Leviticus 14:57

_AND IF THE PRIEST SHALL COME IN, AND LOOK UPON IT, AND, BEHOLD, THE PLAGUE HATH NOT SPREAD IN THE HOUSE, AFTER THE HOUSE WAS PLAISTERED: THEN THE PRIEST SHALL PRONOUNCE THE HOUSE CLEAN, BECAUSE THE PLAGUE IS HEALED._ The priest shall pronounce the house clean. The precautions here described show that there is great danger in warm countries from the house leprosy, which was likely to be increased by the smallness and rude architecture of the houses in the early ages of the Israelite history. Since a house could not contract any impurity in the sight of God, the 'atonement' which the priest was to make for it must either have had a reference to the sins of its occupiers, or to the ceremonial process appointed for its purification, the very same as that observed for a leprous person. This solemn declaration that it was "clean," as well as the offering made on the occasion, were admirably...

54-57 When that God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us by his grace, Ephesians 2:4; Ephesians 2:5, we shall manifest the change by repenting, and forsaking former sins. Let us follow after holiness, and let us compassionate other poor lepers, and desire, seek, and pray for their cleansing....

EXPOSITION THE LEPROSY OF A HOUSE, AND ITS CLEANSING (Leviticus 14:33-3). The subject of leprosy in houses must be regarded from the same point of view as that of leprosy in clothes. The regulations respecting it are not sanitary laws, as Lange represents them, but rest, as Keil argues, upon an ideal or symbolical basis. The same thought is attached to all species of uncleanness. Something—it matters not what—produces a foul and repulsive appearance in the walls of a house. That is in itself sufficient to make that house unclean; for whatever is foul and repulsive is representative of moral and spiritual defilement, and therefore is itself symbolically defiling and defiled. It has been suggested that the special cause of the affection of the houses i

TO TEACH WHEN [IT IS] UNCLEAN, AND WHEN IT IS CLEAN,.... A man, his garment, or his house; for it respects them all, as Aben Ezra observes; which was the business of the priests to teach men, and they by the above laws and rules were instructed how to judge of cases, and by which they were capable of pronouncing persons or things clean or unclean: THIS [IS] THE LAW OF LEPROSY; respecting every sort of it, and which is very remarkably enlarged upon....

11- 15. RITUAL CLEANLINESS AND UNCLEANLINESS. Leviticus 11, Animals; Leviticus 12, Childbirth; Leviticus 13, Skin diseases (including tainted garments); Leviticus 14:1, Purgation for skin diseases; Leviticus 14:33, Leprosy in houses, and general conclusion to the Law; Leviticus 15, Issues. Probably to most modern readers, this section is the least intelligible in the book. We must consider it (_a)_ in its ethnological and (_b)_ its specifically Hebrew aspect, (_a)_ These laws are properly taboos. The term is Polynesian, signifying what is in itself, or artificially, forbidden, either for the whole community, or else for common people, or priests, or kings (p. 629). Taboos may relate to places, or to the sexes, or to certain ages. Certain kinds of food m

TO TEACH. Some codices, with Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Syriac, read "and to", thus preserving the Figure of speech _Polysyndeton_ (App-6) in this member _r_ (verses: Leviticus 14:54) without. break. Eight "ands" in all. WHEN. Hebrew "in the day". Compare Genesis 2:17, and see App-18....

A summary of the cases dealt with in chs. 13, 14. Special sections have also their closing verses, see Leviticus 13:59; Leviticus 14:32....

THIS IS THE LAW, &C.— These verses contain a recapitulation of this and the former chapter, which, however they may be despised by some, yet discover to us the goodness of God towards the Israelites, whom he had adopted for his peculiar people; and therefore he took care to give them precepts about every thing which might contribute, in any degree, to the regulation of their manners, and to their payment of an exact obedience to him. And who does not see, that, by these external rites and ceremonies, a moral lesson is taught us, admonished as we are hereby to keep pure consciences, void of offence both towards God and man, in a strict observance of all the rules of our most holy religion? This is, as it were, the voice of God to us; _touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you._ 2 Corinthians 6:17. The leprosy has been considered by some of the greatest writers as

THE LAWS CONCERNING THE LEPROSY OF HOUSES 14:33-57 TEXT 14:33-57 33 And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 34 When ye are come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; 35 then he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, There seemeth to me to be as it were a plague in the house. 36 And the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest goeth in to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house: 37 and he shall look on the plague; and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, and the appearance thereof be lower than the wall; 38 then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut u...

14:57 when (b-3) when (b-8) Lit. 'in the day of.'...