Leviticus: Chapters 13 to 17

Picking up where we left off, more Leviticus

CHAPTER 13

This is all about skin infections.  You got your scaly infections, your boils, your burns, your infections, your blotches – and even going bald.  Oh, and then at the end you even get fungal infections. 

Folks, this is one of the longest chapters in the Bible, weighing in at 59 verses!  I’m not going to go back and check, but I’m pretty sure it’s the longest chapter I’ve read so far. 

That tells us one thing – people really were concerned about skin problems back in the day.  While it reads rather boring and puts us to sleep, it’s worth noting how easy it was to get a skin problem and how difficult it was to treat it.  People didn’t know about germ theory.  They were just groping at proper sanitation.  And who knows how to treat this stuff?  So you get this elaborate section that tells us about the medical issues of the place more than about its religion.

There is one funny moment, when the Bible tells the unclean how they should act: “The garments of one afflicted with a scaly infection shall be rent and the hair disheveled, and the mustache covered.  The individual shall cry out, `Unclean, unclean!’” I just get a kick out of visualizing that. 

Oh, and if you’re wondering – baldness doesn’t make you unclean.  Glad we got that taken care.  UNLESS – yes, there’s an exception – going bald reveals a reddish white infection on the bald forehead.  So Mikhail Gorbachev wouldn’t be well received there.

CHAPTER 14

You’d think a 59-verse chapter on skin disease would be enough, but you’d be wrong.  This chapter – weighing in at 57 verses – is all about purification for those diseases.  Oh, and it also covers if your house gets fungus, and how poor people don’t have to sacrifice as much, being poor and all.

CHAPTER 15

OK, now for something even more exciting than skin diseases – sex!  More specifically, sexual cleanliness.  Most of this chapter deals with male “discharge.”  It says that if a guy discharges, he’s unclean for seven days and most make a sacrifice of some birds to the Lord. 

However, discharge doesn’t apparently mean all kinds of, well, discharge.  Later in the chapter we’re told that if a man lay with his wife, they’re only unclean until evening.  And there’s no call for a sacrifice there.  OK, that makes sense.  They’re supposed to be fruitful and multiply so saying you’re unclean for a full week after each time you have sex would really put a crimp into that. 

Also, just before the marital section, there’s a part my footnotes says is about wet dreams, though the text itself isn’t as clear. Mind you, the text is pretty clear – “emission of semen.”  I guess saying emission instead of discharge means it’s involuntary and while asleep than intended and while awake.  With the “emissions” just clean it up and it’ll be unclean until evening.

So the rest of the chapter’s “discharge” talk must either refer to out of wedlock sex or masturbation.  I assume the latter, as you’re not supposed to do the former.  So there’s nothing about jerking off making you go blind, but there is still a penalty.  This fits in with be fruitful and multiply. Man, you’re wasting your seed! 

Also, the second half of the chapter deals with menstruation.  Like with masturbation, a person (in this case a woman, obviously) is unclean for a week.  If you touch her, you’re unclean.  Anything she sits on for that week in unclean.   There is supposed to be a book called The Year of Living Biblically in which the authors tries to live up to all of the edicts of the Torah.  For this sitting rule, he had to carry around a small portable stool everywhere he went.  When the woman is done with her period, she must sacrifice some birds.

By the way – assuming I’m right about the first half of the chapter being about masturbation – at no point does the Bible consider the possibility of female masturbation.  Just sayin’ ….

CHAPTER 16

Holy crap – the scapegoat is an actual thing!  I know the phrase, and never thought about where it came from – turns out it comes from the Bible. To atone for the sins of the Israelites, Aaron shall bring a goat, confess all sins while laying hands on the goat, “and so put them on the goat’s head.”  Then you sacrifice the goat to absolve the people of their sins.  So that’s where that bit of pop culture folklore comes from.  Huh. 

At any rate, the chapter is on the Day of Atonement, and picks up right after Chapter 10 when Aaron’s sons died.  Why not make this Chapter 11 then?  Eh, I don’t know.  Seems like a mistake on the part of the P author, who wrote pretty much all of Leviticus.

CHAPTER 17

This chapter is on the sacredness of blood.  Among other things, people are told again that else they can’t eat blood.  So there’s some reinforcement of the kosher diet. 

What I found really striking was something near the top of the chapter. We’re told that anyone who kills an ox or sheep or goat without first presenting it as an offering to the LORD shall “be judged guilty of bloodshed – that individual has shed blood and shall be cut off from the people.”  Seriously?  You’re going to cut off someone for doing a sacrifice away from the temple?  That’s rather severe. 

Well, let’s look at who is writing this – the priests.  And they’re saying that if you cut out the priests from the job – well, clearly the priests don’t take kindly to that.  So you get this overreaction.  From what I vaguely know/remember, one problem the priests had was the flock decentralizing their religion and performing duties in their own areas instead of the temple.  This sounds like a strong push back against it.  Assuming I’m remembering future chapters properly.

Click here for the next part of Leviticus.