Leviticus 11: Eat This, Not That

God calls Moses and Aaron over to discuss what everyone should be eating.

"So from now on, you can only eat certain animals. The ones you can't eat are 'unclean.'

You don't want to eat this anyway...

"First of all, you know that there are animals with different kinds of hooves and animals that chew a cud and that don't chew a cud. If an animal with a split hoof chews a cud, you can eat it. If there's an animal that doesn't have a split hoof that chews a cud, or has a split hoof and doesn't chew a cud, you can't eat it. So no eating camels, no rock badgers (though actually they do not chew a cud), no rabbits, no pigs. Don't eat them. Heck, don't even touch their dead bodies. They're unclean."

"How about fish?" asks Moses.

"Anything with fins and scales. If it doesn't have fins and scales, don't eat it. No clams, no scallops, no calamari, no lobster, no shrimp..."

"Ohhh," says Moses, "I tried to tell you about that bad shrimp I ate and..."

"Yes, yes, you told me" says God. "That's why I included it. Anyway, birds. Everyone likes a roast chicken or duck now and then, right? You can eat those, but no eagles, vultures, falcons or kites or hawks, ravens, ostriches, seagulls, owls, herons, or bats."

"Bats aren't birds," says Aaron.

"Shut up," says God. "Once in a while in a famine, it may come down to eating bugs. You can eat bugs as long as they have jointed feet so they can hop. So locusts and grasshoppers. Otherwise, no bugs."

"Oh, I wonder if my staff still works for conjuring locusts..." Aaron mused.

"No, I took the batteries out," says God. "No touching or eating unclean animals, ok? If you touch them, you're unclean until evening. If you carry one of them, you have to wash your clothes. Don't eat anything with paws (so that covers the rock badgers). Don't touch mice or lizards. If anything you own touches a mouse or lizard, wash it. If a mouse or lizard falls in one of your dishes or in your stove or oven, break it. These things are just swarming with germs."

"Gross," says Moses.

"Even the animals that you can eat," says God, "if they die naturally, they become unclean and if you touch them or carry them or eat them, you're unclean too. Oh! And snakes and millipedes and swarming bugs and stuff. Don't eat those."

"Oh like I was planning on millipedes for dinner anyway," says Aaron.

Leviticus 8 - 10: Want to be a priest? Burn more animals! Also - Urim and Thummim

"Alright, lets get Aaron and his sons all priestly," says God. "I kind of went over how to do all this back in Exodus, but I tend to repeat myself, so I'm going to tell you all of it again. Maybe I'll change some stuff too."

"They all need to get bathed and dressed all up in their robes and magical underwear (oh you thought that was just for Mormons, right?). And in the breastplate, place the Urim and Thummim."

Wait... the what? I seem to have totally missed these things that were mentioned in Exodus 28:30. What are they? I did a bit of digging and it's interesting enough to pause here and talk about these.

There's a few mentions of the Urim and Thummim in the bible, but not a lot of explanation. The first was Exodus 28:30 where it just says to set them in the Breastpiece of Judgment: "in the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron's heart, when he goes in before the LORD. Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel on his heart before the LORD regularly." He's bearing the judgment of the people on his heart, so they seem to have something to do with judging.

They are mentioned here in Leviticus in the same context. They are set in the breastplate.

Spoiler alert! We'll come upon these things later, in 1 Samuel 14:41 where Saul will use them to ask God a question: "Therefore Saul said, 'O Lord God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day? If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O Lord, God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim.' And Jonathan and Saul were taken, but the people escaped." They then cast lots between the two of them to determine who is guilty. They are also mentioned in passing in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and again mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah, much later in the Bible. 

Very interestingly, they are also used by Joseph Smith Jr. in translating the Book of Mormon. Moroni the angel tells him about golden plates containing the Urim and Thummim to assist in understanding God's word. Christians, for some reason that I cannot figure, think this is ridiculous.

Is this God's coin toss? God's Magic 8 Ball? Divination based on a roll of the dice? I remember as a kid pretending I could tell the future or the truth by looking at mud splatters in a bucket or using sticks and rocks as rune stones. This seems similar.

Back to our story.

Moses takes Aaron and his sons to the tabernacle, along with a bull, a couple of nice looking rams, and some unleavened bread. He washes them, dresses them up in the clothes, and anoints them and the altar and utensils and the tabernacle with oil. He kills the bull as a sin offering and pours the blood all over the place and burns the fat from it, then drags the rest out of the camp and burns it out there.

Then they kill a ram for a burnt offering, and God is totally happy about the smell of roasting goat.

Then they kill the ram of ordination. Moses takes some of the blood and dabs it on the priests' right ear lobes, right thumbs, and right big toes, then throws the rest of the blood on the side of the altar in a big splashy mess. He gives Aaron the fatty parts, the right thigh, and some unleavened bread. Aaron waves it around for a bit. Moses takes it back and burns it, and again, God is thrilled by the smell of burning fat and flesh.

Moses anoints the priests' garments with more oil and tells them to boil the rest of the flesh by the door of the tent and to eat it and the leftover unleavened bread, then burn all the leftovers. "Don't leave the tent for seven days," he tells them. "You have to stay right here at the entrance of the tent so you don't die!"

"Oh that makes perfect sense," says Aaron.

On the eighth day, Moses tells Aaron the do another sin offering, another burnt offering, and tells him to tell the people to burn up a TON of goats and calves and lambs and oxen and rams and grain and oil.

Aaron does his sin offering and burnt offering without a hitch. He does the sin offering for the people, the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, and all goes swimmingly. He blesses the people and the fire of God comes down from heaven and consumes the offerings, to much ooo-ing and ahh-ing of the crowd.

Aaron is absolutely rocking this priest gig.

Just when everything is going so well, two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, decide that they can do better. They put some incense in a censer and wave it around.

ZAP!!!!! God strikes them dead with fire from the sky.

Moses calls for a clean up crew and they carry Nadab and Abihu out of the camp.

"Carry on," says Moses.

Leviticus 6:8 - 7: Some Final Details of Burning Stuff Up for God

"These burnt offerings are going to be pretty messy," says Moses.

"Yeah, they are," says God. "There are going to be a lot of ashes and charred meat and stuff. I have a plan for what to do with this.

"So back to the burnt offering... that needs to burn all night. In the morning, Aaron will need to put on his priestly robes and undies, gather up the ashes, then change into some different clothes and haul that mess out of camp and dump it in a clean place. The priest that made the offering can keep the hide. Keep that fire on the altar going 24/7 to burn all the burnt offerings and peace offerings. That fire cannot ever go out. Ever."

"What about when we pack it all up for traveling?"

Aw... sadness pancakes...

"That's your problem. And for the grain offering, like I said before, Aaron takes a handful of grain and mixes it with oil and frankincense and burns that. Then he and his sons can make unleavened bread with the rest. When Aaron and his sons are anointed, he should take a tenth of an ephah (approximately a half gallon dry measure) of flour a day and burn it in a skillet with oil. Don't eat that though. Burned pancakes aren't very good."

"Even when they're not burned, unleavened pancakes aren't very good," says Moses.

"Yeah, I know. So for the sin offerings, the priest that made the offering can eat that. Anything that he sprinkled blood on has to be washed in a holy place. If it was boiled in a earthenware bowl, you have to destroy that bowl. More economical would be to use a bronze dish... you can just wash that. All the priests can eat the sin offerings, unless the blood was brought into the tabernacle. Then you can't eat it."

"Why not?" asks Moses. "What's the difference?"

"Because I said so!" yells God. "Ok and the guilt offering. These are very holy. Splash the blood, burn all the fat entrails and the tail. The priests can eat the rest with the same rules as the sin offering."

"Peace offerings... you know, I said before that they needed to be animals, but I think I'm going to suddenly include grain in this category. I'm God. I do what I want. Bring some bread for the priest that's going to throw the blood around for you. If it's a peace offering of thanksgiving, it has to be eaten that same day. If it's for a vow or a freewill sacrifice, you can have leftovers the next day, but burn all the rest on the third day. Refrigeration won't be around for a while yet. Leftovers don't keep in the desert."

"Oh food poisoning is bad," Moses says, "Once I ate a shrimp that sat in the sun too long..."

"Oh I have plenty to say about shrimp later.  Anyhow, if any of this flesh touches something unclean, it's tainted and needs to be burned. Only clean people can touch the sacrifices. If someone unclean touches the sacrifice or eats it, they are CUT OFF from the rest of the group.  Done!  Gone!  Out of the club!  Exiled!"

"That's pretty harsh, says Moses. "And random."

"That's how I roll. And now other random rules about peace offerings just popped into my head. You can wave the offerings around. Wave the breast of the animal in the air and then Aaron and the priests will burn the fat and keep the breast and the right thigh of the animal for themselves. This needs to happen forever, until the end of time, so Aaron and his family can continue to be my priests. So now, let me tell you how we're going to get them all consecrated up and make it official."

Leviticus Chapters 1 - 6:7 Want To Make God Happy? Burn Something.

"Know what I really like?" says God.

"What?" asks Moses.

"Splashing blood around and the smell of burning flesh. And I like my steaks well done. So whether you want to just make me happy, or when people do something wrong, I want you to ritualistically burn some things and all will be forgiven. Here are the rules:

I really prefer mine to be on the rarer side, but to each his own

"Burnt offerings - Bring a flawless bull to the door of temple, put your hands on its head and kill it. Aaron and his sons gather the blood and splash it all around the altar. Flay it, chop it up, wash the guts and legs, and then and burn the whole thing. If you bring a male sheep or a goat (also flawless), kill it on the north side of the altar, don't bother flaying it, but then do the same thing with all the parts like you did with the bull. If all you have are birds, then wring their little heads off, drain the blood on the altar, take the gizzard out and toss it in the ashes. Rip it apart by the wings (but not totally in half... just mangle it a bit) and burn it.

"Grain offerings - You can bring me flour and bread. Bring flour to Aaron and he will take a handful of the flour, mix it up with oil and frankincense and burn it. Aaron gets to keep the rest of the flour you brought. I also like bread, but nothing leavened, and it needs to have oil in it or on it. Bring it to Aaron and he'll burn some on the altar and keep the rest for himself. No burning honey either. Not much of a sweet tooth. But season all your grain offerings with salt. Any first harvest offerings should be roasted and crushed and mixed with oil and frankincense.

"Peace offerings - These can be male or female animals, but still need to be perfectly flawless. Put your hand on its head and kill it in the front of the tent. Aaron and his sons will splash the blood around the altar. Burn the fat on the entrails, the kidneys with all their fat, and the long lobe of the liver with its fat. If it's a lamb, burn the tail, too.

"Sin offerings - If a priest sins accidentally (OOPS!), he needs to bring a bull to the tent, put your hand on its head, and kill it. Bring some of the blood in the tent and sprinkle it with a finger seven times on the veil of the altar, rub some blood on the horns of the incense altar, and pour the rest of it at the base of the burnt offering altar. Burn all the fat like in the peace offering, but then drag the rest of the bull outside the camp and burn it.

"If all the people of Israel collectively sin accidentally (OOPS!) they need to bring a bull to the tent and the elders of the camp will lay their hands on the head of the bull and kill it and the priest splash the blood around and burn the fat and then the bull just like I said before.

"If one of the leaders sins accidentally (OOPS!) they just bring a male goat, hands on the head, kill it, splash the blood around and burn the fat on the altar, but they don't need to drag the goat out of town and burn it.

"If a regular run of the mill person sins accidentally (you people need to be more careful), bring a female goat and do all the same stuff to it like I just said. Alternately, you can use a female sheep. Things someone might do that would need a sin offering to be made: not coming forward to testify with information, touching unclean stuff (unclean animals, carcasses, human uncleanness, etc.), or making oaths without thinking things through. And if you can't afford a lamb or a goat, I'll accept two birds. If you don't have birds, then flour will have to do.

"Guilt offerings - if you break any of my commandments, or breach your faith, deceive or lie about a neighbor, found something and lied about it, or stole something you have to sacrifice a 10-shekel ram, and also fix whatever you have done, plus pay 10% of the restitution to the priest. Do that and you're forgiven."

"Seems pretty simple, though again, what's with the splashing of blood all over the place?" says Moses.  "You really expect that people will keep up with this practice?"

"Oh of course they will!" says God.  "Don't be silly!"

Exodus 33 - 40: Moses and God Smooth Things Over and Move On

God says to Moses, "You've spent enough time here and everyone has caused a lot of trouble. Get going to that land I'm giving you. But I'm not going with you myself. I'm so angry that I could just spit and I'm honestly afraid that I might do something stupid like wipe you all out. I'm sending an angel to guide you instead."

"Aw, c'mon," say the people. "Come with us. We're sorry..."

"I need a break," says God. "And NO JEWELRY! This is a pilgrimage, not a fashion show."

Moses pitches his tent outside the camp and calls it the Tent of Meeting. Whenever he goes inside, the big funnel cloud descends from the sky and God talks to Moses. The people would get up and watch the giant pillar of cloud from their own tent doors and worship it.

Moses sighs. "God," he says, "I'm not getting all the information I need here. You tell me to bring the people out of Egypt, but you're not leading us yourself. You tell me I've found favor in your sight, but you don't tell me anything about your decision making process. These are your people you're entrusting me with, so consider that."

"My presence will be with you as you travel," God replies.  "You'll have an angel."

"See, but we really need you with us. It makes us special and distinguishes us from all the other people," says Moses.

"Yeah, you're right," says God. "I'll do as you say since you are my favorite and the only person that I really feel like I can talk to."

"Prove it," says Moses. "Show me your glory." (As if everything that God's done for him up until now is not enough.)

"I'll travel with you, but you can't see my face or you'll die."

"But didn't we all have dinner a couple month back on Mt. Sinai? I saw you then."

"Shh," says God. "How about this... go stand in that crack in that rock. Then I'll walk by but I'll block your view of my face."

God tells Moses to cut two stone tables like the ones he threw on the ground in his temper tantrum over the golden calf. "Carry those up the mountain," God says. "And come alone."

Moses goes up the mountain and God tells him that while he is gracious, merciful, loving and forgiving and also slow to anger (really???), that guilt for sins will follow their people through the fourth generation, essentially setting up everyone for lifetimes of guilt and doom.

"I see that I've found favor in your sight," says Moses. "Please... lead on."

God reminds Moses that they're his favorite people and that they're going to a land of milk and honey, but reminds him again of all the rules regarding worshiping other gods, keeping the feasts, not working on the seventh day, leavened bread, etc. He's again up there for 40 days and 40 nights, re-carving the tablets with the Ten Commandments.

The future's looking brighter already!

When Moses comes back down, there's no debauchery, no golden calf, no dancing or parties or nakedness. The people behaved. But everyone looks at him and is terrified because he's all shiny and glowing from talking to God.

"Get over here!" says Moses. Everyone comes over and he tells them again everything that God said. But then he puts a veil over his face because it's probably pretty distracting to everyone. He only takes it off to talk to God.

Everyone gets around to finally building all the stuff that God told them to make. Moses does warn them though that they need to take a break on the seventh day. If they work on that day they will die. The people all contribute the materials needed and Moses lays out the plans and delegates the work load. The tabernacle, the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars for incense and burnt offerings, the bronze basin, the courtyard, and Aaron's and his sons' priestly robes were all made and blessed as per instructions.

"Excellent!" says God, steepling his fingers together. "So on the first day of the month, set all this up and anoint and consecrate the whole thing."

Moses does this, and the pillar of cloud comes down and fills the tabernacle with the glory of the lord. So much glory that Moses can't even enter.

Throughout their journey from now on, the cloud over the tabernacle signals when it is time to move on. When the cloud is there, they stay. When the cloud lifts, they pack up and move.