Leviticus (9) Pure and Impure
The Old Testament describes a range of things that are unclean. To understand the role of the Decontamination Offering, we must understand the process by which things become unclean and how they can be purified. We also need to understand how human actions can contaminate the tabernacle where God lives.
The Hebrew word for unclean/impure is “tame”, and the word for clean is “taher.” In some ways, the English word “unclean” as it is a negative, ie “not clean”. We think of the opposite of clean as “dirty, which is not quite correct. The best way to think about the verb “tame” is as “be polluted”.
Most modern commentators don’t understand this problem because they operate in a two-agent world (God and people). Once we understand that we live in a three-agent world (God, people, evil spiritual powers), we will realise that the spiritual powers of evil influence people and things in the physical world that we live in.
I believe that things that have become impure (tame) have been polluted in some way by the spiritual powers of evil. The Israelites did not have the fullness of the Spirit, so they did not have the gifts of discernment. They could not discern the presence of spiritual evil on people or things. God had to give them rules so they would no which things were impure, because they might have been polluted by the spiritual powers of evil.
They might not all be polluted all the time, but the rules operated conservatively by identifying things that could possibly be polluted with spiritual evil. That way, the people would no how to avoid them and what to do if there was a risk they had been polluted by contact with impure things.
The laws dealing with clean and unclean describe things that Israel the children of Israel must avoid because they are polluted by demonic powers. Their problem was that they did not have the gift of spiritual discernment because the Holy Spirit had still not been given. Therefore, God had to give them blanket rules listing things to avoid because they were affected by evil.
Cause of Impurity
The spiritual realms and the physical realm are intimately twined together. There is constant interaction between the two. However, they don’t just operate in parallel. Every person and object in the physical realm is in contact with something in the spiritual realm. And the spiritual realm is curved, so that physical objects/people in two different places can be touched by the same spiritual entity in the spiritual realm at the same time.
The evil spiritual powers that operate in the spiritual realm are always trying to push into the physical realm to do harm. Whenever a physical person, object, building or place experiences an intervention from the evil powers in the spiritual realm, they are left with a residual that contaminates them, even after the evil attack has finished and the evil spirits have departed. For example, If evil spirits spend time in a house where people are doing evil, an unclean residue remains, even when the people and the spirits they carried have moved on. This is why some houses need prayer to be decontaminated.
When evil spirits are allowed to penetrate the physical realm, it unlocks authority for them. They don’t always take advantage of this vulnerability, because they often lack the resources to take up every opportunity that is open, but they leave their contamination as a marker so other spirits can see the opportunity and take it up at a later date, when a serious intervention fits better with their plans.
The residue remains even when the spirits have withdrawn from their intervention into the physical realm to go and infiltrate in another place. Explains why a site where a person has been murdered often feels dark, and why flowers don’t grow and birds don’t sing in a place where evil has been perpetrated.
I think it is better, like the scriptures, to refer to the residue as unclean rather than evil, because the evil spirits have often gone, and what they have left has no evil power. Rather, it is a marker indicating that they might return and attack if they get an opportunity. The residue they have left is unclean/impure, rather than evil, because it has no power in itself. It just opens the way to evil power. Spirits can be evil, but their residue is simply unclean. It only becomes evil when a spirit intervenes directly.
Activity by angels and the Holy Spirit has the opposite effect. The Holy Spirit often leaves a sweet fragrance behind. This is why a cathedral or old church feels different, even to someone who does not believe in God. Note: faeces and urine are not considered to be polluted in the Torah, even though we would think that they are dirty. They are not spiritually polluted.
Spiritual Contamination A range of activities or things are unclean or impure because they have been contaminated by the spiritual powers of evil. This pollution leaves people vulnerable to spiritual attack, if they are not cleansed. The Torah delineates the following categories of spiritual contamination.
1. Warfare – Risky Situation
2. Risky Situations Due to Possible Pollution
- Dead body
- Seminal Emissions and Sexual Relations
- Menstruation
- Impure Animals
3. Pollution that Affects the Tabernacle
The tabernacle was in the middle of the Israelite camp and was surrounded by various tribes. It belonged to the people, so there was a spiritual link between each family and the tabernacle. The people and the tabernacle touched the same place in the spiritual realms, so that when a family did something wrong that gave access to the powers of evil, both they and the tabernacle were contaminated. It was like they were connected by a spiritual wormhole. The consequence of this connection was that the actions of the people contaminated the tabernacle with the same unclean residue as the person taking the action. When people engaged in particular activities, they allowed the spiritual powers of evil to penetrate further into the camp towards the tabernacle. It seems that if these powers got too close, they could contaminate the tabernacle with their unclean residue (Lev 16:16).The tabernacle belongs to God and the people. If the spiritual powers of evil get access to a person, they get access to the tabernacle, because part of it belongs to the person.
The powers of evil would not usually choose to enter the tabernacle if they penetrated it, because they would be overwhelmed by God’s strong presence, but if they were able to unlock sufficient access points, they might feel they could attack with enough force and ugliness that God would choose to leave (Lev 18:26-30). If the contamination of the tabernacle became too strong, God might become uncomfortable in the tabernacle and move away.
Losing God’s presence would be a huge disaster for the children of Israel. To prevent this from happening, God arranged for the tabernacle to be cleansed once a year. This annual cleansing ensured that the tabernacle remained a pleasant place for God to dwell. He also provided solutions for people who took these actions.
Some of them were sinful, but many were not. The solutions were more complicated. The person had to be purified. A Decontamination Offering or Reparation Offering had to be made to purify the tabernacle and its furniture.
Leviticus lists several ways that the tabernacle could be contaminated. Some commentators call these “major impurities”. These impurities reside on both the person and the tabernacle, or its furniture.
- Child Birth
- Abnormal Genital Discharge
- Scale Disease
- Priest and Corpse
- Unintended Sins
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