“‘All winged swarming creatures that go on all fours are a detestable thing for you; except that of all winged swarming creatures that go on all fours, you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, enabling them to jump off the ground. Specifically, of these you may eat the various kinds of locusts, grasshoppers, katydids and crickets. But other than that, all winged swarming creatures having four feet are a detestable thing for you.”-Leviticus 11:20-23
From verse 20 we are introduced to another category of living creature that inhabits the “air sphere”.
FLYING INSECTS
You may be wondering what in the world are insects doing on a God-ordained list of foods.
Well, the truth is in most societies insects were actually an everyday fixture in people’s diets during this time.
Hence, the Lord had to teach the Israelites exactly WHICH insects were okay to eat.
He starts by telling us the characteristics that define those insects that are SHEKETS or “detestable”.
In a nutshell, all swarming insects with wings that have four legs are forbidden.
He then goes on to tell us those insects that are TAHOR or “clean”.
We are given a list of four types of locusts or grasshoppers.
What’s interesting is that the characteristics of the CLEAN insects are pretty much the same as the DETESTABLE ones except for one chief attribute.
The CLEAN and therefore edible insects have JOINTED LEGS.
These type of legs were designed to bend allowing this type of insect to spring and jump.
Okay, now I have a BIG SURPRISE for you!!!
Ready?!
Drum roll please!!!
THIS CONCLUDES THE LORD’S COMMANDS CONCERNING KOSHER FOODS!!!
Sure, we’ll get a detail here and there and Deuteronomy 14 will pretty much just repeat what we’ve studied, but this is pretty much it folks!
The reason I say this is because I find it interesting that Judaism has taken these few Scriptural laws and blown them up into this enormous and complicated MANMADE system of dietary rules and regulations.
In Judaism there are rules about ritual hand washing, prohibitions against eating in the presence of gentiles due to fear they might touch your food and render it unclean etcetera.
Later we’re going to examine what Yeshua really meant when He said “it’s not what goes into your mouth that makes you unclean, it’s what comes out of it” and what we’re going to find out that that argument has NOTHING to do with these kosher rules here in Leviticus.
It was an argument revolving around Yeshua’s revulsion of manmade traditions that had become doctrines of Judaism, not Holy Scripture.
The truth is, most things Yeshua got into arguments with the Jewish religious leadership over were about MANMADE traditions that had corrupted God’s pure and holy Word.
And of course, this is no different than what Christianity has done to God’s Word with its pagan traditions.
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