Leviticus 13:6

13:1-17 The plague of leprosy was an uncleanness, rather than a disease. Christ is said to cleanse lepers, not to cure them. Common as the leprosy was among the Hebrews, during and after their residence in Egypt, we have no reason to believe that it was known among them before. Their distressed state and employment in that land must have rendered them liable to disease. But it was a plague often inflicted immediately by the hand of God. Miriam's leprosy, and Gehazi's, and king Uzziah's, were punishments of particular sins; no marvel there was care taken to distinguish it from a common distemper. The judgment of it was referred to the priests. And it was a figure of the moral pollutions of men's minds by sin, which is the leprosy of the soul, defiling to the conscience, and from which Christ alone can cleanse. The priest could only convict the leper, (by the law is the knowledge of sin,) but Christ can cure the sinner, he can take away sin. It is a work of great importance, but of great difficulty, to judge of our spiritual state. We all have cause to suspect ourselves, being conscious of sores and spots; but whether clean or unclean is the question. As there were certain marks by which to know it was leprosy, so there are marks of such as are in the gall of bitterness. The priest must take time in making his judgment. This teaches all, both ministers and people, not to be hasty in censures, nor to judge anything before the time.

If some men's sins go before unto judgment, the sins of others follow after, and so do men's good works. If the person suspected were found to be clean, yet he must wash his clothes, because there had been ground for the suspicion. We have need to be washed in the blood of Christ from our spots, though not leprosy spots; for who can say, I am pure from sin?

And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day,.... On the second seventh day, at the end of a fortnight from his being first presented to him, and shut up: and, behold, if the plague be somewhat dark; the spot be not so bright, or so white as it was at first; though Aben Ezra observes, that indeed many wise men say, that is as signifying dark, and the testimony or proof they bring is Genesis 27:1 but according to my opinion, adds he, the word is the reverse of to spread; and the sense is, if the plague does not spread itself in another place; and so some translators render it "contracted", or "contracts itself" (h): and this seems best to agree with what follows: and the plague spread not in the skin; but is as it was when first viewed, after waiting fourteen days, and making observations on it: the priest shall pronounce him clean; that is, from leprosy, otherwise there was an impure disorder on him, a scabious one: it is but a scab; which is the name, Jarchi says, of a clean plague or stroke, that is, in comparison of the leprosy, otherwise such cannot be said with any propriety to be clean.

Ben Gersom better explains it, it is a white scab, but not of the kind of leprosy, although it is found as the whiteness of the bright spot; but there are not seen in it the signs of leprosy, the hair is not turned white, nor has the plague increased: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean; for seeing he was obliged to be shut up, as Jarchi observes, he is called unclean, and stood in need of dipping, that is, his body and his clothes into water; so the people of God, though they are justified by the righteousness of Christ, and are pronounced clean through it, yet since they have their spots and scabs, they have need to have their conversation garments continually washed in the blood of the Lamb. (h) "contracta est", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "contraxerit sese", some in Vatablus.

Leviticus 13:6 . Dark — Contrary to the white colour of the leprosy. But the word may be rendered, have contracted itself, and thus the opposition seems to be most clear to the spreading of itself. He shall wash his clothes — Though it was no leprosy, to teach us, that no sin is so small as not to need to be washed by the blood of Christ, which was the thing designed by all these washings.

If the plague be somewhat dark; which is opposed to the white colour of the leprosy. But the word may be rendered, have contracted itself , or, be restrained or confined to its former place and bigness; and thus the opposition seems to be most clear to the spreading of itself, mentioned both in the foregoing verse, and in the following clause. He shall wash his clothes, though it was no leprosy, but a scab only; to teach us, that no sin was so small which did not need to be washed by the blood of Christ, which was the thing designed by all these washings.

And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague be somewhat {c} dark, and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean: it is but a scab: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean. (c) As having the skin drawn together, or blackish.

3-6. the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh, &c.—The leprosy, as covering the person with a white, scaly scurf, has always been accounted an offensive blemish rather than a serious malady in the East, unless when it assumed its less common and malignant forms. When a Hebrew priest, after a careful inspection, discovered under the cutaneous blemish the distinctive signs of contagious leprosy, the person was immediately pronounced unclean, and is supposed to have been sent out of the camp to a lazaretto provided for that purpose. If the symptoms appeared to be doubtful, he ordered the person to be kept in domestic confinement for seven days, when he was subjected to a second examination; and if during the previous week the eruption had subsided or appeared to be harmless, he was instantly discharged. But if the eruption continued unabated and still doubtful, he was put under surveillance another week; at the end of which the character of the disorder never failed to manifest itself, and he was either doomed to perpetual exclusion from society or allowed to go at large. A person who had thus been detained on suspicion, when at length set at liberty, was obliged to "wash his clothes," as having been tainted by ceremonial pollution; and the purification through which he was required to go was, in the spirit of the Mosaic dispensation, symbolical of that inward purity it was instituted to promote.

(6) And the priest shall look on him again. —If , on further examination at the end of another week, the priest finds that the bright spot looks darker, and that it has not spread, he is to pronounce the patient clean, and set him at liberty, since it was simply an ordinary scurf; but though not leprous, the eruption indicated some impurity in his blood, and he had therefore to wash his garments.

But if the bright spot was white upon the skin, and its appearance was not deeper than the skin, and the place therefore was not sunken, nor the hair turned white, the priest was to shut up the leper, i.e., preclude him from intercourse with other men, for seven days, and on the seventh day examine him again. If he then found that the mole still stood, i.e., remained unaltered, "in his eyes," or in his view, that it had not spread any further, he was to shut him up for seven days more. And if, on further examination upon the seventh day, he found that the mole had become paler, had lost its brilliant whiteness, and had not spread, he was to declare him clean, for it was a scurf, i.e., a mere skin eruption, and not true leprosy. The person who had been pronounced clean, however, was to wash his clothes, to change himself from even the appearance of leprosy, and then to be clean.

[Reformed Biblical] certain discovery of the growth or stay of the plague. Leviticus 13:34 Leviticus 13:35 Leviticus 13:36 He need not search for the hair, or any other sign, the spreading or running of it being a sure sign of leprosy, without any other evidence. Leviticus 13:37 The truth of the thing, and not the sentence of the priest, made him clean; and if the priest had partially pronounced one clean who was not clean, his sentence had been null. And therefore it is a fond and dangerous conceit to think that the absolution given to any sinner by a priest will stand hi m in any stead i f he do not truly repent. Leviticus 13:38 Leviticus 13:39 ## Darkish white, or contracted , or confined to the place where they are, and white . Leviticus 1 3:40 Leviticus 1 3:41 Leviticus 13:42 It is a sign that such baldness came not from age or any accident, but from the leprosy. Leviticus 13:43 Leviticus 13:44 Leviticus 13:45 ## His clothes shall be rent, to wit, in the upper and former parts, which were most visible. This was done, partly, as a token of sorrow, Ezr_9:3,5 Job 2:12, because though this was not a sin, yet it was an effect of sin, and a sore punishment, whereby he was cut off both from converse with men, and from the enjoyment of God in his ordinances; partly, as a warning to others to keep at a due distance from him wheresoever he came; and partly, as s ome add, that it