The Levitical system views the world in terms of four basic categories: clean, unclean, common, and holy. These are often thought of in terms of a three-tier hierarchy (with ‘unclean’ omitted for some reason)—viz. ‘common’ ⇒ ‘clean’ ⇒ ‘holy’—, which is a nice idea because quite a few other things in Scripture involve a three-tier system.
Your comment regarding [Judah --> donkey and Ephraim --> ox] reminded me of various comments from James Jordan and Theopolitans about the priest's symbolic connection to the ox and the king's symbolic connection to the donkey (or, rather, non-religious rulers' connection to the donkey). Maybe we can see this with Shechem and Hamor being rulers in the area while Jacob is the priestly ox residing in the land and hamstrung by what his sons did. Maybe there are parallels to Christ riding in on a donkey as the anointed king (contra or separate to the usual interpretation of the choice of the donkey being seen as a sort of humiliation compared to a warrior's horse by most people I've heard comment, excluding comments on the specific fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9). And so, maybe this is part of the New Testament's focus on God's people as now priest-kings that mix the two domains/aspects.
Caveats/Issues with my own comments:
- Judah and kings are usually seen to be symbolically connected to lions, but maybe they can have more than one animal reference. A donkey might not be seen as too similar to kings but I think in Scripture you get a common thread of the "passed over son" - e.g. Cain, Ishmael, Esau - as both a kingly ruler and typologically related to a stubborn donkey, who must give way to the prior priest-like son (i.e. the sacrificed lamb who goes into the presence of God, in the Passover metaphor) in order to flourish.
- If ox --> priest, then it might seem more fitting to fit the tribe of Levi with this pattern. Not to say that Levi is connected with oxen - the sacrificial stipulations seem to make that clear - but rather to say that the pairing "Ephraim and Judah" seems to be less satisfactory (if it wasn't for biblical history) than the pairing "Levi and Judah". This is something I need to think on more and would love comments on. Also, with my comments above, I have to figure out how Ephraim could be considered "prior to" Judah. The story of Joseph certainly gives him a "firstborn son"-like status. But is there any other connections between Ephraim being prior to Judah?
Thank-you James for articulating so clearly that “Cleanness-versus-uncleanness and commonness-versus-holiness aren’t rungs on a ladder. They’re two separate dimensions.”
You might like to read Robert Alter’s note on Deut 22:9 in his book “The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary”. In fact, I encourage you to contact him if you can, to share this article of yours and see what he thinks about it.
Hey James, Thanks for this post. I really appreciate the graphic you created with the four quadrants , the Levites probably would have liked that! Maybe this is the origin of Tic-tac-to.
Anyway, what do you make of what is going on in Haggai 2:10-19? I understand holiness not to be transferable in the same way that ritual impurity is, however, the problem feels like it is left open-ended does it not? Haggai answered and said, "So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the LORD, and so with every work of their hands" (vs. 14). We have dirty handed rebuilders, and that situation doesn't find it's resolution in Haggai, does it?
I think there's a lot of present day application for the categories of clean and holy, where perhaps we tend to conflate them. For example, in the question of public nudity, even among Christians, the argument is put forward that the body was created good, Adam and Eve were naked before the fall, and so we should not be 'ashamed' of the naked body because it suggests it is sinful (or flipping it around, there's no issue with public nudity since it's a celebration of something good). If we apply the categories of clean and holy, however, we can assert that while the naked body is 'clean', and therefore not shameful or sinful, it is also 'holy', and therefore not to be treated as common but reserved for its specific place and role.
Indeed, moving forward more positively, it gives us a way to go beyond just 'good vs. bad' and instead elevate certain things a special - more than good - holy and not common.
A challenge, perhaps, in a society based on materialism where nothing is special, or holy, but simply a collection of atoms or other physical parts. One argument might be that there is a freedom for people to shuffle those 'parts' around as they please and redefine everything according to their preference. It perhaps a subconscious subversion of the Divine by claiming the role of one who makes holy by decree and declares good and evil. But of course, the 'parts' belong to God, He created them, and the best we can do is to try to shuffle around what He has given us. Sadly, we inevitably kill and destroy what we 'reinvent'. Instead, where we submit to God's instruction of holiness, we not only keep what He has given us, but we gain something we could never have by our own means - the truly holy - a value above the 'mere parts' as we might have seen them. We realise that our bodies, our marriages, our communities, the natural world around us, our worship together, have a dimension to them beyond our definition. In our hands, the world is only two dimensional because everything is on our level or level. In God's holy hands we realise the world is three dimensional.
Hi James, how do you think this works in 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul talks about the children of a mixed (believing/unbelieving) marriage to not be unclean but be holy?
Your comment regarding [Judah --> donkey and Ephraim --> ox] reminded me of various comments from James Jordan and Theopolitans about the priest's symbolic connection to the ox and the king's symbolic connection to the donkey (or, rather, non-religious rulers' connection to the donkey). Maybe we can see this with Shechem and Hamor being rulers in the area while Jacob is the priestly ox residing in the land and hamstrung by what his sons did. Maybe there are parallels to Christ riding in on a donkey as the anointed king (contra or separate to the usual interpretation of the choice of the donkey being seen as a sort of humiliation compared to a warrior's horse by most people I've heard comment, excluding comments on the specific fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9). And so, maybe this is part of the New Testament's focus on God's people as now priest-kings that mix the two domains/aspects.
Caveats/Issues with my own comments:
- Judah and kings are usually seen to be symbolically connected to lions, but maybe they can have more than one animal reference. A donkey might not be seen as too similar to kings but I think in Scripture you get a common thread of the "passed over son" - e.g. Cain, Ishmael, Esau - as both a kingly ruler and typologically related to a stubborn donkey, who must give way to the prior priest-like son (i.e. the sacrificed lamb who goes into the presence of God, in the Passover metaphor) in order to flourish.
- If ox --> priest, then it might seem more fitting to fit the tribe of Levi with this pattern. Not to say that Levi is connected with oxen - the sacrificial stipulations seem to make that clear - but rather to say that the pairing "Ephraim and Judah" seems to be less satisfactory (if it wasn't for biblical history) than the pairing "Levi and Judah". This is something I need to think on more and would love comments on. Also, with my comments above, I have to figure out how Ephraim could be considered "prior to" Judah. The story of Joseph certainly gives him a "firstborn son"-like status. But is there any other connections between Ephraim being prior to Judah?
Just wondering how this might apply to Peter’s dream in Acts 10.
Thank-you James for articulating so clearly that “Cleanness-versus-uncleanness and commonness-versus-holiness aren’t rungs on a ladder. They’re two separate dimensions.”
You might like to read Robert Alter’s note on Deut 22:9 in his book “The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary”. In fact, I encourage you to contact him if you can, to share this article of yours and see what he thinks about it.
Hey James, Thanks for this post. I really appreciate the graphic you created with the four quadrants , the Levites probably would have liked that! Maybe this is the origin of Tic-tac-to.
Anyway, what do you make of what is going on in Haggai 2:10-19? I understand holiness not to be transferable in the same way that ritual impurity is, however, the problem feels like it is left open-ended does it not? Haggai answered and said, "So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the LORD, and so with every work of their hands" (vs. 14). We have dirty handed rebuilders, and that situation doesn't find it's resolution in Haggai, does it?
Thanks for this.
I think there's a lot of present day application for the categories of clean and holy, where perhaps we tend to conflate them. For example, in the question of public nudity, even among Christians, the argument is put forward that the body was created good, Adam and Eve were naked before the fall, and so we should not be 'ashamed' of the naked body because it suggests it is sinful (or flipping it around, there's no issue with public nudity since it's a celebration of something good). If we apply the categories of clean and holy, however, we can assert that while the naked body is 'clean', and therefore not shameful or sinful, it is also 'holy', and therefore not to be treated as common but reserved for its specific place and role.
Indeed, moving forward more positively, it gives us a way to go beyond just 'good vs. bad' and instead elevate certain things a special - more than good - holy and not common.
A challenge, perhaps, in a society based on materialism where nothing is special, or holy, but simply a collection of atoms or other physical parts. One argument might be that there is a freedom for people to shuffle those 'parts' around as they please and redefine everything according to their preference. It perhaps a subconscious subversion of the Divine by claiming the role of one who makes holy by decree and declares good and evil. But of course, the 'parts' belong to God, He created them, and the best we can do is to try to shuffle around what He has given us. Sadly, we inevitably kill and destroy what we 'reinvent'. Instead, where we submit to God's instruction of holiness, we not only keep what He has given us, but we gain something we could never have by our own means - the truly holy - a value above the 'mere parts' as we might have seen them. We realise that our bodies, our marriages, our communities, the natural world around us, our worship together, have a dimension to them beyond our definition. In our hands, the world is only two dimensional because everything is on our level or level. In God's holy hands we realise the world is three dimensional.
Hi James, how do you think this works in 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul talks about the children of a mixed (believing/unbelieving) marriage to not be unclean but be holy?