Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Seder 87: Lev 14:33-53---Ritual Impurity in a House

Looking ahead to Israel's arrival in the Promised Land, Lev 14:33-53 describes a situation where a house becomes ritually impure because of some kind of fungal growth on the walls.

Verse 34 speaks of God putting "a leprous disease in a house" (v 34).  That doesn't necessarily mean that God would be placing the growth in the house as a punishment.  God is in some sense responsible for everything, and the verse may be speaking in that sense.  

This language might also reflect the way in which people in the ancient Near East thought about such growths.  In Mesopotamia house fungus was believed to carry omens, with the message varying according to the color and placement of the fungus.  People would carry out magic spells to try and avoid negative events they thought were indicated by the fungus.  One reason for the instructions in Lev 14 may have been to counteract such beliefs and practices by making clear that God was in charge and such a growth was not due to the activity of some other god or demon.  

Note that nothing is said about the growth being a consequence of sin.  The motivation for the instructions in Lev 14 is also not public health, as we see in verse 36.  where a house is emptied before the priest inspects it so that the things inside it will not be declared impure. 

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on Jan 15, 2022, Rob Wilson explained that the Hebrew word for "put" in Lev 14:34 means "gift," leading to the insight that a house might have received a fungus for the good of its inhabitants.  Perhaps the house was unsafe, for example, and needed to be torn down for their safety.  Correction from God, of course, is ultimately for our good. 

Rob mentioned an imaginative proposal made by the medieval Jewish commentator Rashi.  Rashi speculated that when the Israelites took over houses from Canaanites who had fled during the conquest, perhaps God marked a house with fungus so that the new Israelite owners would find treasure that the previous owners had hidden in the walls of the house.    

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