Mark 1:40

Cleansing of a Leper

40. there came Better, there cometh, in the present tense. See Introduction, p. 19.

a leper One afflicted with the most terrible of all maladies, "a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all the humours, of life; a dissolution little by little of the whole body, so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away." The Jews called it "the Finger of God," and emphatically "the Stroke;" they never expected to cure it (see 2 Kings 5:7). With lip covered (Ezekiel 24:17), and bare head (Leviticus 14:8-9), and rent garments, the leper bore about with him the emblems of mortality, "himself a dreadful parable of death." Compare the cases of Moses (Exodus 4:6), Miriam (Numbers 12:10), Naaman (2 Kings 5:1), Gehazi (2 Kings 5:27).

kneeling down to him St Mark alone describes this attitude of the leper, as also the look of compassion which beamed forth from the face of the Lord, spoken of in the next verse.