Brilliance of the Mixture Laws

Deuteronomy 22:5

5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.


Deuteronomy 22:9-11

9 Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled.

10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.

11 Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.


Deuteronomy 7:3-6

3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

6 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.


Leviticus 11:46-47

46 This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth:

47 To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.


There is a lot to learn from what I call the mixture laws in the Bible, as shown above. I listed most of them in order to present an overall picture and expansiveness of what God was teaching us in them.

In this article I'm not going to get into the individual laws and the depth of what they represent, but rather, am going to take them as a whole to see how they were part of the everyday life of God's people; teaching them though their adherence to the laws on a daily basis.

The actions they took were a constant and consistent reminder of God's requirements in these areas, and were a brilliant teaching mechanism to aid the written and spoken word, which are more easily forgotten.

With that in mind, consider the topics associated with the mixture laws. There was commands concerning clothing differences for men and women, commands for not mixing seeds when planting, not using ox and an asses together to plow, not wearing clothing made from different fabric, not marrying with unbelievers, and not being allowed to eat unclean creatures as identified by God.

Here's the terrific wisdom of God revealed in helping His people retain His commands so they can live them out before Him.

Look again at the requirements. When His people woke up and started their days, they would get dressed in clothing based upon His commands, eat only food that was considered clean, plant only seeds allowed by God, travel or work using the same type of animals at the same time, and only marry within the faith.

What that means is the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the seeds they planted, the animals they used for work or travel, and the people they were to marry, were used as tools to teach God's people His ways.

That suggests everything they did on a daily basis was a reminder concerning who God was and His ways.

Taken together, they went beyond simply being laws, but were a steady teaching tool to remind His people they weren't of this world, and everything they did was to reflect that.

The main emphasis in this article is the wisdom in using these things as teaching tools, which were part of every person's life on a daily basis. 

Without a doubt the challenge for all Christians is to keep ourselves stained from this world, which is another way of saying to not mixing with it; meaning its worldview and sin. This is especially true with those professing they're Christians.

These mixture laws are a constant reminder that we are in the world and not of the world, and there is no connection point between the two. Everything in our lives should reflect and reinforce that reality.