You may eat any animal that has a divided
hoof and that chews the cud. Leviticus
11:3
“Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams
you may eat any that have fins and scales.”
Leviticus 11:9
You are what you eat.
If that’s true, then we can defile ourselves by the food we
consume. Certain animals were unclean
because of what the animals ate (trash, decomposing bodies, bottom-feeders,
animal droppings) like the pig, vulture and lizard. They could pass along certain diseases
through their meat. God had their health
and safety in mind.
The
point of these regulations had a spiritual significance too:
I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy,
because I am holy. Leviticus 11:45
Holiness means to stay away from whatever is
unclean. God told the Israelites to
think about this whenever they ate. God
wanted them to think clean, eat clean and live clean.