Leviticus 13:51

13:47-59 The garment suspected to be tainted with leprosy was not to be burned immediately. If, upon search, it was found that there was a leprous spot, it must be burned, or at least that part of it. If it proved to be free, it must be washed, and then might be used. This also sets forth the great evil there is in sin. It not only defiles the sinner's conscience, but it brings a stain upon all he has and all that he does. And those who make their clothes servants to their pride and lust, may see them thereby tainted with leprosy. But the robes of righteousness never fret, nor are moth-eaten.

And he shall look on the plague on the seventh day,.... To see whether there is any alteration in it in that space of time: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the green and red spot be spread more and more in either of them, whether the colour remains the same or not, be changed, the green into red, or the red into green, yet if there was a spreading, it was a sign of leprosy. According to the Jewish canon (s), if the plague was green and spread red, or red and spread green, it was unclean; that is, as Bartenora (t) explains it, if it was red in the size of a bean, and at the end of the week the red had spread itself to green; or if at the beginning it was green like a bean, and at the end of the week had spread itself to the size of a shekel, and the root or spread of it was become red: the plague is a fretting leprosy; according to Jarchi, a sharp and pricking one, like a thorn; which signification the word has in Ezekiel 28:24. Ben Gersom explains it, which brings a curse, corruption, and oldness into the thing in which it is; an old "irritated, exasperated" leprosy, as Bochart (u), from the use of the word in the Arabic tongue, translates it: it is unclean; and the garment or thing in which it is. (s) Misn. Negaim, c. 11. sect. 3, 4. (t) In ib. (u) Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 45. col. 493.

47-59. The garment … that the … leprosy is in—It is well known that infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, measles, the plague, are latently imbibed and carried by the clothes. But the language of this passage clearly indicates a disease to which clothes themselves were subject, and which was followed by effects on them analogous to those which malignant leprosy produces on the human body—for similar regulations were made for the rigid inspection of suspected garments by a priest as for the examination of a leprous person. It has long been conjectured and recently ascertained by the use of a lens, that the leprous condition of swine is produced by myriads of minute insects engendered in their skin; and regarding all leprosy as of the same nature, it is thought that this affords a sufficient reason for the injunction in the Mosaic law to destroy the clothes in which the disease, after careful observation, seemed to manifest itself. Clothes are sometimes seen contaminated by this disease in the West Indies and the southern parts of America [Whitlaw, Code of Health]; and it may be presumed that, as the Hebrews were living in the desert where they had not the convenience of frequent changes and washing, the clothes they wore and the skin mats on which they lay, would be apt to breed infectious vermin, which, being settled in the stuff, would imperceptibly gnaw it and leave stains similar to those described by Moses.

It is well known that the wool of sheep dying of disease, if it had not been shorn from the animal while living, and also skins, if not thoroughly prepared by scouring, are liable to the effects described in this passage. The stains are described as of a greenish or reddish color, according, perhaps, to the color or nature of the ingredients used in preparing them; for acids convert blue vegetable colors into red and alkalis change then into green [Brown]. It appears, then, that the leprosy, though sometimes inflicted as a miraculous judgment (Nu 12:10; 2Ki 5:27) was a natural disease, which is known in Eastern countries still; while the rules prescribed by the Hebrew legislator for distinguishing the true character and varieties of the disease and which are far superior to the method of treatment now followed in those regions, show the divine wisdom by which he was guided. Doubtless the origin of the disease is owing to some latent causes in nature; and perhaps a more extended acquaintance with the archæology of Egypt and the natural history of the adjacent countries, may confirm the opinion that leprosy results from noxious insects or a putrid fermentation. But whatever the origin or cause of the disease, the laws enacted by divine authority regarding it, while they pointed in the first instance to sanitary ends, were at the same time intended, by stimulating to carefulness against ceremonial defilement, to foster a spirit of religious fear and inward purity.

(51) And he shall look on the plague. —If at the end of the week, when the priest examines it again, he finds that the distemper has spread, it undoubtedly indicates malignant leprosy. Here, again, the symptom of spreading is the same in the garment as in the human being. (See Leviticus 13:5-6 ; Leviticus 13:8 , &c.) The leprous garment, like a human leper, makes everything and everybody unclean by contact with it, or by coming into the house where it remains.

Leprosy in linen, woollen, and leather fabrics and clothes. - The only wearing apparel mentioned in Leviticus 13:47 is either woollen or linen, as in Deuteronomy 22:11 ; Hosea 2:7 ; Proverbs 31:13 ; and among the ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks these were the materials usually worn. In Leviticus 13:48 . שׁתי and ערב, "the flax and the wool," i.e., for linen and woollen fabrics, are distinguished from clothes of wool or flax. The rendering given to these words by the early translators is στήμων and κρόκη, stamen et subtegmen (lxx, Vulg.), i.e., warp and weft. The objection offered to this rendering, that warp and weft could not be kept so separate from one another, that the one could be touched and rendered leprous without the other, has been met by Gussetius by the simple but correct remark, that the reference is to the yarn prepared for the warp and weft, and not to the woven fabrics themselves. So long as the yarn was not woven into a fabric, the warp-yarn and weft-yarn might very easily be separated and lie in different places, so that the one could be injured without the other. In this case the yarn intended for weaving is distinguished from the woven material, just as the leather is afterwards distinguished from leather-work ( Leviticus 13:49 ). The signs of leprosy were, if the mole in the fabric was greenish or reddish. In that case the priest was to shut up the thing affected with leprosy for seven days, and then examine it.

If the mole had spread in the meantime, it was a "grievous leprosy." ממארת, from מאר irritavit, recruduit (vulnus), is to be explained, as it is by Bochart, as signifying lepra exasperata. הנּגע ממארת making the mole bad or angry; not, as Gesenius maintains, from מאר equals מרר acerbum faciens, i.e., dolorem acerbum excitans, which would not apply to leprosy in fabrics and houses ( Leviticus 14:44 ), and is not required by Ezekiel 28:24 . All such fabrics were to be burned as unclean.

And they shall burn the garment, or the warp or the woof, of wool or of linen, or anything of skin, wherein the sore is; for it is a corroding leprosy: it shall be burned with fire. But if the priest look, and behold, the sore hath not spread in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of skin, then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the sore is, and he shall shut it up seven days a second time. And the priest shall look on the sore after the washing, and behold, if the sore have not changed its appearance, and the sore have not spread, it is unclean: thou shalt burn it with fire: it is a fretting sore on what is threadbare or where the nap is gone. But if the priest look, and behold, the sore hath become pale after the washing of it, then he shall rend it from the garment, or from the skin, or from the warp, or from the woof. And if it appear still in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of skin, it is a [leprosy] breaking out: thou shalt burn with fire that wherein the sore is. But the garment, or the warp, or the woof, or whatever thing of skin which thou hast washed, and the sore departeth from them, it shall be washed a second time, and it is clean. This is the law of the sore of leprosy in a garment of wool or linen, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of skin, to cleanse it, or to pronounce it unclean. Chapter 14 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,