Page 73 - Pentateuch

One day, “there will be no disease, no corruption, no illness, no bodily defects, no births, no unclean thing
at all. Why? Because all such things are incompatible with the holiness of the LORD. That is the principle
that lies behind the laws of Lev. 12-15. So when the law required worshipers in ancient Israel to go through
the purification and atoning process to enter his courts, the LORD was beginning to reveal his greater plan
87
of what it takes for humans to be in His presence eternally.”

When we turn from clean/unclean to holy/common, the key idea is knowing what is special and knowing
how to treat the special properly. As we have already noted, a relationship with YHWH is special. He gives
his people special/holy ways to live that are quite distinct from the ordinary ways of sinful humans. When
one of his people fails to distinguish between the
holy and the common, treating the holy in a
common fashion, that person is in rebellion against
God. The verb form of “common” in the OT is
usually translated with words like “desecrate,”
“profane,” or “pervert.” These words communicate
the seriousness of the action. The word does not
appear in the earlier or later chapters of Leviticus
but is heavily used in our section on “daily” ethics.
See 18:21; 19:8, 12, 29; 20:3; 21:6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15,
23; 22:2, 9, 15, 32.

God says to Moses. “Speak to the Israelites and say
Fig. 54: Moral and physical pollution to them: ‘I am the LORD your God. You must not do
as they do in Egypt (18:2, 3).” He then gives a string
of instructions about sexual relationships. Each demonstrates how to reduce the holiness of God’s gift of
sex. A variety of words are added to describe the devaluing of the acts: dishonor, wickedness, uncleanness,
detestable, etc. The nations of Palestine did these things, just one of the reasons God intends to drive them
out. The land itself is defiled, made unclean, by these actions (18:24-28). When God brought Israel into the
land, he took care to teach them a different way to treat one another.

It is difficult to explain the part sexuality played in the ancient Near Eastern religions. The people believed
in multiple gods who were in charge of different parts of creation: the river, sea, death, animals, storm, etc.
Having wandered from God’s revelation in nature, they invented gods who were like them. They thought
they could appeal to the gods with the same activities they enjoyed. When they wanted good crops,
healthy children, and strong livestock, they tried to get the gods to give them these things by making sex
part of their religion. The religions were extremely oppressive and degrading to women. The literature and
the idols are frequently pornographic.

Herodotus, a Greek historian living in the 5 century B.C., is often quoted. He wrote at a later time than the
th
exodus, but his observation illustrates the thinking present in the ancient Near East for many centuries.
“Every woman born in the country must once in her life go and sit down in the precinct of Venus, and there
consort with a stranger….A woman who has once taken her seat is not allowed to return home till one of
the strangers throws a silver coin into her lap and takes her with him beyond the holy ground….The woman
goes with the first man who throws her money and rejects no one. When she has done with him and so
satisfied the goddess, she returns home.”
88

87 Ibid., 275.

88 Gerda Lerner, “The Origin of Prostitution in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
11 (1986): 243.
71