COVID-19 Coronavirus Retaliates
The whole world is in the grip of probably the most dangerous virus we have known — COVID-19 the Coronavirus. As of March 2020, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of many people with many more found infected. Their number is still growing as the uncertainty of how to fight the Coronavirus is growing, too. Much has been written and will be written about COVID-19 the Coronavirus. The danger of this strain of virus does not come from the high mortality rate (as of the writing of this article) but from the unpredictability and the unknown. There is no vaccine, no cure; the scientists know little if anything about COVID-19 the Coronavirus.
The name “coronavirus” is derived from the Latin word “corona”, which means a crown. Hence, COVID-19, as the other strains of coronavirus such as SARS, etc., is considered the crown, that is, the super virus of all viruses. This tiny, microscopic creature paralyzed in effect and in fact everything—from our daily lives to the global economy and free movement of capital and workforce. The stock markets in the U.S., Europe, and Japan are collapsing one after another. The dollar, euro, and yen started shaking.
The air-travel industry will be grounded for a longtime and may not restore, if the governments do not bailout the airline companies. So, for the cruises, tourism, and the entertainment as a whole. Even cultural and sports events are severely affected. All businesses and countries are losing money, a lot of money. All thanks to a tiny COVID-19 Coronavirus. All spheres of the modern civilization are either already paralyzed or will be paralyzed—from the economy to sports and cultural events—if no solution is found soon. All efforts of President Trump and the might of his country to fight the globalism of the New World Order, through trade-wars with China and the European Union, and to bring the world to its common senses of bilateral and mutually fair-trade agreements, are fading away before this microscopic Coronavirus, COVID-19.
But how and why did COVID-19 the Coronavirus come into existence? Everything started from …
The breaking of the Creator’s universal laws
After the universal Flood, YHVH Elohim blessed Noach and his sons and said, “Be fruitful and increase, and fill the earth” (Gen 9:1). Then, in the words of the Creator, the supremacy granted to man over the animal world was expressed in such a degree that the animals had become estranged from man (due to the sin of mankind in which it had lost the voluntary subjection of the animals), so that it was only by force that he could rule over them (Gen 9:2). As the animals were thus placed under the will of man, permission was also given to him to slaughter them for food.
Every moving thing that lives is food for you; as the green herb have, I given you all. But do not eat flesh with its life, which is its blood. (Gen 9:3-4)
These words “Every moving thing that lives is food for you; as the green herb” do not affirm that mankind was commanded to eat all animals, but only that the Creator for the first time allowed him to eat animals for food. In support of this, the Tanak commentator Rashi interprets verse 3 thus (Sanhedrin 59b), “For I did not permit the first man [Adam] to eat meat, but only vegetation, but for you, just as the green vegetation which I permitted for the first man, I have given you everything”. And the second part of the statement, “But do not eat flesh with its life”, which simply means flesh that is still alive, i.e. in which there is still blood, explicitly forbids eating animals while still alive. The prohibition comes from fact that, because the soul of the animal is in the blood, the eating animal with its blood is the eating its soul.
Another pagan practice that derives from the eating live animals, which Elohim prohibits, is cooking a kid in its mother’s milk (see Exo 23:19, Exo 34:26, and Deu 14:21).
The prohibition of eating live animals also applies to the eating of flesh with blood in it, whether of living animals, as is the barbarous custom of the nations was, or of slaughtered animals from which the blood has not been properly drained. We should also note here that this prohibition clearly presents from the one hand, a barrier against harshness and cruelty to animals, but on the other hand, also a safeguard against spreading illnesses and fatal diseases from eating live animals or slaughtered animals with blood: something we are already experiencing.
Further, the Torah of YHVH (aka the Law), regulates in Leviticus 11 what is and what is not food, according to the will of the Creator. Although sin has its origin in the soul, it penetrates the whole body as the shell of the soul and damages the life of the body in diseases and death. While sin spreads from man to man, in consequence, is spreads also to the animal kingdom over it the dominion of man has been given to. Thus, the corruption has spread not only to mankind but to the animal kingdom on account of the sin of man (Rom 8:20-21), so that not only did the field bring forth thorns and thistles, and the earth produce poisonous plants such cannabis (see at Gen 3:18), but the animal kingdom bears the consequences of sin and death.
And indeed, it is in this penetration of sin into the creation that from the very earliest times men have neither used every kind of plants nor every kind of animals as food but have instinctively avoided certain plants and animals as harmful to their health and life. Different diseases are related to symptoms of corruption and death, hence in all the nations and all the religions we can find definition of what is and what is not food. These regulations concerning what is not food in the animal kingdom are introduced in the first place in Leviticus as the Creator goes even further to prohibit contact with certain dead animals (see Lev 11:4-8). This is the Word of the Creator.
However, mankind has changed the Word of the Creator since then. It is not that men do not have their list of “kosher foods”. They do. But the problem is that their list of “kosher foods” is not His list.
“Clean food” and “unclean food”
First of all, we should make it very clear that there is no such thing as “unclean food”. Nowhere in the Scripture can we find the term “unclean food”; this is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. By the same token, there is no such thing in the Scripture as “clean food”. If something is designated by the Creator for mankind as food, it is “clean” to eat. And the opposite is also true: if something is “unclean”, it is not a food at all. And the term “clean food” is tautology. This will be explained below.
We should notice in the translations how often the terms “unclean” and “food” appear together or a close proximity creating the notion “unclean food”. And we should note here that it was the translators’ decision to insert the word “food” after “unclean”, thus creating the allusion of “unclean food”. Furthermore, the [Christian] theologians invented the notion that the “unclean food” can be made clean, that is, “food’, namely, through prayers: something that cannot be supported in the Scripture. The only place where we can find the words “unclean” and “food” is in:
They shall not dwell in the LORD’S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria. (Hos 9:3 JPS)
Note: Surprisingly, the KJV translators have better rendered Hos 9:3 and/or in other places by either using the word “things” or by inserting “food” in italics to mean it is not in the original text.
The Hebrew word אֹכֶל ochel, as it appears above, traditionally is rendered as food, meal [-time], but literally means “eating”. In order to best understand what אֹכֶל ochel means, we need to note that Hebrew is a verb-based language in which the “nouns” are derived from verbs. Its literal meaning comes from the primitive verb אָכַל achal, which means to eat (literally or figuratively), that is the chewing of what is put in the mouth. Hence, אֹכֶל ochel, as a derivative of אָכַל achal, should be properly translated “eating”, and not “food”. What is the difference? Ochel is often wrongly rendered in some English translations as “meat”, and the difference is cultural rather than lingual. For the western nations the meat has been a dominant food, as the bread for the eastern nations. And what is dominant in a certain culture, has become a content word: “meat” has become a word to which the meaning of “food” is assigned.
In the culture of the Middle East, however, the bread is the dominant food and thus it has become a content word for food. This diametrical difference between the western and eastern cultures is better seen in the Our Father’s Prayer, in which Yeshua uses the metaphor of bread for food: “Give us today our daily bread” (Mat 6:11), while in KJV ochel is often translated “meat”.
The second word we need to address, in order to better understand whether the Creator speaks of “unclean food”, is the word טָמֵא tamei, which means to be foul, defile, incorrectly but commonly translated “unclean”. Its literal and correct meaning of “defiled”, can be best seen in the context of moral defilement, for instance, of the rape of Dinah in Gen 34:5, Gen 34:13, and Gen 34:27. In contrast is the word טָהוֹר tahor, “clean”. It is derived from טָהֵר taher, to be bright; that is, by implication to be pure, sound, clear, unadulterated, morally innocent or holy.
With that being said, we can render Hos 9:3 with no allusion to “unclean food’, thus,
They shall not dwell in the land of Yehovah; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat what is defiled in Assyria. (Hos 9:3)
However, what is declared as food can be defiled, but not the other way around—what is declared as an abomination cannot be made “clean”, regardless of innumerous prayers to the Creator. We read in Leviticus,
Any of the food therein which may be eaten, on which water comes, becomes defiled… (Lev 11:34 JPS)
In other words, what the Creator has called “food” is defined in Leviticus 11 and is good to eat; the eating of all other creatures is an abomination to Him.
Do not make yourselves abominable with any moving (creature) that moves, and do not defile yourselves with them, lest you be defiled by them. For I am Yehovah your Elohim, and you shall set yourselves apart. And you shall be set-apart, for I am set-apart. (Lev 11:43-44)
It cannot be set more clearly by the Creator than that: the difference between abomination and food. And He concludes the laws of the foods and abominations thus, “For I am Yehovah your Elohim, and you shall set yourselves apart. And you shall be set-apart, for I am set-apart.” If someone wants to be found set-apart in YHVH, as He is set-apart, he or she must set him/herself apart by doing His laws.
COVID-19 the Coronavirus
Hubei is a province in Central China with its capital, Wuhan, which serves as a major transportation, political, cultural, and economic hub, where COVID-19 Coronavirus started in November/December 2019. The humid subtropical climate in the summer and the cold winters are widely associated with the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak.
The predominant religions in Hubei are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism, while 0.58 percent of the population identifies as Christian. However, most of the population in Hubei may well be irreligious. Hubei cuisine has a history of more than 2,000 years derived from the native cooking styles of China. Ironically, this place in China is considered “the ground zero” of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said tests show COVID-19 the Coronavirus initially spread from animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Wholesales Market.
Wuhan Huanan Seafood Market selling wild animals including live wolf pups, civets and koalas is labelled ‘ground zero’ for COVID-19 the Coronavirus by local authorities.
A list of prices shows koala (circled above), snakes, and other exotic animals
Live animal markets like this one in China have been blamed for COVID-19 the Coronavirus
It is believed that in live animal markets like this in China, the Coronavirus infected the first victims who ate detestable and abominable creatures while still alive, with the blood. There is nothing Chinese people will not eat. Ever wonder why COVID-19 the Coronavirus started?
In conclusion (if this will have any conclusion), as sin in its origin in men corrupts the whole body and damages life by the means of diseases and death, and as sin spread from man to the animal kingdom on account of the sin of man, so does the animal kingdom corrupts the human body by the means of diseases and death — COVID-19 the Coronavirus retaliates. But why should the eating of live snakes, rats and bats by the “barbarous” Chinese be less acceptable than the eating of swine, shrimps, and lobsters by the “civilized” westerners? Because they are “FDA approved”?
The eating of all these creatures is called an abomination by the One who created them. And if we do not follow the Creator’s laws, plagues like COVID-19 the Coronavirus will follow us with diseases and deaths until the Messiah comes.
The continuation is in the article “How far can mankind go in eating detestable things?“
Navah
May we merit seeing the coming of our Mashiach speedily in our days.