Transcript
A (0:05)
Hey, you're listening to A Year in the Bible. With Daily Grace, we are walking through the book of Leviticus. It's Shelby and C.J. and today we're in Leviticus chapters 13 through 15. So yesterday, C.J. you told us that these two chapters are part of the section of Leviticus that's dealing with clean and unclean. Can you just, like, remind us where we're at with that?
B (0:26)
Yeah. So after Nadav and Avihu die and they're corpses are messing up the tabernacle, Moses looks at Aaron and he says, you need to be able to distinguish between the holy and the common, the pure and the impure, or clean and unclean. So Leviticus 11:15 are dealing with clean and unclean, or pure and impure. And Today's chapters, Levicus 13:15, are continuing that theme. In the previous episode, we talked about unclean animals and how it's how they represent disorderedness and how the Israelite diet is supposed to mimic God's ordered creation. We also talked about Leviticus 12 and how through the loss of blood during childbirth, the woman who's giving birth has a brush with death. So she needs a purification offering to wipe away that brush with death. And that brings us to these chapters today.
A (1:17)
Okay, great. Well, then let's walk through 13 and 13 through 15. What do we see here?
B (1:21)
Okay, so. So we said Leviticus is kind of weird. So these chapters are a little weird. In Leviticus 13 and 14, we talk about skin diseases and skin ailments and also airborne molds. And the same word is used to describe both of them. So that's why we can talk about them together. So again, if, you know, think of psoriasis or eczema or even more serious skin, you know, skin ailments, it does kind of look like decaying flesh. It is kind of disordered. It's not ideal if you have a big sore on your arm, it's not ideal that you have a big sore on your arm. It's kind of marked by death and decay. So that's why these things are also in these impure, pure chapters. And just like the loss of blood in Leviticus 12, these ailments are associated with death and decay. And so they require a purification offering or a sin offering, and usually like a washing of water, which also symbolizes, you know, cleanliness and being cleansed. And then we get to Leviticus 15, which is perhaps even weirder. This deals with discharges of reproductive systems. So I guess to be just straightforward with, it can refer to menstruation or continuous bleeding or some sexually transmitted diseases which result in some of this. Or semen for just to be specific. And these things are also associated with death because when you see them, that means there was a loss of life or that life wasn't produced from them. So again, because God is the source of life and these things are antithetical to life. They're marked by death. They need to be purified.