Leviticus 13:4

_AND THE PRIEST SHALL LOOK ON THE PLAGUE IN THE SKIN OF THE FLESH: AND WHEN THE HAIR IN THE PLAGUE IS TURNED WHITE, AND THE PLAGUE IN SIGHT BE DEEPER THAN THE SKIN OF HIS FLESH, IT IS A PLAGUE OF LEPROSY: AND THE PRIEST SHALL LOOK ON HIM, AND PRONOUNCE HIM UNCLEAN._ The priest shall look ... 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...

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,) bu...

EXPOSITION UNCLEANNESS DERIVED FROM LEPROSY OR CONTACT WITH LEPERS AND LEPROUS THINGS (Leviticus 13:1, Leviticus 14:1). A third cause of uncleanness is found in a third class of offensive or repulsive objects. There is no disease which produces so foul an appearance in the human form as leprosy. There was, therefore, no disease so suitable for creating ceremonial, because representing spiritual, uncleanness. The name leprosy has been made to cover a number of diseases similar but not identical in character. There are many spurious forms of leprosy, and many diseases akin to leprosy which do not

IF THE BRIGHT SPOT BE WHITE IN THE SKIN OF HIS FLESH,.... The Targum of Jonathan is, white as chalk in the skin of his flesh; but other Jewish writers make the whiteness of the bright spot to be the greatest of all, like that of snow; Leviticus 13:2: AND IN SIGHT [BE] NOT DEEPER THAN THE SKIN, AND THE HAIR THEREOF BE NOT TURNED WHITE; though it be a bright spot, and be very white, yet these two marks not appearing, it cannot be judged a leprosy, at most it is only suspicious: wherefore THEN THE PRIEST, SHALL SHUT UP [HIM THAT HATH] THE PLAGUE SEVEN DAYS; in whom the bright spot is, and of whom there is a suspicion of the plague of leprosy, but it is not certain; and therefore, in order to take time, and get further knowledge, the person was to be shut up from all company and conversation for the space of seven days; by which time it might be supposed

3. LEPROSY: TYPE OF INDWELLING SIN CHAPTER 13 _ 1. Leprosy in a person (Leviticus 13:1)_ 2. The infected garment. (Leviticus 13:47) 3. The cleansing of the garment (Leviticus 13:58) The entire chapter treats of leprosy. It has been argued from the side of critics that the disease described here is not the one we know as leprosy, but only a similar disease of the skin. The arguments advanced to support this objection are silenced by Matthew 8:1. The man who came to our Lord had leprosy. The Lord told him “show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testi

GENERAL PROCEDURE. Certain classes of signs arouse suspicion. The priest is to inspect. If he sees them to be distinctly leprous, the patient is to be so treated; otherwise he is to be secluded for one or two periods of seven days; if there is no further spreading, he is discharged clean. LEVITICUS 13:1. FIRST CASE. A ring or scab on the flesh. If there are white hairs more than skin-deep, the disease is present. LEVITICUS 13:9. RECOVERY OF CLEANNESS. The grounds for deciding as to whether the leprosy has run its course are as follows; if the hair is white and there is raw flesh, the patient needs no isolation for inspection purposes, the decision can be made at once; but if he is white all over, the disease is regarded as at an end; probably a case of leucoderma is in m

PLAGUE. plagued person. Hebrew "shut up the plague". Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Adjunct). App-6. The meaning is supplied in italics....

The Treatment of Leprosy The word leprosy is now used to denote a malignant disease which in the Middle Ages swept over Europe and the British Isles. Traces of this visitation are found in the leper houses which were built in England. At present the disease is the subject of special treatment in Norway, but it is prevalent in India and elsewhere in the East and in parts of the Pacific Ocean. Many travellers have described the pitiable condition of the modern lepers, and the heroic action of Father Damien at the leper settlement of Molokai, Hawaii (†1889) in devoting his life to the alleviation of their sufferings has drawn public attention to the continued existence of this malady, but in by far the majority of cases these accounts of lepers and their sufferings are read with interest mainly because of the prominent position assigned to the treatment of leprosy in these Chapter s, and o...

LAWS CONCERNING LEPROSY 13:114:57 EXAMINATION AND ITS RESULT 13:1-46 a. THE SYMPTOMS OF LEPROSY, WHETHER PROCEEDING DIRECTLY FROM ERUPTIONS IN THE SKIN, OR CAUSED BY A BOIL OR BURN 13:1-8 TEXT 13:1-8 1 And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 2 When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it become in the skin of his flesh the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests: 3 and the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and if the hair in the plague be turned white, and the appearance of the plague be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is the plague of leprosy; and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean. 4 And if the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and the appearance thereof be not deeper than the skin, and the hai...

UNCLEANNESS CONNECTED WITH LEPROSY It is tolerably certain that the leprosy of the OT. is not the leprosy of the Middle Ages, which is still to be found in the East. The latter is a terrible and loathsome disease, called _elephantiasis_, in consequence of which the skin thickens, the features are distorted, and the very limbs mortify and drop off from the body. The leprosy of the Bible is a skin disease, known as _psoriasis_, in which the skin and hair grow white, and which is accompanied with scab and flaky scales which peel off. It is doubtful whether it was infectious or not. Some varieties may have been so; but it is to be observed that when the disease entirely covered the body the person was pronounced clean and could mix in society. Leprosy is regarded in the Bible as a type of sin in its loathsomeness and disfiguring and corrupting effects, and its treatment was in many points s...