I study the Torah every year using the teaching tools of Scripture. (Why?)
Today is the 28th Sabbath of the annual Torah cycle. Today, the third sabbath of the counting of the seven sabbaths toward the Feast of Weeks, the Torah reading is a combination of two Torah portions: Lev 12:1-15:33.
The paragraph divisions are as follows:
Lev 12:1-13:59, ki tazria (she conceives):
Lev 12:1-8 p Purification from uncleanness incurred in childbirth
Lev 13:1-8 p Distinguishing uncleanness in leprosy
Lev 13:9-17 p Distinguishing cleanness in leprosy
Lev13:18-28 p Distinguishing leprosy in scars of boils or burns:
Lev 13:18-23 s Distinguishing leprosy in the scar of a boil
Lev 13:24-28 p Distinguishing leprosy in the scar of a burn
Lev 13:29-59 p Distinguishing leprosy of the head or of a garment:
Lev 13:29-37 s Distinguishing leprosy in the scale of the head or beard
Lev 13:38-39 s Cleanness in white spots
Lev 13:40-46 s Distinguishing leprosy in baldness of the head
Lev 13:47-59 p Distinguishing leprosy in a garment
Lev 14:1-15:33, metzorah (one being deceased):
Lev 14:1-32 p The law of cleansing for leprosy:
Lev 14:1-20 s The law of cleansing for leprosy that has been healed
Lev 14:21-32 p The law of cleansing for leprosy that has been healed for the poor
Lev 14:33-57 p The law of leprosy in a house
Lev 15:1-18 p The law for bodily discharges of men:
Lev 15:1-15 s The law for bodily discharges
Lev 15:16-18 p The law for emissions of semen
Lev 15:19-33 p The law for bodily discharges of women:
Lev 15:19-24 s The law for menstrual impurity
Lev 15:25-33 p The law for a hemorrhage of impurity
The two Torah portions together form a chiastic structure:
Lev 12:1-15:33
1a) Lev 12:1-8 The law for a woman’s flow of blood following childbirth;
1b) Lev 13:1-14:9 The law for determining leprosy in a man or garment + the living bird;
central axis) Lev 14:10-32 The atonement for cleansing from leprosy;
2b) Lev 14:33-53 The law for determining leprosy in a house + the living bird;
2a) Lev 15:1-33 The law for bodily discharges + a woman’s flow of blood.
Let us not miss, that the central axis of all these chapters having to do with uncleanness, is not the uncleanness, but the atonement! Now, if we accept that all of Torah forms a single chiastic structure, and that Leviticus is its central axis, what is the central axis of Leviticus? ATONEMENT! The central purpose of Torah is not so much to reveal our sin, although that is accomplished, but to reveal our atonement, our at + one + ment, that which makes the two which were formerly separated (God and man), into unity again!
These chapters are full of amazing prophetic types: Lev 14-15.
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