Bringing up the Cud

To be accounted clean, land animals have to “chew the cud.” The Hebrew for “chew” is alah, to bring up or to ascend.

That’s quite literal. Animals that chew the cud swallow, and then regurgitate the food back to the mouth to chew.

By the time we get to Leviticus 11, though, alah has taken on a host of associations. Its noun form is the name of the first offering in Leviticus 1, the olah. Within Leviticus 11 itself, the verb is used seven times, six to describe the ascent of the cud from the stomach (vv. 3, 4 [2x], 5, 6, 26) and once, the seventh time, to describe what Yahweh did for Israel: He “caused them to ascend from the land of Egypt” (v. 45).

The clean animals seem to be like Yahweh, animals that “bring up,” animals that “cause things to ascend.” Certainly Egypt, that great serpentine Rahab, spews Israel out under pressure from Yahweh’s plagues. Perhaps Yahweh is like a clean animal, with Egypt His stomach and the exodus the ascent of Yahweh’s food into His mouth. Perhaps the church at Laodicea is in Jesus’ mouth because He has “brought them up” out of the depths of His body to spit them out.