The Taxonomy of Holiness: Leaping Out of the Muck
Introduction: God's Categories
We come now to a portion of Leviticus that causes many modern Christians to quietly shuffle their feet. We are talking about flying, swarming things, four-footed insects, and the propriety of eating a grasshopper. For many, this is the deep end of the Old Testament pool, filled with strange shadows and what appear to be arbitrary, if not bizarre, regulations. Why would the God of the universe, the Creator of quarks and quasars, care about the jointed legs of a cricket?
But to ask the question that way is to reveal a profound misunderstanding of who our God is. Our God is a God of meticulous order. He is the ultimate taxonomist. From the very beginning, in Genesis 1, the act of creation was an act of separation, of distinction, of categorization. God separated the light from the darkness. He separated the waters above from the waters below. He commanded every living thing to reproduce after its "kind." God creates by establishing boundaries, and holiness, in its most basic sense, is the business of recognizing and honoring the boundaries that God has made. Sin, conversely, is the blurring of those boundaries. It is the muddying of the waters, the erasure of distinctions, the rebellion against God's created grammar.
These dietary laws, then, are not primarily about hygiene, though there is certainly wisdom in them. They are not arbitrary tests of obedience. They are a pedagogical tool, a picture book for a redeemed people, teaching them the fundamental nature of reality. Every time an Israelite went to the market, he had to think theologically. He had to ask, "What category does this belong to? Does it conform to the pattern of creation?" God was training His people to see the world as He sees it, to love the order He loves, and to detest the abominable mixtures that characterize the pagan world and its rebellion against Him.
The pagan world loves confusion. Their gods were monstrous hybrids, their rituals were a chaotic blend of the sacred and profane, the sexual and the violent. Israel was to be different. They were to be a people of sharp lines and clear distinctions because their God is a God of sharp lines and clear distinctions. And here, in the classification of insects, we see this principle applied in a way that is both startlingly specific and profoundly symbolic.
The Text
‘All the swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours are detestable to you. Yet these you may eat among all the swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth. These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds and the devastating locust in its kinds and the cricket in its kinds and the grasshopper in its kinds. But all other swarming things that fly and that are four-footed are detestable to you.’
(Leviticus 11:20-23 LSB)
The Abominable Mixture (v. 20)
We begin with the general prohibition, the baseline rule for this category of creature.
"‘All the swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours are detestable to you.’" (Leviticus 11:20)
The first thing to notice is the category itself: "swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours." This is a description of a creature that blurs the created orders. God made birds to fly in the air. He made beasts to walk on the land. He made fish to swim in the sea. But a flying thing that also walks on all fours is a category-crosser. It is a hybrid creature, a living mixture. It belongs to the air, but it crawls on the ground like a land animal. This confusion of locomotion is the key.
The word for "detestable" is the Hebrew word sheqets. It is often translated as "abomination." This is not a word for something that is merely distasteful. It is a word for something that is ritually and theologically repugnant because it violates a divinely established order. It is an affront to the Creator's design. Think of the other things called abominations in the law: idolatry, sexual perversion, dishonest weights. These are all things that twist and corrupt a good created thing. Idolatry corrupts worship. Sexual sin corrupts the one-flesh union. And these creatures, by their very nature, represent a corruption of the created order of movement.
They are "four-footed" crawlers. They scuttle. They are earth-bound in their primary mode of land travel. They fly, yes, but when they are on the earth, they are low to it, moving in a way that is characteristic of the creatures of the dust. This is a picture of compromise. It is a picture of something that has the capacity for the heavens but chooses to crawl in the dirt.
The Clean Exception (v. 21-22)
But then God, the great taxonomist, makes a crucial distinction. Not all flying crawlers are the same. There is an exception to the rule, and the nature of the exception teaches us everything.
"Yet these you may eat among all the swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth. These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds and the devastating locust in its kinds and the cricket in its kinds and the grasshopper in its kinds." (Leviticus 11:21-22)
What is the distinguishing mark of a clean insect? It has "jointed legs with which to jump on the earth." This is not a trivial detail. The unclean insects walk, they crawl, they scuttle. Their movement keeps them bound to the surface. But the clean insects have a different relationship to the earth. They can leap. They can spring upward, defying gravity, launching themselves from the earth toward the heavens.
Think about the symbolism. The unclean crawler is a picture of being stuck in the muck and mire of this world. It is a picture of the man who has heavenly capacities but who lives for the dust. But the leaper, the jumper, is a picture of resurrection power. It is a picture of that which touches the earth but is not bound by it. It touches the world only to spring up from it. Its orientation is upward. The locust, the cricket, the grasshopper, they all have this God-given ability to launch themselves out of the dirt.
This is a powerful pedagogical lesson for Israel. They were to be a people who lived in the world, on the earth, but were not to be of the world. They were to be a people whose hearts and lives were oriented upward, toward the God who had called them out of the slavery of Egypt. They were to be a leaping people, not a crawling people. When they ate a grasshopper, they were eating a symbol of this very calling. They were consuming a creature that, by its God-given design, preached a sermon about overcoming the downward pull of the earth.
The Rule Reaffirmed (v. 23)
After making the exception crystal clear, God reaffirms the general principle to drive the point home.
"But all other swarming things that fly and that are four-footed are detestable to you." (Leviticus 11:23)
The line is drawn. The category is set. The distinction is not based on flavor or size, but on the theology of movement that God has embedded into the very anatomy of His creatures. Those that crawl are out. Those that leap are in. This is a lesson in discernment. Israel was being trained to look closely, to make careful judgments based on God's revealed standard. They could not just lump all "bugs" together. They had to examine their legs. They had to observe their movement. They had to think God's thoughts after Him.
This is a discipline our generation has utterly lost. We live in an age that despises categories and hates distinctions. We are told that all lines are oppressive and all boundaries are bigoted. But the God of the Bible is a God of boundaries. He draws lines, and He calls us to be a people who joyfully live within them. He calls us to distinguish between the holy and the profane, the clean and the unclean, not just in our diet, but in our worship, our ethics, our families, and our thinking. To refuse to make these distinctions is to embrace the sheqets, the abomination of chaos, and to reject the beauty of God's created order.
The Gospel of the Grasshopper
Like all the ceremonial laws, this distinction between crawling and leaping insects finds its ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not just an interesting bit of Old Testament trivia; it is a shadow, and Christ is the substance.
The first Adam was made from the dust of the earth. In his fall, he was condemned to crawl. "On your belly you shall go," God said to the serpent, the embodiment of the crawling principle. And in Adam, all of mankind was brought low, bound to the dust, crawling in sin and rebellion, unable to leap, unable to ascend to God. We are, by nature, unclean crawlers, detestable in our earth-bound affections.
But then came the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Jesus Christ came down to the earth. He walked on the same dust that we do. He touched our unclean world. And on the cross, He was laid low, even into the dust of death. He went down into the lowest parts of the earth. He appeared to be just another creature of the dust, conquered by the grave.
But He had "jointed legs." He had resurrection power built into His very being. And on the third day, He did not crawl out of the tomb. He leaped. He sprang forth from the earth, victorious over sin, death, and the grave. He is the ultimate clean creature, the one who touched the earth but was not bound by it, the one who launched Himself from the grip of death into the heavens, ascending to the right hand of the Father.
And now, by faith, we are united to Him. We who were once unclean crawlers are made clean in Him. We are crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and we are also raised with Him (Romans 6:4). The Holy Spirit has given us "jointed legs." He has given us the power to leap. We are commanded to "seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1). We are no longer to be a people who crawl in the dirt of our old sins, but a people who leap in the newness of life.
So the next time you see a grasshopper, thank God. Thank God for embedding the gospel into the legs of an insect. Thank Him for the lesson in resurrection. And thank Him that through the finished work of His Son, He has made it possible for us, who were once detestable crawlers, to be counted as clean leapers, destined not for the dust, but for the heavens.