Big Idea: The food laws helped Israel to be a holy people.

Understanding the Text

Ritual purity must be maintained not only at the sanctuary but also in the whole camp. The death of Aaron’s two sons in Leviticus 10 and the allusion to it in Leviticus 16:1–2 bracket Leviticus 11–15 on Israel’s purity system. That system serves to maintain purity among all Israelites. Nadab and Abihu have failed to maintain purity in the sanctuary. Now the Israelites are taught various other ways that they can become impure and thus unfit to approach the sanctuary.

A person can become ceremonially unclean in many ways: eating unclean animals (Lev. 11); having bodily discharges (Lev. 12; 15); having skin diseases or contact with mildew (Lev. 13–14); touching corpses (Lev. 21:1–4,12; Num. 6:9–12; 19:1–20; 3…