In this series, we are examining some of the many commandments which are found in the law of Moses.  It is our aim to understand them better, build faith, and answer critics.  We are considering them topically.

1.  Human waste.  Human waste was to be buried outside the camp (Deuteronomy 23:12-13).

Many diseases could be avoided by following this.  S.I. McMillen comments, “Up to the close of the eighteenth century, hygienic provisions, even in the great capitals were quite primitive.  It was the rule for excrement to be dumped into the streets which were unpaved and filthy.  It was a heyday for flies as they bred in the filth and spread intestinal diseases that killed millions.  Such waste of human lives that could have ben saved if people had only taken seriously God’s provision for freeing men of diseases… the deadly epidemics of typhoid, cholera, and dysentery” (S.I. McMillen, None of These Diseases, p. 13).  Nineteenth century cholera epidemics in London hit the poor especially hard.  “Why were the poor the first to feel the carnage of cholera?  (Edwin) Chadwick had the answer.  The poor lived in basements… The city of London had a serious problem with sewage: Its drainage systems were inadequate… The streets were filled with raw sewage that people indiscriminately cast out of second and third story windows.  When the rain washed the streets ‘clean’ the tainted water would naturally settle in the lowest places it could find – basements” (Defending the Faith Study Bible referring to S.I. McMillen and David Stern (2000) None of These Diseases, pp. 27-35). 

Even the Black Plague may have a link to poor sanitation.  Bert Thompson comments, “The common course of action in Moses’ day, and for centuries to follow, was to dump waste products in a convenient place… Europeans routinely dumped waste products of all kinds out their windows and into the public streets – where decomposition took place, allowing a variety of micro-organisms to flourish.  One of these micro-organisms – the one we know today as Yersinia Pestis – grow in the waste products and contaminated fleas associated with those waste products.  The fleas, using rats as their hosts, subsequently traveled into people’s houses.  Once inside a dwelling, the fleas jumped from the rates onto the humans, biting them and infecting them with the plague organism… Yet, if the people simply obeyed God’s injunction, as given by Moses to the Israelites, all of the death and horror of two separate epidemics could have been avoided” (Bert Thompson, Rock Solid Faith, Vol. 1, p. 237). 

2.  Washing.  Those who touch a dead body were to be put through a washing and purification process (Numbers 19).

The washing was to be done with the ashes of a red heifer, cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet (wool).  (1) The ashes are a source of lye.  (2) Hyssop contains the antiseptic thymol and has antibacterial qualities.  (3) Cedar oil is antiseptic, anti-fungal, and an insecticide.  (4) Scarlet wool (Hebrews 9:19) would provide fiber.  “The recipe is nothing less than a procedure to produce an antibacterial soap… Adding wool fibers to the concoction would have made the mixture the ancient equivalent of Lava® soap” (Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt, Reasons to Believe, p. 42-43; Also, The Defending The Faith Study Bible).

Proper cleaning can save lives.  “In 1847, an obstetrician named Ignaz Semmelweis was the director of a hospital ward in Vienna, Austria.  Many pregnant women checked into his ward, but 18% of those women never checked out… As he contemplated his dilemma, he watched young medical students perform their routine tasks.  Each day students would perform autopsies on the dead mothers.  Then they would rinse their hands in a bowl of bloody water, wipe them off on a common, shared towel, and immediately begin internal examinations of the still-living women… Semmelweis ordered everyone in his ward to thoroughly wash his or her hands in a chlorine solution after every examination.  In three months, the death rate fell from 18% to 1-3%” (Defending the Faith Study Bible; also, Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt, Reasons to Believe, pp. 40-42).   

Why red? Why a red heifer? Why scarlet wool? I believe that it points to the cleansing which comes through the blood of Christ (Revelation 1:5; 7:13-14).

3.  Earthen v. Wooden Vessels.  Contaminated vessels of earth were to be broken.  Vessels of wood could be cleansed with water (Leviticus 15:12). 

“Research conducted over a period of several years has consistently demonstrated the remarkable antibacterial properties of wood.  Tests have been done on five life-threatening bacteria (Escherichia Coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter Jejuni, Listeria Monocytogenes and Staphylococcus Aureus) on four plastic polymers and more than 10 species of hardwood, including Hard Maple, Birch, Beech, Black Cherry, Basswood, Butternut, and American Black Walnut.  Within three minutes of inoculating wooden boards with cultures of food poisoning agents, 99.9 percent of the bacteria were unrecoverable.  On the other hand, none of the bacteria tested under similar conditions on plastic died.  In fact, leaving microbe populations on the two surfaces overnight resulted in microbial growth on the plastic boards, while no live bacteria were recovered from the wood the next morning” (Defending The Faith Study Bible). 

4.  Quarantine.  The Bible teaches the principle of quarantine.  A leper was to dwell outside of the camp (Leviticus 13:45-46). 

Furthermore, “If and when a diseased individual got close to those who were not diseased he was instructed to ‘cover his mustache, and cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ (Leviticus 13:45).  It is interesting that the covering of one’s mustache (‘upper lip’ ASV) would prevent spit and spray from the mouth of an individual to pass freely through the air, much like covering one’s mouth during a cough’ (Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt, Reasons to Believe, p. 44; Also Defending The Faith Study Bible).  Note: A study of Leviticus 13 suggests that the Bible uses the term ‘leprosy’ more broadly than we do.    S.I. McMillen writes, “For hundreds of years the dreaded disease leprosy killed countless millions of people in Europe… Dr. George Rosen (1910-1977 B.H.) Columbia University professor of Public Health: ‘Leprosy cast the greatest blight that threw its shadow over the daily life of medieval humanity.  Fear of all other diseases taken together can hardly be compared to the terror spread by leprosy.  Not even the Black Death in the fourteenth century of the appearance of Syphilis toward the end of the fifteenth century produced a similar state of fright…’  What did the physicians offer to stop the ever-increasing ravages of leprosy?  Some taught that it was ‘brought on by eating hot food, pepper, garlic and meat of diseased hogs.’  Other physicians said it was caused by malign conjunction of the planets.  Naturally their suggestions for prevention were utterly worthless… ‘Leadership was taken by the church, as the physicians had nothing to offer.  The church took as its guiding principle the concept of contagion as embodied in the Old Testament… Once the condition of leprosy had been established, the patient was to be segregated and excluded from the community.  Following the precepts laid down in Leviticus the church undertook the tasks of combatting leprosy’… As soon as the European nations saw that the application of scriptural quarantine brought leprosy under control, they applied the same principles against the Black Death.  The results were equally spectacular, and millions of lives were saved” (S.I. McMillen, None of These Diseases, pp. 11-12).