that the former is defiled by the
food which is received and assimilated by the latter. In support of
this theory, appeal has been made to ver. 44 of this chapter, which,
in the Septuagint translation, is rendered literally: "Ye shall not
defile your souls." But, as often in Hebrew, the original expression
here is simply equivalent to our compound pronoun "yourselves," and is
therefore so translated both in the Authorised and the Revised
Versions. As for any other proof of such a mystical evil influence of
the various kinds of food prohibited in this chapter, there is simply
none at all.
Others, again, have sought the explication of these facts in the
undoubted Divine purpose of keeping Israel separate from other
nations; to secure which separation this special dietetic code, with
other laws regarding the clean and the unclean, was given them. That
these laws have practically helped to keep the children of Israel
separate from other nations, will not be denied; and we may therefore
readily admit, that inasmuch as the food of the Hebrews has differed
from that of the nations among whom they have dwelt, this separation
of the nation may therefore have been included in the purpose of God
in these regulations. However, it is to be observed that in the law
itself the separation of Israel from other nations is represented, not
as the end to be attained by the observance of these food laws, but
instead, as a fact already existing, which is given as a reason why
they should keep these laws (xx. 24, 25). Moreover, it will be found
impossible, by reference to this principle alone, to account for the
details of the laws before us. For the question is not merely why
there should have been food laws, but also why these laws should have
been such as they are? The latter question is not adequately explained
by reference to God's purpose of keeping Israel separate from the
nations.
Some, again, have held that the explanation of these laws was to be
found simply in the design of God, by these restrictions, to give
Israel a profitable moral discipline in self-restraint and control of
the bodily appetites; or to impose, in this way, certain conditions
and limitations upon their approach to Him, which should have the
effect of deepening in them the sense of awe and reverence for the
Divine majesty of God, as their King. Of this theory it may be said,
as of the last-named, that there can be no doubt that in fact these
laws did tend to secure these ends; but that yet, on the other hand,
the explanation is still inadequate, inasmuch as it only would show
why restrictions of some kind should have been ordered, and not, in
the least, why the restrictions should have been such, in detail, as
we have here.
Quite different from any of these attempted explanations is that of
many who have sought to explain the law allegorically. We are told by
such that Israel was forbidden the flesh of certain animals, because
they were regarded as typifying by their character certain sins and
vices, as, on the other hand, those which were permitted as food were
regarded as typifying certain moral virtues. Hence, it is supposed by
such that the law tended to the holiness of Israel, in that it was, so
to speak, a continual object-lesson, a perpetually acted allegory,
which should continually remind them of the duty of abstaining from
the typified sins and of practising the typified virtues. But,
assuredly, this theory cannot be carried out. Animals are in this law
prohibited as food whose symbolic meaning elsewhere in Scripture is
not always bad, but sometimes good. The lion, for example, as having
paws, is prohibited as food; and yet it is the symbol of our blessed
Lord, "the Lion of the tribe of Judah." Nor is there the slightest
evidence that the Hebrews ever attached any such allegorical
significance to the various prescriptions of this chapter as the
theory would require.
Other expositors allegorise in a different but no more satisfactory
manner. Thus a popular, and, it must be added, most spiritual and
devout expositor, sets forth the spiritual meaning of the required
conjunction of the two marks in clean animals of the chewing of the
cud and the dividing of the hoof in this wise: "The two things were
inseparable in the case of every clean animal. And, as to the
spiritual application, it is of the very last importance in a
practical point of view.... A man may profess to love and feed upon,
to study and ruminate over, the Word of God--the pasture of the soul;
but if his footprints along the pathway of life are not such as the
Word requires, he is not clean."
But it should be evident that such allegorising interpretation as this
can carry with it no authority, and sets the door wide open to the
most extravagant fancy in the exposition of Scripture.
Others, again, find the only principle which has determined the laws
concerning defilement by the dead, and the clean and unclean meats, to
be the presence in that which was reckoned unclean, of something which
is naturally repulsive to men; whether in odour, or in the food of a
creature, or its other habits of life. But while it is true that such
marks distinguish many of the creatures reckoned unclean, they are
wanting in others, and are also found in a few animals which are
nevertheless permitted. If this had been the determining principle,
surely, for example, the law which permitted for food the he-goat and
forbade the horse, would have been exactly the opposite; while, as
regards fishes and insects permitted and forbidden, it is hard to see
any evidence whatever of the influence of this principle.
Much more plausible, at first sight, and indeed much more nearly
approaching the truth, than any of the theories above criticised, is
one which has been elaborated with no little learning and ingenuity by
Sommer,[22] according to which the laws concerning the clean and the
unclean, whether in regard to food or anything else, are all grounded
in the antithesis of death and life. Death, everywhere in Holy
Scripture, is set in the closest ethical and symbolical connection
with sin. Bodily death is the wages of sin; and inasmuch as it is the
outward physical expression and result of the inner fact that sin, in
its very nature, is spiritual death, therefore the dead is always held
to be unclean; and the various laws enforcing this thought are all
intended to keep before the mind the fact that death is the visible
representation and evidence of the presence of sin, and the consequent
curse of God. Hence, also, it will follow that the selection of foods
must be governed by a reference to this principle. The carnivora, on
this principle, must be forbidden,--as they are,--because they live by
taking the life of other animals; hence, also, is explained the
exclusion of the multitudinous varieties of the insect world, as
feeding on that which is dead and corrupt. On the other hand, the
animals which chew the cud and divide the hoof are counted clean;
inasmuch as the sheep and the cattle, the chief representatives of
this class, were by every one recognised as at the furthest possible
remove from any such connection with death and corruption in their
mode of life; and hence the familiar marks which distinguish them, as
a matter merely of practical convenience, were taken as those which
must distinguish every animal lawful for food.
[22] "Biblische Abhandlungen," pp. 239-270.
But while this view has been elaborated with great ability and skill,
it yet fails to account for all the facts. It is quite overlooked that
if the reason of the prohibition of carnivorous birds and quadrupeds
is to be found in the fact that they live by the destruction of life,
the same reason should have led to the prohibition of all fishes
without exception, as in Egypt; inasmuch as those which have fins and
scales, no less than others, live by preying on other living
creatures. On the other hand, by the same principle, all insects which
derive their sustenance from the vegetable world should have been
permitted as food, instead of one order only of these.
Where so much learning and profound thought has been expended in vain,
one might well hesitate to venture anything in exposition of so
difficult a subject, and rest content, as some have, with declaring
that the whole subject is utterly inexplicable. And yet the world
advances in knowledge, and we are therefore able to approach the
subject with some advantage in this respect over earlier generations.
And in the light of the most recent investigations, we believe it
highly probable that the chief principle determining the laws of this
chapter will be found in the region of hygiene and sanitation, as
relating, in this instance, to diet, and to the treatment of that
which is dead. And this in view of the following considerations.
It is of much significance to note, in the first place, that a large
part of the animals which are forbidden as food are unclean feeders.
It is a well-ascertained fact that even the cleanest animal, if its
food be unclean, becomes dangerous to health if its flesh be eaten.
The flesh of a cow which has drunk water contaminated with typhoid
germs, if eaten, especially if insufficiently cooked, may communicate
typhoid fever to him who eats it. It is true, indeed, that not all
animals that are prohibited are unclean in their food; but the fact
remains that, on the other hand, among those which are allowed is to
be found no animal whose ordinary habits of life, especially in
respect of food, are unclean.
But, in the second place, an animal which is not unclean in its habits
may yet be dangerous for food, if it be, for any reason, specially
liable to disease. One of the greatest discoveries of modern science
is the fact that a large number of diseases to which animals are
liable are due to the presence of low forms of parasitic life. To such
diseases those which are unclean in their feeding will be especially
exposed, while none will perhaps be found wholly exempt.
Another discovery of recent times which has a no less important
bearing on the question raised by this chapter is the now ascertained
fact that many of these parasitic diseases are common to both animals
and men, and may be communicated from the former to the latter. All
are familiar with the fact that the smallpox, in a modified and mild
form, is a disease of cattle as well as of men, and we avail ourselves
of this fact in the practice of vaccination. Scarcely less familiar is
the communication of the parasitic trichinæ, which often infest the
flesh of swine, to those who eat such meat. And research is constantly
extending the number of such diseases. Turkeys, we are now told, have
the diphtheria, and may communicate it to men; men also sometimes take
from horses the loathsome disease known as the glanders. Now in the
light of such facts as these, it is plain that an ideal dietary law
would, as far as possible, exclude from human food all animals which,
under given conditions, might be especially liable to these parasitic
diseases, and which, if their flesh should be eaten, might thus become
a frequent medium of communicating them to men.
Now it is a most remarkable and significant fact that the tendency of
the most recent investigations of this subject has been to show that
the prohibitions and permissions of the Mosaic law concerning food, as
we have them in this chapter, become apparently explicable in view of
the above facts. Not to refer to other authorities, among the latest
competent testimonies on this subject is that of Dr. Noel Gueneau de
Mussy, in a paper presented to the Paris Academy of Medicine in 1885,
in which he is quoted as saying: "There is so close a connection
between the thinking being and the living organism in man, so intimate
a solidarity between moral and material interests, and the useful is
so constantly and so necessarily in harmony with the good, that these
two elements cannot be separated in hygiene.... It is this combination
which has exercised so great an influence on the preservation of the
Israelites, despite the very unfavourable external circumstances in
which they have been placed.... The idea of parasitic and infectious
maladies, which has conquered so great a position in modern pathology,
appears to have greatly occupied the mind of Moses, and to have
dominated all his hygienic rules. He excludes from Hebrew dietary
_animals particularly liable to parasites_; and as it is in the blood
that the germs or spores of infectious disease circulate, he orders
that they must be drained of their blood before serving for food."
If this professional testimony, which is accepted and endorsed by Dr.
Behrends, of London, in his remarkable paper on "Diseases caught from
Butcher's Meat,"[23] be admitted, it is evident that we need look no
further for the explanation of the minute prescriptions of these
dietary laws which we find here and elsewhere in the Pentateuch.
[23] In _The Nineteenth Century_, September, 1889.
And, it may be added, that upon this principle we may also easily
explain, in a rational way, the very minute prescriptions of the law
with regard to defilement by dead bodies. For immediately upon death
begins a process of corruption which produces compounds not only
obnoxious to the senses, but actively poisonous in character; and what
is of still more consequence to observe, in the case of all parasitic
and infectious diseases, the energy of the infection is specially
intensified when the infected person or animal dies. Hence the careful
regulations as to cleansing of those persons or things which had been
thus defiled by the dead; either by water, where practicable; or where
the thing could not be thus thoroughly cleansed, then by burning the
article with fire, the most certain of all disinfectants.
But if this be indeed the principle which underlies this law of the
clean and the unclean as here given, it will then be urged that since
the Hebrews have observed this law with strictness for centuries, they
ought to show the evidence of this in a marked immunity from sickness,
as compared with other nations, and especially from diseases of an
infectious character; and a consequent longevity superior to that of
the Gentiles who pay no attention to these laws. Now it is the fact,
and one which evidently furnishes another powerful argument for this
interpretation of these laws, that this is exactly what we see. In
this matter we are not left to guessing; the facts are before the
world, and are undisputed. Even so long ago as the days when the
plague was desolating Europe, the Jews so universally escaped
infection that, by this their exemption, the popular suspicion was
excited into fury, and they were accused of causing the fearful
mortality among their Gentile neighbours by poisoning the wells and
springs. In our own day, in the recent cholera epidemic in Italy, a
correspondent of the _Jewish Chronicle_ testifies that the Jews
enjoyed almost absolute immunity, at least from fatal attack.
Professor Hosmer says: "Throughout the entire history of Israel, the
wisdom of the ancient lawgivers in these respects has been remarkably
shown. In times of pestilence the Jews have suffered far less than
others; as regards longevity and general health, they have in every
age been noteworthy, and, at the present day, in the life-insurance
offices, the life of a Jew is said to be worth much more than that of
men of other stock."
Of the facts in the modern world which sustain these statements, Dr.
Behrends gives abundant illustration in the article referred to, such
as the following: "In Prussia, the mean duration of Jewish life
averages five years more than that of the general population. In
Furth, the average duration of Jewish life is 37, and of Christians 26
years. In Hungary, an exhaustive study of the facts shows that the
average duration of life with the Croats is 20·2, of the Germans 26·7,
but of the Jews 46·5 years, and that although the latter generally are
poor, and live under much more unfavourable sanitary conditions than
their Gentile neighbours."
In the light of such well-certified facts, the conclusion seems
certainly to be warranted, that at least one chief consideration
which, in the Divine wisdom, determined the allowance or prohibition,
as the food of Israel, of the animals named in this chapter, has been
their fitness or unfitness as diet from a hygienic point of view,
especially regarding their greater or less liability to have, and to
communicate to man, infectious, parasitic diseases.
From this position, if it be justified, we can now perceive a
secondary reference in these laws to the deeper ethical truth which,
with much reason, Sommer has so emphasised; namely, the moral
significance of the great antithesis of death to life; the former
being ever contrasted in Holy Scripture with the latter, as the
visible manifestation of the presence of sin in the world, and of the
consequent curse of God. For whatever tends to weakness or disease, by
that fact tends to death,--to that death which, according to the
Scriptures, is, for man, the penal consequence of sin. But Israel was
called to be a people redeemed from the power of death to life, a life
of full consecration to God. Hence, because redeemed from death, it
was evidently fitting that the Israelite should, so far as possible in
the flesh, keep apart from death, and all that in its nature tended,
or might specially tend, to disease and death.
It is very strange that it should have been objected to this view,
that since the law declares the reason for these regulations to have
been religious, therefore any supposed reference herein to the
principles of hygiene is by that fact excluded. For surely the
obligation so to live as to conserve and promote the highest bodily
health must be regarded, both from a natural, and a Biblical and
Christian point of view, as being no less really a religious
obligation than truthfulness or honesty. If there appear sufficient
reason for believing that the details of these laws are to be
explained by reference to hygienic considerations, surely this, so far
from contradicting the reason which is given for their observance,
helps us rather the more clearly to see how, just because Israel was
called to be the holy people of a holy God, they must needs keep this
law. For the central idea of the Levitical holiness was consecration
unto God, as the Creator and Redeemer of Israel,--consecration in the
most unreserved, fullest possible sense, for the most perfect possible
service. But the obligation to such a consecration, as the essence of
a holy character, surely carried with it, by necessary consequence,
then, as now, the obligation to maintain all the powers of mind and
body also in the highest possible perfection. That, as regards the
body, and, in no small degree, the mind as well, this involves the
duty of the preservation of health, so far as in our power; and that
this, again, is conditioned by the use of a proper diet, as one factor
of prime importance, will be denied by no one. If, then, sufficient
reason can be shown for recognising the determining influence of
hygienic considerations in the laws of this chapter concerning the
clean and the unclean, this fact will only be in the fullest harmony
with all that is said in this connection, and elsewhere in the law, as
to the relation of their observance to Israel's holiness as a
consecrated nation.
It may very possibly be asked, by way of further objection to this
interpretation of these laws: Upon this understanding of the immediate
purpose of these laws, how can we account for the selection of such
test marks of the clean and the unclean as the chewing of the cud, and
the dividing of the hoof, or having scales and fins? What can the
presence or absence of these peculiarities have to do with the greater
or less freedom from parasitic disease of the animals included or
excluded in the several classes? To which question the answer may
fairly be given, that the object of the law was not to give accurately
distributed categories of animals, scientifically arranged, according
to hygienic principles, but was purely practical; namely, to secure,
so far as possible, the observance by the whole people of such a
dietary as in the land of Palestine would, on the whole, best tend to
secure perfect bodily health. It is not affirmed that every individual
animal which by these tests may be excluded from permitted food is
therefore to be held specially liable to disease; but only that the
limitation of the diet by these test marks, as a practical measure,
would, _on the whole_, secure the greatest degree of immunity from
disease to those who kept the law.
It may be objected, again, by some who have looked into this question,
that, according to recent researches, it appears that cattle, which
occupy the foremost place in the permitted diet of the Hebrews, are
found to be especially liable to tubercular disease, and capable,
apparently, under certain conditions, of communicating it to those who
feed upon their flesh. And it has been even urged that to this source
is due a large part of the consumption which is responsible for so
large part of our mortality. To which objection two answers may be
given. First, and most important, is the observation that we have as
yet no statistics as to the prevalence of disease of this kind among
cattle in Palestine; and that, presumably, if we may argue from the
climatic conditions of its prevalence among men, it would be found far
less frequently there among cattle than in Europe and America.
Further, it must be remembered that, in the case even of clean cattle,
the law very strictly provides elsewhere that the clean animal which
is slain for food shall be absolutely free from disease; so that still
we see here, no less than elsewhere, the hygienic principles ruling
the dietary law.
It will be perhaps objected, again, that if all this be true, then,
since abstinence from unwholesome food is a moral duty, the law
concerning clean and unclean meats should be of universal and
perpetual obligation; whereas, in fact, it is explicitly abrogated in
the New Testament, and is not held to be now binding on any one. But
the abrogation of the law of Moses touching clean and unclean food can
be easily explained, in perfect accord with all that has been said as
to its nature and intent. In the first place, it is to be remembered
that it is a fundamental characteristic of the New Testament law as
contrasted with that of the Old, that on all points it leaves much
more to the liberty of the individual, allowing him to act according
to the exercise of an enlightened judgment, under the law of supreme
love to the Lord, in many matters which, in the Old Testament day,
were made a subject of specific regulation. This is true, for
instance, regarding all that relates to the public worship of God, and
also many things in the government and administration of the Church,
not to speak of other examples. This does not indeed mean that it is
of no consequence what a man or a Church may do in matters of this
kind; but it is intended thus to give the individual and the whole
Church a discipline of a higher order than is possible under a system
which prescribes a large part of the details of human action.
Subjection to these "rudiments" of the law, according to the Apostle,
belongs to a condition of religious minority (Gal. iv. 1-3), and
passes away when the individual, or the Church, so to speak, attains
majority. Precisely so it is in the case of these dietary and other
laws, which, indeed, are selected by the Apostle Paul (Col. ii. 20-22)
in illustration of this characteristic of the new dispensation. That
such matters of detail should no longer be made matter of specific
command is only what we should expect according to the analogy of the
whole system of Christian law. This is not, indeed, saying that it is
of no consequence in a religious point of view what a man eats;
whether, for instance, he eat carrion or not, though this, which was
forbidden in the Old Testament, is nowhere expressly prohibited in the
New. But still, as supplying a training of higher order, the New
Testament uniformly refrains from giving detailed commandments in
matters of this kind.
But, aside from considerations of this kind, there is a specific
reason why these laws of Moses concerning diet and defilement by dead
bodies, if hygienic in character, should not have been made, in the
New Testament, of universal obligation, however excellent they might
be. For it is to be remembered that these laws were delivered for a
people few in number, living in a small country, under certain
definite climatic conditions. But it is well known that what is
unwholesome for food in one part of the world may be, and often is,
necessary to the maintenance of health elsewhere. A class of animals
which under the climatic conditions of Palestine may be specially
liable to certain forms of parasitic disease, under different climatic
conditions may be comparatively free from them. Abstinence from fat is
commanded in the law of Moses (iii. 17), and great moderation in this
matter is necessary to health in hot climates; but, on the contrary,
to eat fat largely is necessary to life in the polar regions. From
such facts as these it would follow, of necessity, that when the
Church of God, as under the new dispensation, was now to become a
world-wide organisation, still to have insisted on a dietetic law
perfectly adapted only to Palestine would have been to defeat the
physical object, and by consequence the moral end, for which that law
was given. Under these conditions, except a special law were to be
given for each land and climate, there was and could be, if we have
before us the true conception of the ground of these regulations, no
alternative but to abrogate the law.
This exposition has been much prolonged; but not until we have before
us a definite conception as to the principle underlying these
regulations, and the relation of their observance to the holiness of
Israel, are we in a position to see and appreciate the moral and
spiritual lessons which they may still have for us. As it is, if the
conclusions to which our exposition has conducted be accepted, such
lessons lie clearly before us. While we have here a law which, as to
the letter, is confessedly abrogated, and which is supposed by the
most to be utterly removed from any present-day use for practical
instruction, it is now evident that, annulled as to the letter, it is
yet, as to the spirit and intention of it, in full force and vital
consequence to holiness of life in all ages.
In the first place, this exposition being granted, it follows, as a
present-day lesson of great moment, that the holiness which God
requires has to do with the body as well as the soul, even with such
commonplace matters as our eating and drinking. This is so, because
the body is the instrument and organ of the soul, with which it must
do all its work on earth for God, and because, as such, the body, no
less than the soul, has been redeemed unto God by the blood of His
Son. There is, therefore, no religion in neglecting the body, and
ignoring the requirements for its health, as ascetics have in all ages
imagined. Neither is there religion in pampering, and thus abusing,
the body, after the manner of the sensual in all ages. The principle
which inspires this chapter is that which is expressed in the New
Testament by the words: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31). If,
therefore, a man needlessly eats such things, or in such a manner, as
may be injurious to health, he sins, and has come short of the law of
perfect holiness. It is therefore not merely a matter of earthly
prudence to observe the laws of health in food and drink and
recreation, in a word, in all that has to do with the appetite and
desires of the body, but it is essential to holiness. We are in all
these things to seek to glorify God, not only in our souls, but also
in our bodies.
The momentous importance of this thought will the more clearly appear
when we recall to mind that, according to the law of Moses (v. 2), if
a man was defiled by any unclean thing, and neglected the cleansing
ordered by this law, even though it were through ignorance or
forgetfulness, he was held to have incurred guilt before God. For it
was therein declared that when a man defiled by contact with the dead,
or any unclean thing, should for any reason have omitted the cleansing
ordered, his covenant relation with God could only be re-established
on his presentation of a sin-offering. By parity of reasoning it
follows that the case is the same now; and that God will hold no man
guiltless who violates any of those laws which He has established in
nature as the conditions of bodily health. He who does this is guilty
of a sin which requires the application of the great atonement.
How needful it is even in our day to remind men of all this, could not
be better illustrated than by the already mentioned argument of many
expositors, that hygienic principles cannot have dominated and
determined the details of these laws, because the law declares that
they are grounded, not in hygiene, but in religion, and have to do
with holiness. As if these two were exclusive, one of the other, and
as if it made no difference in respect to holiness of character
whether a man took care to have a sound body or not!
No less needful is the lesson of this law to many who are at the
opposite extreme. For as there are those who are so taken up with the
soul and its health, that they ignore its relation to the body, and
the bearing of bodily conditions upon character; so there are others
who are so preoccupied with questions of bodily health, sanitation and
hygiene, regarded merely as prudential measures, from an earthly point
of view, that they forget that man has a soul as well as a body, and
that such questions of sanitation and hygiene only find their proper
place when it is recognised that health and perfection of the body are
not to be sought merely that man may become a more perfect animal, but
in order that thus, with a sound mind in a sound body, he may the more
perfectly serve the Lord in the life of holiness to which we are
called. Thus it appears that this forgotten law of the clean and the
unclean in food, so far from being, at the best, puerile, and for us
now certainly quite useless, still teaches us the very important
lesson that a due regard to wholeness and health of body is essential
to the right and symmetrical development of holiness of character. In
every dispensation, the law of God combines the bodily and the
spiritual in a sacred synthesis. If in the New Testament we are
directed to glorify God in our spirits, we are no less explicitly
commanded to glorify God in our bodies (1 Cor. vi. 20). And thus is
given to the laws of health the high sanction of the Divine obligation
of the moral law, as summed up in the closing words of this chapter:
"Be ye holy; for I am holy."
This law concerning things unclean, and clean and unclean animals, as
thus expounded, is also an apologetic of no small value. It has a
direct and evident bearing on the question of the Divine origin and
authority of this part of the law. For the question will at once come
up in every reflecting mind: Whence came this law? Could it have been
merely an invention of crafty Jewish priests? Or is it possible to
account for it as the product merely of the mind of Moses? It appears
to have been ordered with respect to certain facts, especially
regarding various invisible forms of noxious parasitic life, in their
bearing on the causation and propagation of disease,--facts which,
even now, are but just appearing within the horizon of modern science.
Is it probable that Moses knew about these things three thousand years
ago? Certainly, the more we study the matter, the more we must feel
that this is not to be supposed.
It is common, indeed, to explain much that seems very wise in the law
of Moses by referring to the fact that he was a highly educated man,
"instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." But it is just this
fact of his Egyptian education that makes it in the last degree
improbable that he should have derived the ideas of this law from
Egypt. Could he have taken his ideas with regard, for instance, to
defilement by the dead, from a system of education which taught the
contrary, and which, so far from regarding those who had to do with
the dead as unclean, held them especially sacred? And so with regard
to the dietetic laws: these are not the laws of Egypt; nor have we any
evidence that those were determined, like these Hebrew laws, by such
scientific facts as those to which we have referred.[24] In this day,
when, at last, men of all schools, and those with most scientific
knowledge, most of all, are joining to extol the exact wisdom of this
ancient law, a wisdom which has no parallel in like laws among other
nations, is it not in place to press this question? Whence had this
man this unique wisdom, three thousand years in advance of his times?
There are many who will feel compelled to answer, even as Holy
Scripture answers; even as Moses, according to the record, answers.
The secret of this wisdom will be found, not in the court of Pharaoh,
but in the holy tent of meeting; it is all explained if we but assume
that what is written in the first verse of this chapter is true: "The
Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron."
[24] See above, p. 290-292.