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| In Leviticus and Numbers the Israelites are in exile wandering around the desert. |
When I began Leviticus, I thought I was just going to have to push myself through it since I thought it would just be a list of arcane laws and regulations, and it is a lot of that, but I found it pretty interesting, too. I guess I was trying to read it in more of an anthropological light. Just why would this ancient people have these kinds of laws and ways of worshipping? What might it reveal about them? These are just my own and probably really ignorant musings, but I kept thinking that back in the day when famine wasn't far away, wasn't it something that people took the best of their flocks and herds, and regularly offered it up to the Lord for all kinds of reasons?
For one thing being a priest back then pretty much meant being a butcher. They did a lot of slaughtering of animals for all kinds of offerings. Here is a link to a chart I found on the different types of offerings.
One random question that kept going through my head, especially in light of the frequent regulations about cleanliness was if they ever washed down the altar? So many times the priest are called to splash the sides of the altar with the blood of the sacrifice. Washing it afterwards is never mentioned and I looked for it! Wouldn't that get really smelly and attract flies and rats? Shudder!
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| The biblical practice of gleaning. |
Leviticus reads like a mash up of several different things. Primarily it seems to be the rules for the priests, but thrown in there is more general stuff about caring for the poor (gleaning for example). Many times the text repeats itself, so it definitely seems like whoever compiled the book didn't want to have to choose between different versions of the same texts but just put them all together.
Numbers is in much of the same mode. We get more rules and regulations but we also get the repeated complaining of the Israelites and poor Moses having to run interference between them and God. Miriam and Aaron die, Moses puts a Seraph on the pole to cure snakebites, the Israelites finally conquer the Amorites and get to live there right next to the Promised Land instead of wandering around the desert.
I keep seeing (with the hindsight of history) glimmers of social justice. For instance, even though women must get permission from their fathers and husbands when making a 'vow' (not sure what this means exactly but it has to do with making promises to do or not do things for the Lord), the law also says that if the husband or father doesn't speak up right away, they forfeit their power to forbid the pledge later. So the idea seems to come across that husbands and fathers can't be arbitrary to their daughters and wives, unlike say the patriarch of a Roman family whose rule was always supreme. There's a lot of little things like that. The Hebrew God is definitely different from Moloch or Baal. He really is much more just and a God of loving-kindness, in spite of all his depictions as an angry, judgmental God.
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| All the feasts days |
Much of Leviticus and Numbers has to do with practical ways to regulate society. The problem of inheritance and how to provide for the priests who don't own land but are city dwellers, or how to help the poor (families need to take care of their poor relatives, even if they are annoying!), the whole idea of a jubilee year to reorganize wealth systematically, all this is really an interesting peek into the mind of Bronze Age culture.
Now on to Deuteronomy!
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