Dew That to Me One More Time

Leviticus 14: 33-56

So, another fun-filled passage about how to clean the unclean. In this episode, we see the travails of keeping that house clean. Not in the dirty laundry on the floor kind of unclean but in the mildew is spreading and the priest has condemned my house kind of unclean. That'll make for an awkward dinner party.

The first order of business when you notice the mildew is to contact the priest. The priest then orders the house to be emptied before he inspects it. This way, if the house is declared unclean, all the things in the house won't be.

This seems a little odd to me. As long as the priest doesn't see it, it doesn't matter if the household items actually have spreading mildew. Hide them before the inspection! I guess it would be in your best interest to get rid of those contaminated things anyhow or the mildew would come back- and maybe there's a section coming up in a chapter or two dealing specifically with mildew plagued chifferobes.

The priest goes in- if the mildew looks green or red and deeper than the surface of the walls, the house gets closed up for seven days. After seven days he comes back to reinspect, if the mildew has spread, he orders all the contaminated stones be ripped out and deposited in an unclean place outside of town. Then they scrape the walls and the unclean shavings get dumped outside of town too. They replace the stones and replaster the house.

If the mildew comes back- the house is unclean. It's to be torn down and added to this toxic landfill beyond the town's city limits. Property values there... not so good.

If you go in the house while it's closed up, you are unclean until evening. If you sleep or eat in the house, you must wash your clothes and you may not be very smart. Or maybe you're very desperate. Losing your house is a big deal. What do you do for the couple of weeks your house is in limbo? What if you don't have family? What if your friends don't have any room? What if you can't afford a suite at Israelite Inn?

If the house has no mildew spread after the replastering, the priest proclaims it clean. Then to purify it, they do that whole two birds, cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn ritual. Blood of the dead bird gets sprinkled on the house seven times which doesn't sound at all sanitary. The live bird is released into open fields... emotionally scarred, but still alive.

Then comes the weird(er) part. In this way, atonement is made for the house. Atonement for the house? Has the house created some horrible evil? Is this Amytiville, Israel? This coupled with early in the passage where God says that these things should happen were He to "put a spreading mildew in a house" seems to imply that perhaps this mildew is a punishment for something done wrong. God put it there and the house needs atonement.

Although this flies in the face of what Job and his friends experience(d) - later in Job (but earlier in history). Maybe God is saying, you're bound to have done something wrong, this house cleansing is a wonderful opportunity to get it all taken care of.

Either way, I'm glad to not live close to the mildew depot in the next town over.