Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

God is the only person who has spoken in Leviticus so far. And today we continue in the

laws for sin offerings. Tomorrow we'll get a bit of a break from

sacrificial instructions and we'll hear from some humans, but for now, all of these words

are God's words. One of the things you may have noticed today was the distinction between

when the Israelites committed a sin versus when they did something that made them unclean.

Being unclean isn't a sin, so it doesn't require an offering. It just requires that they be

purified. They don't have to bring a sacrifice. They just have to take a bath or spend some time

away from others. We still do things like this today, quarantining people if they have something we might

catch. We tell people to stay home from work if they're contagious. Again, this is not talking

about sin. It's talking about

uncleanness, and it's almost always related to something hygienic. Some of these hygiene regulations

make sense and are especially helpful in a culture that predated modern science. For instance,

not touching dead bodies, that's probably a good idea. Or not eating meat after a certain period

of time has passed, because the

fridge space available in the wilderness of Sinai was probably pretty limited. Not all the

cleanliness laws are straightforward and scientifically logical like that, but some are. For instance,

you may notice that sometimes the cleanliness laws relate to blood. While this may be hygienic,

it's also probably more symbolic.

Blood can be a confusing symbol in the Old Testament especially. It symbolizes life and death.

Obviously, when it symbolizes life, it's a good symbol. But when it's leaving the body,

specifically the human body, it symbolizes death or the end of life. So it's a reminder of the

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