Reformation Bible Notes

Lev. 13:1–14:57 These chapters contain God's laws concerning unclean skin diseases referred to as "leprous disease" (13:2, 8). Modern physicians recognize here the symptoms of various modern complaints, but we should remember that the biblical classification is based primarily on spiritual rather than hygienic or medical considerations. The key principle in identifying a skin disease as "unclean" was whether the skin seemed to be rotting away, suggesting the spiritual principle of death. Patchy complaints amounted to uncleanness (vv. 9, 10), but a complaint affecting the whole body did not (vv. 12, 13). Stable conditions were clean, but deteriorating ones were unclean (vv. 5–8, 18–37). Similar principles applied to the diagnosis of uncleanness in clothing: progressive mildews were unclean (vv. 47–52), but stable ones were clean (vv. 53–58). The close association of uncleanness with death is shown in 13:45. The person afflicted with a serious skin disease behaved as a mourner (21:10). He was excluded from the camp, not to protect the health of Israel, but because God was in the camp and uncleanness (death) had to be separated from the presence of God (life). See Num. 5:1–4; 12:14–15.

14:2 cleansing. These ceremonies conducted by the priest did not cure skin disease. A diseased person came to the priest after he had been healed (Luke 5:14). The task of the priest was to make the person who had been excluded from the camp, from his people, and from God, ceremonially clean. Through these ceremonial cleansings, which took place in two stages a week apart, the diseased individual was restored to fellowship with God and with His people.
14:3–8 The first stage of cleansing took place outside the camp. The man washed himself and his clothes, and shaved. Two birds were taken. The blood of one was used to purify the man. The death of that bird portrayed the end of the man's old life outside the camp, and the flight to freedom of the other pictured his liberation from the effects of the disease. Then the man might enter the camp again.

14:9–20 In the second cleansing stage, the Israelite was brought back into full communion with God. The ceremonies here resemble the consecration of the priest (ch. 8). The Israelite was daubed with blood and anointed with oil, being linked to the altar, the symbol of God's presence. A variation on this restoration procedure is prescribed for the poor in vv. 21–31.