Endangered or Dangerous? YHWH’s Presence and Impurity in Levitical Perspective

Abstract

The working assumption in much secondary literature on Leviticus is that unchecked sin and impurity threaten, even endanger, YHWH’s earthly presence. Accordingly, purgation within the Israelite cult is primarily viewed as a means of securing and safeguarding divine immanence. Support is drawn from ANE concepts of sanctuary desecration, the exit of YHWH’s כבוד from the temple in Ezekiel 8–11 and tannaitic formulations. Nevertheless, this article contends that Leviticus nowhere indicates or assumes the departure of YHWH’s presence from the sanctuary. On the contrary, Leviticus asserts the permanence of divine presence and the resulting danger posed to impurity and its sources. This dynamic better coheres with the wider texture of the Pentateuch. In fact, importing motifs from ANE, Ezekielian and rabbinic sources arguably distorts the rhetorical force of Leviticus in its literary setting.