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Leviticus 11 tells Israel not to eat the camel, the rabbit or the pig, and it gives one reason twice. Before anyone argues about whether the list still applies, that reason has to be heard.
Leviticus 11:44-45
Opening
For I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any creature that crawls along the ground. For I am the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt so that I would be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
Leviticus 11:44-45 (BSB)
These are the closing verses of the food laws. God gives the reason for the whole list, and he gives it twice.
Leviticus 11 is a list of animals. It tells Israel which ones they may eat and which ones they may not. Cattle, sheep and goats are allowed. The camel, the rabbit and the pig are not. Neither is anything in the water without fins and scales, most birds of prey, or anything that moves along the ground.
The list comes with a reason, and the reason is in these two verses. God says he brought this people up out of Egypt so that he would be their God. Then he says it twice: be holy, because I am holy.
Holy means set apart for God. The food laws were one of the ways Israel lived that out. Every meal reminded them whose people they were.
The wording earlier in the chapter matters too. The camel is “unclean for you.” The Hebrew word is tamei, and it names a religious status. It does not mean dirty or diseased. The camel was not a bad animal. It was not food for this people.
Christians still read these verses. Peter quotes them to believers in 1 Peter 1:16. Christians disagree about what that means for their own tables. They agree on where to start. God gave these laws, and he gave them so that his people would be holy.
REFLECT
What part of your ordinary day shows, without words, whose you are?
A Two-Minute Prayer
Holy God, you brought your people out of Egypt so that you would be their God. Before I decide what your old commands mean for me, teach me to respect them. Make me yours in the ordinary places, even at my table.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
The LORD spoke again to Moses and Aaron, telling them, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Of all the beasts of the earth, these ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. But of those that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, you are not to eat the following: The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. The rock badger, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.
Leviticus 11:1-8 (BSB)
These words were spoken to Moses and Aaron while Israel was camped at Sinai, after the escape from Egypt. The phrase “unclean for you” repeats after every animal.
Leviticus opens with God calling to Moses from the tent of meeting. The people have left Egypt. They are camped at Sinai, and God has come to live among them in that tent.
In the larger story of the Bible, this is the wilderness. The promise God made to Abraham has become a nation. That nation is now learning how to live near a holy God, and Leviticus is the book of that learning.
Chapter 11 brings the lesson into the kitchen. A land animal must have a split hoof and chew the cud. A water creature must have fins and scales. A list of birds is ruled out, most of them birds of prey. Most insects are ruled out, and so is everything that moves along the ground.
Some of the rules look arbitrary to a modern reader. The goat is allowed and the rabbit is not. The text gives the two signs, but it never explains why those two signs mark what Israel may eat.
Notice first the phrase “unclean for you.” It follows the camel, the rock badger, the rabbit and the pig. The Hebrew word is tamei, and the lexicons treat it as a religious category. It does not mean dirty, and it does not mean diseased. It marks what was off limits for Israel's table and Israel's worship.
The second detail is the word “you.” The rule is addressed to a particular people. Other nations are not told to keep this list. Jewish tradition still reads it that way. The medieval commentator Rashi says God gave these rules to Israel and forbade nothing of the kind to the other nations.
Most Christian traditions read the chapter as ceremonial law given to Israel, which Christ fulfilled. Seventh-day Adventists read it more widely. They point out that Noah already knew clean from unclean animals (Genesis 7:2), and they hold that the distinction still applies to believers today.
The rule came with a reason, stated twice. “Be holy, because I am holy.” God did not want his people to be like everyone else at the table, because he was not like anyone else.
The Hebrew word for holy is qadosh. It means set apart for God. A holy people belongs to him in a way other people can see. Food was one of the places they could see it, at every meal.
God did not want his people to be like everyone else at the table, because he was not like anyone else.
People have asked for more than two thousand years why God cared what Israel ate. The text gives the purpose, which is holiness. It does not explain why the camel is out and the goat is in. So readers have offered explanations. Six have lasted, and each deserves to be heard in its own terms.
The first is health. Moses Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher of the twelfth century, argued that the forbidden foods are unwholesome. Some modern Christians say the same. Critics answer that the text never mentions health, that some permitted animals carry disease, and that the list ignores poisonous plants.
The second is symbol. A Jewish writer in Alexandria, about two centuries before Christ, said the animals picture virtues. Chewing the cud pictures memory, and a divided hoof pictures telling right from wrong. He put his case this way.
“All these ordinances were made for the sake of righteousness to aid the quest for virtue and the perfecting of character.”
That is the Letter of Aristeas, section 144. Its author kept the food laws and taught their meaning as well.
The third is order. In 1966 the anthropologist Mary Douglas argued that clean animals fit their place in creation and unclean ones cross its categories. Late in life she changed her mind. She wrote that in Leviticus “the unclean animals are not abominable.” She came to think the laws protect those creatures rather than despise them.
The fourth is reverence for life. Jacob Milgrom, a Jewish scholar who spent his career on Leviticus, argued that the laws limit which animals may be killed. Eating becomes a daily reminder that life belongs to God.
The fifth is separation. Gordon Wenham, an evangelical Old Testament scholar, points to Leviticus 20, where God ties the food laws to Israel's calling. “I have set you apart from the nations to be My own.” Each meal marked Israel as God's people.
The sixth is decree. The rabbis taught that some commands come without a stated reason and are kept because the King gave them. Rashi passes on a saying of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah from around the year 100. A person should not claim that he finds pork disgusting. He should say this instead.
“I would, indeed, like them, but what can I do since my Father in heaven has imposed these decrees upon me.”
Christian readers have drawn on this list for centuries. Thomas Aquinas gave several reasons at once, and he cited Maimonides by name while he did it.
Each explanation has critics, and scholars still disagree. They share something larger. Every one of them accepts the purpose the text states. The laws were about holiness, God gave them, and they were good.
A Christian who no longer keeps the list still has no grounds to call it foolish. Paul writes that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good” (Romans 7:12).
Then and Now
ANCIENT TRUTH
In Israel, what you ate showed whose you were. A Jew living in a Greek city could be recognized at a shared meal by what he would not eat.
Leviticus asks a reader to take the older view seriously. Eating is not neutral. It happens in front of God, and it can mark a person as belonging to him.
MODERN APPLICATION
Most people now treat food as a private matter of taste or health. A religious food rule can look like superstition, or like a way of keeping people out.
NEW TESTAMENT ECHO
Paul keeps that conviction even where he changes the rule: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
It is easy to treat a food law as a small thing. Scripture shows people who did not.
Ezekiel was a priest living among the exiles by the River Kebar in Babylonia (Ezekiel 1:3). God told him to bake his bread over dried human excrement, as a sign of the defiled bread the exiles would eat (Ezekiel 4:12-13). Ezekiel objected that he had never defiled himself.
“No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth” (Ezekiel 4:14).
God then gave him another way to bake the bread.
Daniel was taken to Babylon as a young man to be trained for the king's service. He made up his mind not to eat the king's food or drink his wine (Daniel 1:8).
Peter had kept the same laws all his life. When a voice in a vision told him to kill and eat, he answered, “No, Lord!” Then he gave his reason: “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean” (Acts 10:14).
These are three different situations. Ezekiel spoke to God during a sign he was told to act out. Daniel spoke to the officials of a foreign king. Peter answered a voice from heaven, and the vision taught him not to call any person unclean (Acts 10:28).
Romans 14 reads more fairly with these examples in mind. Paul's readers had the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. Those books show faithful men who refused to be defiled by food.
Four Young Men At The King's Table
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem. Afterward he ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials, to bring young men from Israel’s royal family and nobility. They were to be without blemish, wise and quick to learn. They would study the language and literature of the Chaldeans for three years. Every day they would receive food and wine from the king.
Among them were four from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names.
Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s food or wine. He asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself. God had given Daniel favor with this man, but the official was afraid, and he told Daniel so.
“I fear my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink.”
If the king saw the four looking thinner than the other young men, the official’s own life would be in danger.
So Daniel went to the steward who had been put in charge of the four. He asked for a test of ten days, with vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then the steward could compare them with the young men who ate the king’s food.
The steward agreed. At the end of ten days, the four looked healthier and better nourished than all the others. So the steward kept giving them vegetables in place of the king’s food and wine.
God gave the four knowledge and understanding. When the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom.
Daniel accepted a new name and a Babylonian education. He drew one line, at the king’s food and wine. He asked permission and proposed a test. Daniel was far from home, and holding that line showed that he still belonged to God.
Why Daniel Refused The King's Food
The first chapter of Daniel never says why the king’s food would defile Daniel. Readers have given several reasons, and many hold more than one. Some say the food was unclean under the law. The king’s meat could include animals Leviticus 11 forbids, or meat with the blood still in it. The commentators Adam Clarke and John Gill both gave this reason among others. Others say the food and wine had first been offered to Babylon’s gods. C. F. Keil held this view in the Keil and Delitzsch commentary. The medieval Jewish commentator Ibn Ezra said the king’s wine had been poured out as an offering to the gods. Others read the king’s table as a bond of loyalty. On this view, to eat the king’s food was to depend on the king. Daud Soesilo reports that the modern scholar Joyce Baldwin argued this. In his account, she pointed to Daniel 11:26. There, those who eat from a king’s provisions turn against him. John Calvin gave another reading. He believed the food was lawful in itself, and that the king meant the young men to forget their people. Calvin wrote that Daniel was “desiring by his very food perpetually to recall the remembrance of his country.” Each reading leaves a question open. The law of Moses does not forbid wine to ordinary Israelites (Deuteronomy 14:26), yet Daniel refused the king’s wine too. Gill, who also gave the first reason, said the wine had been poured out to the gods. The vegetables also came through the king’s steward (Daniel 1:16). And Daniel accepted a Babylonian name and education (Daniel 1:4-7). Every reading agrees on what Daniel did. He stayed faithful to God in a foreign land. He asked permission and did not defy the official. God had already given Daniel favor with that official (Daniel 1:9).
The food laws are not the only law in Leviticus. Eight chapters later, the same book gives the command Jesus would call the second greatest.
“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”
That is Leviticus 19:18. Jewish teachers have given it a central place. Rabbi Akiva, in the second century, called it “an all-embracing principle in the Torah.” The Talmud records a short summary of the whole law from the earlier teacher Hillel.
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.”
Jesus names Leviticus 19:18 as the second commandment, after loving God. Paul says every other command is summed up in it. Every Christian tradition, and the Jewish sources beside them, agree that this command still stands. On this point there is no real dispute.
The same chapter holds another command. “You must not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind.” Paul uses that same picture of a stumbling block when he writes about food in Romans 14.
So Leviticus should not be reduced to its strangest rules. The book that keeps the pig off Israel's table also tells Israel to love the neighbor and protect the blind. Holiness in Leviticus covers the kitchen and the neighbor together.
That gives a Christian a fair way to read the food laws. They are one part of a larger call to be God's people, and every tradition agrees that the call to love still stands.
But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
1 Peter 1:15-16 (BSB)
Peter writes to churches with many Gentile believers, and he quotes Leviticus to them directly. Whatever else has changed, the call to be holy has not.
REFLECT
Which old command have you dismissed as foolish before you understood what it was for?
Breathe This
Today’s is a breath prayer from Leviticus 11:44. It takes about ninety seconds, and you can do it where you are.
Sit still and let your shoulders drop. Breathe normally for a few breaths.
Breathing in, say silently: Be holy.
Breathing out, say silently: because I am holy.
Repeat six times, slowly. If you feel that holiness is out of your reach, remember that the command came to people God had already brought out of Egypt.
Later, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD, and He declared to her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb. The first one came out red, covered with hair like a fur coat; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.
Genesis 25:21-26 (BSB)
This happens centuries before Sinai. The nation that received the food laws takes its name from the second of these twins.
Israel's story does not begin at Sinai. Long before the food laws, there was a family, and the family began with a struggle.
Isaac's wife Rebekah could not have children. Isaac prayed, and she conceived twins. The babies struggled inside her so hard that she asked God why. God told her that two nations were in her womb, and that the older would serve the younger.
The first boy was born red and hairy, and they named him Esau. His brother came out right after him, holding on to Esau's heel. They named him Jacob.
The name plays on the Hebrew word for heel, aqev. People often say that Jacob means deceiver. Genesis does not say that. It connects the name to the heel. Later in the story, Esau will turn the name into an insult.
That younger brother is Israel's ancestor. God later gives him the name Israel, and the nation carries it. The people who received the holy laws of Leviticus were the children of a boy who was born grasping at his brother.
For today, hold two things together. God gave Israel good and holy laws. And the people who received them were descended from someone who needed God's mercy.
Prayer
Holy God, you set your people apart and told them why. You gave them good laws, and you gave them to a family that began with two brothers fighting. I come from people like that, and I am someone like that. Teach me to honor your commands. Make me holy where it counts, at my table and with my neighbor. Amen.
BREATH PRAYER
Breathe in: You are holy. Breathe out: I belong to you.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
Carry This
I will treat God’s old commands as a gift before I decide what they mean for me.
LEAVING AT THE CROSS
RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS
Check Yourself
What does the Hebrew word tamei, “unclean,” mean in Leviticus 11?
The Rabbi Who Would Not Say He Hated Pork
Land of Israel, around AD 100
A rabbi of the generation after the Romans destroyed the Temple in AD 70. His teaching is preserved in the Sifra, the early rabbinic commentary on Leviticus, and the medieval commentator Rashi repeats it in his notes on Leviticus 20:26.
I would, indeed, like them, but what can I do since my Father in heaven has imposed these decrees upon me.
LESSON FOR US
He refused to make obedience look like disgust. He kept the law because his Father asked it of him, and he said so honestly.
Go Deeper
RELATED SCRIPTURES
FOR DEEPER STUDY
Sources for today. Qadosh is Strong’s H6918; tamei H2931; tahor H2889; aqev (heel) H6119 — Brown-Driver-Briggs and the BibleHub interlinear. The claim that “Jacob means deceiver” is not supported by Genesis 25:26, which ties the name to the heel. Explanations of the food laws: Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3.48 (Friedländer translation); Letter of Aristeas 144 (R. H. Charles, 1913); Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford, 1999), chapter 7; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible, 1991); Gordon Wenham, “The Theology of Unclean Food,” Evangelical Quarterly 53 (1981); Rashi on Leviticus 11:2 and 20:26, citing the Sifra (Rosenbaum and Silbermann translation); Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II q.102 a.6. Rabbi Akiva: Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12. Hillel: Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a (William Davidson edition). For Daniel 1: Daniel 1:1-21, Daniel 11:26, Ezekiel 1:3, Ezekiel 4:12-15, Acts 10:9-16, Acts 10:28 and Deuteronomy 14:26 are quoted or cited from the Berean Standard Bible. “Defile” in Daniel 1:8 is ga’al (H1351); “the king’s food” is pathbag (H6598), a Persian loanword, per Brown-Driver-Briggs. Adam Clarke and John Gill, commentaries on Daniel 1:8. C. F. Keil (Keil and Delitzsch), Commentary on Daniel 1:8. Ibn Ezra on Daniel 1:8, as reported by John Gill. Joyce G. Baldwin, Daniel (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, 1978), 82-83, as summarized in Daud Soesilo, “Why Did Daniel Reject the King’s Delicacies?” The Bible Translator 45, no. 4 (October 1994): 441-444. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, on 1:5, 1:8 and 1:12.
Finished reading? Mark this day read.
BEFORE YOU GO
Anything you want to keep from today?
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