The Contagion of the Curse Text: Leviticus 11:29-38
Introduction: God's Kindergarten
We come now to a portion of God's Word that causes many modern Christians to quietly shuffle their feet. We are talking about moles, mice, lizards, and geckos. We are talking about unclean pots and wet seeds. To our sanitized and sophisticated minds, this all seems terribly primitive, perhaps a bit arbitrary, and certainly irrelevant. Why would the God of the universe concern Himself with whether a chameleon falls into a sack of grain? Why this obsessive focus on what seems to be, for all intents and purposes, bad hygiene?
If we think this way, we have fundamentally misunderstood what God is doing in the book of Leviticus. These laws are not arbitrary, and they are certainly not irrelevant. We must understand that God was teaching His people, who were spiritual toddlers fresh out of Egypt, the basic grammar of holiness. Think of the ceremonial law as a gigantic, divinely-designed audio-visual aid. It was a kindergarten for holiness. God was teaching His people the difference between this and that, between clean and unclean, between life and death, between the sacred and the profane. He was etching these distinctions into their minds through their dinner plates, their laundry, and their kitchens. He was teaching them that He is a God who cares about details, a God who makes distinctions.
The central distinction that undergirds all of these laws is the distinction between life and death. Remember, Adam's sin brought death into the world. The entire created order now groans under the curse of death. And in the Levitical code, anything that reminds Israel of death, anything that mimics death, anything associated with the grave or the curse, is declared unclean. This is not because the thing itself is morally evil. A mouse is not sinning by being a mouse. Rather, these things are potent symbols in God's object lesson. They are visual reminders of the fall, of the curse, and of the pollution that death brings.
In this passage, we are dealing with "swarming things," creatures that creep on the ground. This should immediately send our minds back to Genesis 3, where the serpent is cursed to go on his belly and eat dust. These creatures, by their very nature, are low to the ground. They inhabit the dust, the realm of the curse. They represent the intrusion of the serpent's world into the world of men. And as we will see, the uncleanness they carry is highly contagious. The curse is not a static thing; it spreads. This is a lesson about the pervasive, polluting nature of sin and death. It gets into everything. But thanks be to God, it is also a lesson that sets the stage for a cleansing that is even more powerful.
The Text
'Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: the mole and the mouse and the great lizard in its kinds, and the gecko and the crocodile and the lizard and the sand reptile and the chameleon. These are to you the unclean among all the swarming things; whoever touches them when they are dead becomes unclean until evening. Also anything on which one of them may fall when they are dead becomes unclean, including any wooden article or clothing or a skin or a sack, any article by which work is done, it shall be put in the water and be unclean until evening, then it becomes clean. As for any earthenware vessel into which one of them may fall, whatever is in it becomes unclean, and you shall break the vessel. Any of the food which may be eaten, on which water comes, shall become unclean, and any liquid which may be drunk in every vessel shall become unclean. Everything, moreover, on which part of their carcass may fall becomes unclean; an oven or a stove shall be smashed; they are unclean and shall continue as unclean to you. Nevertheless a spring or a cistern collecting water shall be clean, though the one who touches their carcass shall be unclean. And if a part of their carcass falls on any seed for sowing which is to be sown, it is clean. Though if water is put on the seed and a part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.'
(Leviticus 11:29-38 LSB)
Creatures of the Curse (vv. 29-31)
The Lord begins by identifying a specific class of unclean animals.
"'Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: the mole and the mouse and the great lizard in its kinds, and the gecko and the crocodile and the lizard and the sand reptile and the chameleon. These are to you the unclean among all the swarming things; whoever touches them when they are dead becomes unclean until evening.'" (Leviticus 11:29-31 LSB)
The category here is "swarming things which swarm on the earth." The Hebrew word for swarm, sherets, has the sense of teeming or creeping. These are creatures that are low to the ground, that move in a way that blurs the distinction between the land and what is under the land. Moles live underground, in the realm of the dead. Mice and lizards scurry along the surface, hugging the dust. Their very mode of existence is a picture of the curse pronounced on the serpent: "on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life" (Gen. 3:14).
God is teaching His people to be wary of things that blur the created categories. He made birds for the sky, fish for the sea, and beasts for the land. Creatures that confuse these realms, like these creeping things, serve as a symbolic warning. They are emblems of a world disordered by sin. It is not that a gecko is inherently wicked, but in God's symbolic universe, it represents something that is out of place, something connected to the dust and the curse.
Notice the key phrase in verse 31: "whoever touches them when they are dead becomes unclean." The primary source of the contagion is the carcass. Death is the issue. A living mouse scurrying across the floor does not defile the house, but a dead mouse in the cupboard defiles everything. This is a constant, drumbeat reminder that death is the enemy. Death is the wages of sin, and its touch pollutes. It renders a man unfit to approach the holy God who is the God of the living, not the dead. The uncleanness is temporary, "until evening," pointing to a daily need for cleansing and restoration, a daily recognition of the defilement that surrounds us in this fallen world.
The Pervasiveness of Defilement (vv. 32-35)
Next, the law details just how contagious this death-uncleanness is. It spreads by contact.
"Also anything on which one of them may fall when they are dead becomes unclean, including any wooden article or clothing or a skin or a sack, any article by which work is done, it shall be put in the water and be unclean until evening, then it becomes clean. As for any earthenware vessel into which one of them may fall, whatever is in it becomes unclean, and you shall break the vessel... Everything, moreover, on which part of their carcass may fall becomes unclean; an oven or a stove shall be smashed; they are unclean and shall continue as unclean to you." (Leviticus 11:32-33, 35 LSB)
Here we see the spiritual physics of this fallen world. Holiness must be diligently guarded, but uncleanness spreads by itself. A dead lizard falls on a leather bag, and the bag is now unclean. It falls into a clay pot, and not only the pot but everything inside it becomes unclean. It touches an oven, and the oven must be destroyed. This is a powerful illustration of the invasive nature of sin and death. It does not stay contained. It seeps into the ordinary stuff of life: our tools, our clothes, our food preparation. Sin is not a private matter; its corruption spreads.
There is also a crucial distinction made here between porous and non-porous materials. A wooden bowl or a leather sack can be washed. They are non-porous, and the uncleanness is considered external. Water, a symbol of cleansing, can restore it. But an earthenware vessel, a clay pot, is porous. If a dead creature falls into it, the uncleanness is absorbed into its very substance. It cannot be cleansed; it must be broken. This teaches a profound spiritual lesson. Some defilement is external and can be washed away. But some defilement goes deep into our nature. Our very substance is tainted by the fall. We are like porous clay pots, saturated with sin. We cannot simply be rinsed off; we must be broken and remade. This is the doctrine of regeneration. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). The old, sin-soaked vessel must be shattered, and God must make a new one.
The oven and stove must be smashed. Why? Because these are central to the household's life and fellowship. They are where the family's food is prepared. To have them declared permanently unclean is to say that the corruption of death strikes at the heart of our sustenance and community. It shows the severity of the problem. You cannot just ignore it; you have to take radical action.
Living Water and Life-Giving Seed (vv. 36-38)
But in the midst of this pervasive uncleanness, God provides exceptions that are brimming with gospel hope.
"Nevertheless a spring or a cistern collecting water shall be clean, though the one who touches their carcass shall be unclean. And if a part of their carcass falls on any seed for sowing which is to be sown, it is clean. Though if water is put on the seed and a part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you." (Leviticus 11:36-38 LSB)
This is remarkable. A dead mouse can fall into a clay pot of water and defile it. But if that same mouse falls into a spring of "living water" or a large cistern, the water source itself remains clean. Why? Because a spring is a source of life. It is constantly renewing itself. It represents a power of life that is greater than the pollution of death. It swallows up the defilement. This is a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ. He is the fountain of living water (John 4:14). The defilement of our sin, which would contaminate any lesser vessel, is swallowed up and washed away by the infinite, life-giving power of His grace. He touched lepers and was not made unclean; He made them clean. He touched the dead and was not defiled; He raised them to life. His life is more powerful than our death.
The same principle applies to the seed. Dry seed for sowing, seed that contains the principle of life within it, is not defiled by the touch of a carcass. The life-principle in the seed is stronger than the touch of death. This points us to the Word of God, which is the "imperishable seed" by which we are born again (1 Peter 1:23). It points to Christ, the seed of the woman who crushes the serpent's head. The life He gives is a resilient, powerful life that death cannot overcome.
But there is a condition. If water is put on the seed, preparing it not for sowing but for eating, then it becomes susceptible to uncleanness. When the seed is removed from its life-giving purpose (sowing) and is prepared for ordinary consumption, it loses its symbolic immunity. This is a warning. If we take the things of God, the life-giving principles of His Word, and we merely "consume" them for our own purposes without planting them for fruitfulness, we make ourselves vulnerable. We must be those who not only receive the seed of the Word but sow it, allowing its life to conquer the death within and around us.
Conclusion: From Kindergarten to the Cross
These laws were Israel's kindergarten. They were a set of training wheels for holiness. They taught the people in tangible, everyday terms that sin is real, death is a polluting curse, and the line between the holy and the profane is a bright one. They taught that we live in a world contaminated by the fall, and we cannot fix the problem ourselves. Our clay pots are porous; they must be broken.
But these laws were never the final word. They were the audio-visual aid, but Christ is the reality. The whole system was designed to make Israel long for a true cleansing, a cleansing of the heart that no amount of washing could accomplish. It was designed to make them look for a true source of living water that could wash away a defilement that went bone-deep.
In the new covenant, God does not tell us to break our pottery. He tells us that we are the pottery, and that He has put His glorious treasure, the light of the gospel, into these fragile, cracked, earthenware vessels (2 Cor. 4:7). The old vessel of our Adamic nature was shattered at the cross. Through faith in Christ, we are raised as new creations. The contagion of the curse has been met by the greater power of the resurrection. The uncleanness that spread from the dead carcass of a mouse is utterly overwhelmed by the life that flows from the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we are no longer bound by these specific dietary and cleansing rules. Peter's vision in Acts 10 made that abundantly clear. But we are bound by the principle they taught. We are to be a holy people. We are to hate the defilement of sin. We are to flee from the touch of spiritual death. And we are to wash ourselves daily in the living water of Christ, knowing that His life in us is an incorruptible seed, a spring of water welling up to eternal life, a power so great that it swallows up death in victory.