Understanding Purity Culture Part Two: The Goal of Purity in the Old Testament

To understand the goal of purity in the Old Testament, we must begin with the first garden. A garden was the specific location and environment that God created to commune with Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:8). We see in the Garden of Eden the first introduction of the concept of the temple, a place where humankind could meet with and spend time with God.[1] Before sin entered the world, there was no need to separate God from his creation. After God created Adam, he created the Garden of Eden and placed Adam there (Genesis 2:8).

Eden was the river that provided the life source of water for the garden and all the earth and was where God resided.[2] In the same way that a palace would have a garden adjoining it, the garden that God created for Adam and Eve was adjoining God’s residence.[3] Scripture tells us that God walked in the garden to meet with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8). Like a temple priest, Adam was tasked with caring for a sacred place where God and humankind could meet.[4] The Hebrew word that garden comes from is “gan,” which also means “enclosure” and is believed to originate from a root verb that meant “to surround, to cover, or defend.”[5] Adam and Eve were enclosed within the Garden of Eden, protected from dangers on the outside, provided everything they needed for food and water from within, and filled with peace because they were living in the presence of God.

God created Adam and Eve with no shame for their naked bodies, not only with each other but also in the presence of God (Genesis 2:25). When shame entered Adam and Eve’s world, it was because of their choice to separate themselves from God by disobeying, which resulted in covering their bodies and being forced to leave the garden, and God’s presence (Genesis 3).

God’s presence did not reside with mankind again until the covenant He made with Moses in Exodus 19. God spoke to Moses in Exodus 3 through a burning bush, which is reminiscent of the burning swords that the angels guarded the garden with after Adam and Eve were banished (Genesis 3:21-24), and possibly a sign that God was beginning the reversal of that banishment.[6] After being freed from Egypt, the Israelites encounter God at Mount Sinai, and God establishes a covenant with the Israelites, declaring, “Out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession…you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19: 5-6). Like Adam, who had priestly duties in the Garden of Eden, God gave the Israelites the elevated role of being his priesthood, the connection between God and all the people of the earth. God instructs Moses on how to build the Tabernacle so that God’s presence can dwell among the Israelites wherever they go.[7] After the building of the Tabernacle was complete, the presence of God descended in the form of a cloud and filled the Tabernacle, and from then on, the presence of God was made known by a cloud that remained over the Tabernacle by day and a fire in the cloud by night (Exodus 40: 34-38).

The Lord then tells Moses that he must keep the Israelites “separate from the things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them” (Lev. 15:3). Being clean or unclean was a matter of life or death because of the Holy presence of God in the Tabernacle. The Hebrew word for clean or pure (tahor) refers to items that are holy and can be used in acts of worship, and the Hebrew word for unclean (tuma) translates closer to the word ‘common’ than it does to ‘dirty’ or ‘contaminated’ as our culture would think.[8] God instructs the Israelites to stay from anything that will make them common and unable to approach the presence of God. It is like God is saying to the Israelites, stay away from anything that would separate us!

            The matter of purity for the Israelites was not a matter of pure heart or pure actions because the whole point was that they could not be pure or holy on their own. The simple fact that they were human beings made them impure/common. The mortality of the Israelites caused them to be impure because they were all susceptible to death, illness, and disease. God is pure, does not have a body, and therefore is not susceptible to death, illness, or disease; Impurity for the Israelites was not a moral area but evidence of difference from God.[9]

For Israelite women, their menstrual cycles were the most common reminder of their difference from God.  Moses tells the Israelites that any woman with her "regular flow of blood" will be unclean for seven days, and anything she lies on or sits on will also be unclean (Lev. 15: 19-20). The Hebrew term used in Leviticus 15 for menstruation is “niddatah,” which, Tirzah Meacham explains, "has as its root ‘ndh’ a word meaning ‘separation,’ usually as a result of impurity. It is connected to the root ‘ndd,’ meaning 'to make distant.’”[10] The function of a woman’s womb is to create life, and it represents the fullness of life, but when a woman is menstruating, her womb is unhabitable for life, and her blood is proof of that.[11] The Israelite women were not able to separate themselves from their menstrual flow, so, therefore, they would separate themselves from their homes so that they would not put their community in danger. This was not an act done in shame but a reminder of God's holiness as the source of all life. The Israelite women separated themselves from the community during menstruation so God’s Presence could remain with his people.

After the Israelites had arrived at the promised land and set up permanent residence, they built the first temple, the first permanent dwelling place for the presence of God (1 Kings 5-8). Unfortunately, no matter how much they desired to be in God's presence, the Israelites could not remain “separate” from the things God asked them to be separate from. A little less than 400 years later, God reveals to Ezekiel that “the utterly detestable things” the Israelites were doing were going to drive God far away from his sanctuary, and the prophet Ezekiel sees the presence of God physically leave the temple (Ezekiel 8:6). But Ezekiel also prophesies the coming of a new temple that will restore God’s presence with his people (Ezekiel 40-48).

In the book of Ezra, we are told that the Israelites built a second temple, much smaller and less beautiful. God tells the Israelites that “…the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:9). The second temple was not as amazing as the first, but the presence of God would arrive in a way it never had before when Jesus would walk through the gates of the temple of Jerusalem.[12] The peace God promised would not be found in the physical temple itself but in Jesus Christ. Jesus, born as fully God and fully man, would bring the presence of God to mankind in a way that no rituals, tabernacle, or temple ever could!

 And so, in Part Three, we will turn to the New Testament. We will look at how Jesus removed the need for the temple and changed what was required to be “pure.”

~Nadine

References:

[1] Hayes, J. D. (2016). The Temple and the Tabernacle: a Study of God’s Dwelling Places from Genesis to Revelation.

[2] Walton, J. H. (2001). Genesis, The NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Carpenter, E. E., & Comfort, P. W. (2000). Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained.

[6] Hayes, J. D. (2016).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bauman, C. (2019), p. 48. Theology of the Womb: Knowing God Through the Body of a Woman.

[9] Cook, L.A., as Cited in Wasserfall, R., (1999). Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish Life and Law.

[10] Meacham, T. (1999). Female Purity (Niddah). Jewish Women’s Archive. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/female-purity-niddah

[11] Byrd, A. (2022). The Sexual Reformation: Restoring the Dignity and Personhood of Man and Woman.

[12] Hayes, J. D. (2016).