15. These animals are unclean to you (Lev 11:1-23)

God defines which animals are unclean to His chosen people.  

👉 Read Leviticus 11:1-23

You may eat any among the animals that have (               ) and that also (                   ).

 

They are unclean to (              ). Because they are detestable to (             ), you must (            ) them.

 

Why do you think locusts are an exception to the guidelines for unclean insects? (20-21)

 

Answers and Meditation

A divided hoof, chew the cud

The guideline for clean animals was given. But, there is no explanation why such a guideline defines the cleanness of that animal.

 

You, you, detest

Whenever the Bible says ‘unclean,’ it is so to ‘you,’ the Israelites. Those are not unclean to everyone but only to the Israelites. Such food laws distinguished them from other nations.

They also needed to detest those unclean animals.

 

They hop instead of walking.

Hopping distinguished them from other walking animals. That's why having four legs cannot be a reason of uncleanness. Why is an insect that has wings and walks on four legs unclean? We can guess that any animal with mixed behaviors of two different animal groups is considered unclean. For example, any insect that flies and walks is unclean. In other passages, we find that God doesn’t want any form of a mixture of two different kinds. For they were God’s distinguished people, any form of mixture was detestable for them.

 

Those birds were banned without explanation. (13-18) However, from the list of unclean birds, we can say a clean bird is not a bird of prey. Such a bird eats any dead body.

 

Note that the food law applies only to animals, not plants.