Detestable Abominations and the Like

I did a quick survey of "abomination" and its close synonyms in the Old Testament in response to a question from a good friend. I had to correct a couple of misconceptions that I have entertained for years. There are several Hebrew words used for this idea, but two in particular stood out:

Hebrew: Shekets/shakats/shikuts שׁקץ
English: Something detestable/abominable, to detest, to make detestable
Context: 

• Unclean animals of all kinds are to be considered detestable to you. Leviticus 7, 11 
• Eating unclean animals will make you detestable. Leviticus 11:43, 20:25
• Unclean animals offered as sacrifice or impure sacrifices. Deuteronomy 29:17, 2 Chronicles 15:8, Jeremiah 4:1, Jeremiah 16:18, Ezekiel 5:11 (Sometimes translated as "abominable idols" or something like that, but "idols" is an assumption of the translator. I'm pretty sure it's referring to the sacrifice, not the idol.)

Hebrew: Toebah תּועבה
English: Abomination
Context: 

• Sexual immorality including temple prostitution. Leviticus 18, 20:13, 1 Kings 14:24, Jeremiah 6:15
• Human sacrifice, necromancy, and related practices. Deuteronomy 18, 2 Kings 16:3, 2 Chronicles 28:2-3
• Idolatry and general pagan religious practices. Deuteronomy 20:18, 32:16, 2 Kings 21:2, 23:13, 2 Chronicles 28:2-3, 34:33, Jeremiah 16:18
• Generally wicked behavior. Proverbs

There is definitely a difference between the two words, but it seems to be lost on the English translators. That's more the fault of the English language than of the translators, though. The major difference that I can see is that "shekets" and it's relatives is used when God commands us to hold a thing to be detestable, especially unclean animals, like trying to train a child not to eat something he found on the ground. It’s not that the parent is repulsed by the child eating it (although he is!) so much as he needs to teach the child to be repulsed for himself. On the other hand, whatever is "toebah" is more offensive personally to God. It is behavior that he hates: idolatry, sexual immorality, and a love of death. I don't think that English has such a distinction.

With that perspective, it seems perfectly reasonable to say that God told us not to eat unclean animals because it's bad for us to do so. Whether it's bad physically or spiritually or both is another question. The last option gets my vote.

The Weightier Matters: Love Your Neighbor

Over the past two decades I have spent a lot of time discovering what it means to follow Torah. We all know that the essence of the Law is love: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. I have tried to learn how that applies to waking up in the morning, to eating lunch, to watching television, and to building relationships.

I can follow the right calendar, keep all the biblical feasts, not keep any "pagan" feasts, and avoid all the wrong foods and still not really live Torah. I know people who have never given a thought to whether or not they should eat a seafood salad, but who follow Torah much more closely than I do. The couple who give all their time to the spiritual redemption of murderers and thieves, the man who volunteers day after day to serve hot meals at the Rescue Mission, the woman who spends her afternoons teaching art to neglected and hard-to-teach children, the child who saves his allowance all year to buy Christmas presents for everyone but himself.

For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror. For he studied himself and went his way, and immediately he forgot what he was like. But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty and continues in it, he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one shall be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks to be religious among you, yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world….If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and if one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them those things which are needful to the body, what good is it?

-James, the Just

Fear Your Mother

Leviticus 19:3 Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.

The command to honor our parents is the only one of the Ten Commandments to be accompanied by a promise. This command to fear them as well is associated with the Sabbaths in part because both are given for our own benefit. We are not to keep the various Sabbaths for God, but for ourselves.

God gains nothing tangible by the honor and fear we give our parents, while we gain longer and happier life through obedience and learned wisdom.

Mothers are given precedence because we do not naturally fear them. (I suppose that greatly depends on your mother!) In most circumstances, it is easier for a child to fear his father. He is threatening and powerful, while mothers are kind and comforting. Yet God says that we are to treat our mothers with fear for our own profit in spite of our natural inclination.

A Set Apart Community

Leviticus 19:1 – Torah is called "The Law of Moses" or simply "Moses," but make no mistake. These are the words of God given through Moses. They are not the words of Moses.

• v2 – "All the congregation," meaning men, women, and children. The Torah is about living in harmony with God, the world, your community, and yourself. This section is primarily concerned with living in community with fellow believers. Paul referred to it as the Body of Messiah. We are to be different than the world (k'doshim) because we are a part of God's people. Our standards must be different because his standard are different. When God follows a command with a statement like "I am YHWH," he is emphasizing that we are to follow his rules because we are his. Not because we belong to the First Church of Whatever or because we are Jews or Chrisians, but because we have been adopted into God's house. We live in his house, so we follow his rules.
• v3 – If Yahweh is your God or if you want to live among God's people, then keep the sabbath. If Yahweh is not your God or if you don't want to live among God's people, then "Do what thou wilt."
• v4 – If that other guy is your god, then you can make all the idols you want. "But as long as you live under my roof…"
• v5-8 – Peace offerings must always be voluntary. Obedience is mandatory, but going the extra mile is better. Peace offerings are meant to be extravagant community events. They are not meant to be used for regular meals.
• v9-10 – Leave something for the poor and the transient, but don't just hand it to them if they are able to work.
• v11-14 – Don't cheat each other or be sneaky with each other. There is no place for maneuvering in God's house.
• v15 – Don't play favorites. Don't brown nose and don't play Robin Hood, either. There is nothing wrong with being rich, and it's not your job to cure poverty. LBJ was a fool.
• v16 – Don't be a tattletale, a gossip, or a slanderer. Mind your own business.
• v17 – Confront evil (tactfully and quietly when possible) because it would be hateful to allow your neighbor to continue ignorantly in sin.
• v18 – Be forgiving and turn the other cheek. I.e. be slow to anger.

Have the Dietary Laws Outlived Their Purpose? a dialogue

Friend: When the Lord removes and nullifies the purpose of a Law, does it also remove and nullify the existence and enforcement of the same Law?

 I think it's a very dangerous thing to suppose that God has removed or nullified the purpose of a law unless He explicitly says so. God's Law is very elegant (I'm an IT person, so forgive me if I'm not using the word "elegant" the same way most people do), in that it doesn't waste words, but makes every word serve multiple purposes. (See here for something I wrote on that last year: http://www.americantorah.com/2016/05/13/the-elegance-and-depth-of-torah/). If we say that the purpose for any particular commandment has been removed, we are supposing first, that we understand every purpose that God described, and, second, that God described every purpose for that commandment. Neither supposition is warranted unless God explicitly said so, and I'm not aware of anywhere in Scripture where He did that.

(Usual objection: Thus he declared all foods clean..." Context, context, context. But that's for another post.)

Friend: Leviticus 20:24-26 is the passage of scripture that defines the law concerning unclean foods and its purpose:

 Is it? From Leviticus 11:

• "they are an abomination to you..."
• "They shall be an abomination to you..."
• "you shall regard their carcasses as an abomination..."
• "they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination..."
• "shall be an abomination to you..."
• "By these you shall become unclean..."
• "It is unclean to you...."
• "These also shall be unclean to you..."
• "these you shall not eat, for they are an abomination..."
• Etc.

There are multiple passages that define clean vs unclean animals including the whys and wherefores

Friend: Leviticus 20: 24-26 says, "But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine."
As stated in the passage above, the only purpose the Lord stated for not eating certain foods (ie. "unclean meats") was for Israelites to remember to separate themselves from the Gentiles. 

From Leviticus 11, you can see that that isn't entirely accurate. God also said he didn't want them to eat unclean animals because they are "abominable" and "unclean". Apparently, there's something about their meat that God really doesn't like.

But about that separation... Paul wrote, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2) In other words, God wants us to be separate from the unbelieving world, just like He told the Israelites in the Wilderness. Even if that were the only purpose for the commandment--which it isn't--how then can we say that the purpose (separation from the world) has been removed when Paul said that the purpose of separation from the world still remains?

Paul also said that the distinction between Jew and Gentile is removed in Christ, which is what God told Peter also. But did either of them say that the distinction between believer and unbeliever has been removed in Christ so that the unrepentant and rebellious sinner is just as "saved" and part of the Kingdom as the repented and submissive servant of God? No, of course not. The distinction hasn't been removed, but amplified. We are to be in the world so that we can serve God in it, but separated in our behaviors and attitudes.

"11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." (Ephesians 2:11-13)

In Ephesians 2 and in Romans 11, Paul says that believing gentiles have been grafted into the tree of Israel, not the other way around. If we are to be separate from the world and if we are now made part of Israel, how exactly has the need for separation been removed? It hasn't in any way.

Friend: Let us keep this passage in mind as we consider Peter's explanation of his vision as described in Acts 10:9-17; In Acts 11, Peter explains his vision to the other brothers in Jerusalem:
"And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by order unto them, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me: Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth. But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into heaven. And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me. And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house: And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."

And that is exactly my point. Peter explains the vision. No one whom God has cleansed and brought near (adopted into the commonwealth of Israel) should be kept out by man-made traditions and ceremonies that God didn't command. All who call on the name of Jesus and repent from their sins are made clean and whole, no matter who their parents were, and no one has the authority to exclude them. This was the point of Peter's dream, not what a person should or shouldn't eat. God used unclean animals to illustrate the point because Peter was thinking of fellowship with men in the same category as eating unclean animals.

Forbidden Relationships...aka Love Wins!

Approaching God as a Nation, as Families, and as Individuals

Acharei Mot and Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20) are about how we are and are not to relate to God. Since marriage is an image of our relationship to God, they contain many examples of forbidden human relationships.

• Leviticus 16 – Approaching God as a nation.
• Leviticus 17 – Approaching God as individuals. Things that will prevent closeness.
• Leviticus 18 – Mistakes other peoples made in their relationships. Judgment as a nation and as individuals.
• Men with women
• The offspring of relationships between men and women
• Men with men
• Men and women with animals
• Leviticus 19 – Being set apart from other nations by a healthy relationship with God and each other.
• Leviticus 20 – Refusing to be different creates unhealthy relationships with God and each other. Don’t blow it.

The Only Love that Matters

In Leviticus 19, God said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In Leviticus 20, He said "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death."

There is no contradiction. Love means doing what's best for people. It means refusing to tolerate behaviors that destroy the community & its relationship with God.

Celebrating spiritual disease is cowardly. It's an excuse to avoid speaking the hard truth that homosexuality is perverse rot. It's death. Love doesn't see a person committing suicide and say, "Oh, how sweet! Love wins." What vile filth has infected people's souls that they could possibly entertain such things?

No, love says to the man drinking poison, "Stop! No more!"

This is love by God's standard, the only standard that matters: "You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them." (Lev 20:22a)

Open sexual perversion defiles the entire nation, not just those who practice it. The closer a nation is to God, the quicker and more severe is the ruin brought on by their wickedness. Things that will bring a nation to ruin: perversion, blood-guilt, idolatry.

Do you want to save America? Then don't tolerate open perversion. End abortion. God won't wait forever.

Fortunately, forgiveness awaits the penitent. "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked."

Prohibited Degrees of Kinship

There are numerous methods of charting degrees of consanguinity floating around out there, so I thought I should post something about my own. Especially since I have mentioned elsewhere that God prohibits marriage to anyone closer than the fourth degree. 

Ancestors and descendants, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and siblings are all out of bounds. First cousins are acceptable. At least to God. You might feel differently. 

Don't use this chart for legal purposes, of course. Many jurisdictions define the degrees differently.

God's Law prohibits marriage with 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree relations. There are rare, marginal cases that are not addressed or that don't fit neatly into this hierarchy, but that's why God gave us minds and spirits.

Check It or Chuck It

If you’re only getting one side of a story that makes someone sound pretty bad, you have a few options:

1. Swallow it, hook, line, and sinker.
2. Check the facts, or at least get the other side of the story
3. Chuck it and the baby too.

Can’t decide? Let me help:

Lev 19:16 You shall not go as a slanderer among your people; you shall not stand against the blood of your neighbor. I am YHWH.

Deu 19:15-20 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before YHWH, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.

Pro 11:13 One going with slander is a revealer of secrets, but the faithful of spirit keeps the matter hidden.

Pro 20:19 A gossip is a revealer of secrets; so do not mix with him who flatters with his lips.

So you heard something bad about someone? Either check it or chuck it. If it doesn’t hurt you then it’s probably better just to chuck it.