Levítico 13

Levítico 13

William MacDonald - - Chapter 13 has to do with the diagnosis of leprosy, and chapter 14 with its cleansing. Opinion is divided as to the nature of biblical leprosy. Bible lepers were usually mobile, were not deformed, were harmless when completely leprous, and were sometimes cured. In some ways the priest filled the role of physician, perhaps a subtle reminder of the close connection between the spiritual and the physical. Man is a tripartite being, and what affects one part affects all. Chapter 13 is admittedly difficult, dealing as it does with technical descriptions of leprous and non-leprous diseases and with “leprosy” in houses and garments. Dr. R. K. Harrison, who has medical training as well as being a Hebrew scholar, points out that there is “no translation that is satisfactory for all the conditions covered by the Hebrew word, but that it should be broad enough to include the disease we call Hansen’s disease.” He summarizes the known facts about the Hebrew term and its Greek translation (whence our English terms leprosy, leper, leprous): The Hebrew term sāra’at comes from a root meaning “to become diseased in the skin,” and is a generic rather than a specific description. In Old Testament usage it was extended to include mould or mildew in fabrics, as well as mineral eruptions on the walls of buildings, and possibly dry rot in the fabric of such structures. In the LXX the Hebrew was rendered by the Greek word lepra, which itself appears to have been rather indefinite in nature and meaning. The Greek medical authors used the word to describe a disease that made the surface of the skin flaky or scaly, while Herodotus mentioned it in connection with an affliction known as leukē, a type of cutaneous eruption which seems to have been the same as the Greek elephantiasis, and thus similar to modern clinical leprosy (Hansen’s disease). Andrew Bonar (Spurgeon called his notes on Leviticus "Very precious.") AARON is present as well as Moses on this occasion; for the priests were to be judges of leprosy. Hence, the high priest is one of the original receivers of these laws. Jehovah opens up sin under the figure of leprosy—sin, as an evil seen, and disgusting when seen; diffusive as well as penetrating. An Israelite would naturally turn his thoughts to this chapter when he read such language as Isa. 1:6, “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint; from the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores.” In Isa. 53:5, “Smitten of God” is connected with “stricken” (נָגוּעַ) as if the stroke of leprosy (נָגַע) were a direct infliction of God. The expressions of Psalm 38 are borrowed in many things from the leprosy. Thus, “My wounds stink and are corrupt,” ver. 5. “My loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there is no soundness in my flesh,” ver. 7. And these verses are beyond doubt descriptions of the horrid features of sin. Job’s fearful disease was that more awful leprosy called elephantiasis. It was a disease which man could never heal; and therefore our Lord manifested no less than Divine power and Godhead by healing the lepers as much as by raising the dead. To turn the pale, loathsome, putrid leper to all the beautiful vigor and health of a little child, was what only God could do—only the arm that could raise the mouldering carcass from the grave. The pain of common leprosy is not vehement, but it keeps the man restless and sad. It is like sin in fallen man—the cause of his restlessness and sadness, the root of his unsatisfied desires; yet not itself felt keenly. Leprosy is also corrosive, and penetrates unseen—almost unfelt—till it has wasted the substance: like sin in the soul, eating out its beauty and its very life, while outwardly the sinner moves about as before. At length it bursts forth externally, too—the man becomes a skeleton, and a mass of noisome corruption. So does sin at length deface the whole image of God, and every faint vestige of comeliness that was left. And death is the sure end. The Lord sent forth such a disease on earth after the Fall, to form it would seem, a type of sin. The workings of the leprosy seem appointed by him on very purpose to show forth sin in all its features.(Leviticus 13 The Leprosy - Indwelling Sin - Its Horrid Features) David