Clean and Unclean: Moral Significance

The purity laws in the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) are not moral rules. They are primarily rules for religious life, rules for relations with God. In later times, however, purity became a symbol of the moral order, largely under the influence of the prophetic books and the wisdom literature.

In the wisdom literature and the books of the prophets, impurity means the same as sin (see for instance Isaiah 64:5; Ezekiel 23:30; Amos 7:17). In texts like these we find words associated with the cult and rituals, but such language is used for religious and ethical matters. An example is, “I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you” (Ezekiel 36:25).

Purity can also apply in the context of personal spirituality, as in Psalm 15:2-5 and Psalm 24:4. The question of who can approach God, is answered by, “Those who are pure in act and in thought.”