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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 13:47 - 13:47
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Leprosy in linen, woollen, and leather fabrics and clothes. - The only wearing apparel mentioned in Lev 13:47 is either woollen or linen, as in Deu 22:11; Hos 2:7; Pro 31:13; and among the ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks these were the materials usually worn. In Lev 13:48. שְׁתִי and עֵרֶב, “the flax and the wool,” i.e., for linen and woollen fabrics, are distinguished from clothes of wool or flax. The rendering given to these words by the early translators is στήμων and κρόκη, stamen et subtegmen (lxx, Vulg.), i.e., warp and weft. The objection offered to this rendering, that warp and weft could not be kept so separate from one another, that the one could be touched and rendered leprous without the other, has been met by Gussetius by the simple but correct remark, that the reference is to the yarn prepared for the warp and weft, and not to the woven fabrics themselves. So long as the yarn was not woven into a fabric, the warp-yarn and weft-yarn might very easily be separated and lie in different places, so that the one could be injured without the other. In this case the yarn intended for weaving is distinguished from the woven material, just as the leather is afterwards distinguished from leather-work (Lev 13:49). The signs of leprosy were, if the mole in the fabric was greenish or reddish. In that case the priest was to shut up the thing affected with leprosy for seven days, and then examine it. If the mole had spread in the meantime, it was a “grievous leprosy.” מַמְאֶרֶת, from מאר irritavit, recruduit (vulnus), is to be explained, as it is by Bochart, as signifying lepra exasperata. הַנֶּגַע מַמְאֶרֶת making the mole bad or angry; not, as Gesenius maintains, from מאר = מרר acerbum faciens, i.e., dolorem acerbum excitans, which would not apply to leprosy in fabrics and houses (Lev 14:44), and is not required by Eze 28:24. All such fabrics were to be burned as unclean.