The rest of this chapter addresses questions arising from human contact with unclean animals. Only dead animals polluted human beings (vv. 24, 27, 31, 39). No living unclean animal did. Death is an abnormal condition, and it caused pollution.
11:24-28 In this section Moses passed along more specific directions concerning defilement from carrion (animal carcasses). Walking on paws, which look like hands, appears unnatural. Consequently land animals that move that way were unclean.
11:29-38 These verses deal with swarming creatures and the pollution they create. Swarming may have been regarded as an unnatural, chaotic means of locomotion. The norm would have been orderly progress. Anything on which a swarming insect fell became polluted (unclean, v. 32). Those objects that water would cleanse could be reused, but those that water would not cleanse could not. However if one of these creatures fell into a spring or cistern, an exception was made. Neither the container nor the water became impure, only the person who fished the dead animal out would be. God may have granted this exception since declaring water supplies and large containers unclean would have had drastic consequences in the arid regions where the Israelites lived. There was also apparently a distinction between seed for sowing and seed for eating (vv. 37-38).
11:39-47 God gave further directions about the polluting effect of even clean animals that died (vv. 39-40). In a concluding exhortation (vv. 41-45) He called on His people to be holy as He is holy (vv. 44, 45; cf. 19:2; 20:7, 26). Our highest duty is to imitate our creator.
"The solemn statement I am the LORD' occurs forty-six times throughout Leviticus [vv. 44, 45, passim], identifying Israel's God as the ever living, ever present One. Every aspect of daily life was affected by the reality of the presence of God."122
A final summary states the purpose of these laws: to distinguish between the unclean and the clean (vv. 46-47).
"The NT teaches that the OT food laws are no longer binding on the Christian. These laws symbolized God's choice of Israel. They served as constant reminders of God's electing grace. As he had limited his choice among the nations to Israel, so they for their part had to restrict their diet to certain animals."123
