EV 11-15{Sophy. Did God tell Aaron what was holy and what was not holy?
Mamma. Yes. He spoke to Moses and Aaron first about the food that the children of Israel were to eat. They were only to eat the flesh of clean beasts, and the unclean beasts were not to be eaten. Those which divide the hoof and chew the cud were the clean beasts. A cow was called a clean animal, because the hoof of its foot has a division in it, which enables it to tread firmly on the ground, and because it also chews the cud—that is, it chews its food a second time. When a cow eats a good breakfast it lies down to chew the cud, as it is called.
S. Oh yes, I have often seen a cow lying down, moving its mouth as if it were talking to itself.
M. Well that is called chewing the cud. A horse is an unclean animal, because it has neither of these marks. Of fishes only those which had fins and scales might be eaten. Birds of prey were also unclean. And if any one touched a dead animal it made him unclean, and he had to wash his clothes.
S. Why did God say they were only to eat the clean animals?
M. To make a difference between His people and all the other people on the earth; for He said I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; therefore, you shall be holy because I am holy. Even sickness made God's people unclean; for sickness is a mark of sin; and God in His mercy told Moses and Aaron what the people were to do when they were unclean, because if God was to dwell in the camp of His people they must be pure and fit for His presence.
For a small illness they were to bring a burnt offering and a sin offering; but when a man had the dreadful disease of leprosy, he was to tear his clothes and uncover his head, as a mark of his sorrow; and he was to put a covering on his upper lip, and cry, Unclean, unclean! so that if people met him they went away from him, lest they should get it too. He was an unclean person, and was obliged to live alone, outside the camp.
S. Poor man! How did he know when it was leprosy?
M. When a spot appeared upon a man, he was brought to the priest, and Aaron or one of his sons had to judge whether it was leprosy or not. If it was, he said the man was unclean, and that he must go outside the camp; and if leprosy got upon their clothes, they were to burn them in the fire.
S. Did God ever make the leprosy well?
M. Yes. None but God could heal the leper, and he told Moses how to make the leper clean after the leprosy was healed. The priest was to go out of the camp to see him, and if the leprosy was healed, they were to take for him two clean birds alive, and cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop; and the priest was to command them to kill one of the birds over a vessel of running water, so that its blood would go into the water; then the other bird which was not killed, and the cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop were to be dipped into the blood and water, and the living Bird was to be let fly away. The poor leper was to be sprinkled seven times with the Blood and water, and then the priest was to pronounce him clean; and when he had shaved off all his hair, and washed his clothes, he might come into the camp.
S. But What did it all mean, Mamma?
M. Leprosy is used as a figure of the sin in our nature, which is discovered in the presence of God; and Jesus is the priest. He sees all the sin in our hearts; but, He says to the sinner who comes to Him, now you are clean,—because He Himself was killed that the sinner might be washed in His blood; and Jesus has gone up to heaven—like the living bird which flew away towards the blue sky—to show us that sin is put quite away forever.
S. Ought we to show our sins to Jesus as the leper showed his leprosy to the priest?
M. Yes, Sophy. If we do not tell Jesus of all the naughty things we do, and say and think, we do not hear Him say to us—You are clean. What a happy moment it must have been for the poor lonely leper, when God's priest looked at him and said—You are clean, you may leave everything of yourself behind, and go back into God's camp. The leper was not to go to his own house for seven clays, and on the seventh day he was to shave his hair and wash himself again,—this was putting off all that belonged to his old self, and on the eighth day, after he had come into the camp, he was to bring offerings to the Lord; and the priest was to bring him to the door of the tabernacle, and to present him to the Lord; and the priest was to dip his finger in the blood of the sin-offering and to put it on the right ear of the leper, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot-as Moses did to the priest—and he was to do the same with the oil after he had sprinkled it seven times before the Lord.
S. Was the leper a priest when he was anointed?
M. No; none but the sons of Levi were priests; but the cleansed leper was to be as separate to God as if he were a priest, and instead of being too unclean for other people to come near he was to be anointed to God. Afterward the priests offered a sin-offering, and a burnt-offering, and a meat-offering, upon the altar for him, and made atonement for him.
God also spoke of leprosy in a house, and said that when they carne into the land of Canaan, if a man found he had leprosy in his house, he was to send for the priest to look at it, and he was to take out the stones and carry them away outside the city, and to put in new stones and new mortar, and then the priest should cleanse the house in the same way that he cleansed the person, by the offering of two birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. But if the leprosy was not healed, and spread all over the house, they were to pull it down, and carry all the stones and things that it was built of outside the city.
S. Why did they offer cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop?
M. Because those three things are named by God to express everything that man naturally delights in. Cedar wood is the most costly and precious wood, and hyssop is a tiny herb, so that everything of nature, from the greatest thing to the least thing, was to be dipped in the blood of the bird that was killed.