In Old Testament times, medical care took second priority to the keeping of ceremonial law in this case, the interest of the law was in a broad category of ritual impurity called “uncleanness.” Uncleanness in the presence of the Lord was to be avoided at all cost. The modern rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which many governments today consider inviolable, were far down a list topped by ceremonial purification in several forms. Again, the main concern was to reflect God’s holiness.