I'm sure you know how important it is to wash your hands after you eat, or when you come inside from playing. Did you know that for many centuries doctors did not think it was important to wash their hands in between patients? In fact, doctors would go from the room of a patient who had passed away (died) into another room to deliver a baby still reeking of the germs!! In the Torah - the first 5 books of the Bible, the Lord outlined to the children of Israel through Moses how His people were to live. Not only did He give them the 10 commandments - the great moral law - He also gave them hygiene laws. Imagine God gave them laws on how to be clean and keep their areas clean! The statutes He gave them prevented the spread of disease from one individual to the next. In fact, the laws found in Leviticus and Numbers were so ahead of their time that it took over 4,000 years for the rest of the world to catch on! In some parts of the world, more people were dying from infections diseases they caught when they went into the hospital - than the disease that brought them there in the first place! Once someone* got the bright idea to wash hand in the hospital the mortality rate plummeted - from 20% or higher to less than 3%. It was the germs alone that were killing people. Isn't our God a wise God?
*Learn more about the men who "discovered" hand washing and those who wanted nothing to do with it here:
