Purity Required
Leviticus 15:2-33
Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When any man has a running issue out of his flesh…


In tins chapter the defilement of sin is the leading thought. Here again there can be no doubt that there was a sanitary element in the regulations. "Cleanliness is next to godliness" is not, as some suppose, a Bible sentence, but it is beyond all question a Bible sentiment. The first all-embracing law of the Mosaic economy is, "Be holy." And the second is like unto it, "Be clean": clean in person, clean in garments, clean in house, clean in camp, clean everywhere. Who can tell how much the world owes to these "health laws of Moses"? "It is certainly a curious thing," writes one who is an authority on the subject, "worthy the notice of every student of the progress of the human race, whether his standpoint be religious or purely scientific, that the moving camp in the wilderness was governed by as strict and perfect a sanitary code as any sanitary commission could now devise." But in the Mosaic institutes the purity of the soul was ever kept before the mind as the main thing to be desired and secured. "Our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," was always the first thing; "our bodies washed with pure water" was the second (Hebrews 10:22); and throughout the book of the law these two have been by God so joined together that no candid mind can put them asunder.

(J. M. Gibson, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean.

WEB: "Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, 'When any man has a discharge from his body, because of his discharge he is unclean.




Plain Speaking on the Subject of Purity
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