« Unclean Meats Uncleanness Undergirding »


The distinctive idea attached to ceremonial uncleanness among the Hebrews was that it cut a person off for the time from social privileges, and left his citizenship among God’s people for the while in abeyance. There is an intense reality in the fact of the divine law taking hold of a man by the ordinary infirmities of flesh, and setting its stamp, as it were, in the lowest clay of which he is moulded. The sacredness attached to the human body is parallel to that which invested the ark of the covenant itself. It is as though Jehovah thereby would teach men that the “very hairs of their head were all numbered” before him and that “in his book were all their members written.” Thus was inculcated so to speak a bodily holiness. Nor were the Israelites to be only “separated from other people,” but they were to be “holy to God,” (Leviticus 20:24,26) “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” The importance to physical well-being of the injunctions which required frequent ablution, under whatever special pretexts, can be but feebly appreciated in our cooler and damper climate. Uncleanness, as referred to men, may be arranged in three degrees:

  • That which defiled merely “until even.” and was removed by bathing and washing the clothes at the end of it; such were all contacts with dead animals.
  • That graver sort which defiled for seven days, and was removed by the use of the “water of separation;” such were all defilements connected with the human corpse.
« Unclean Meats Uncleanness Undergirding »
Please login or register to save highlights and make annotations
Corrections disabled for this book
Proofing disabled for this book
Printer-friendly version

