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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPulpit Commentary - Leviticus 14:33 - 14:57
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Lev_14:34
When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession. This is the first instance of a law being given which has no bearing on the present condition of the Israelites. but is to regulate their conduct when they had come into the promised land. From the time of Abraham downwards, the assurance of their entrance into that land had been possessed by the people of Israel (Gen_17:8), and the expectation of the speedy fulfillment of that promise had been quickened by their exodus from Egypt, and the preparations made to march through the wilderness. There would, therefore, be nothing surprising to them in receiving instructions to guide their conduct when the entrance should have been effected. As the question is one of leprosy, it is natural that it should be treated of with the leprosy of the human subject and the leprosy of garments; but as it is not of immediate application, it is placed at the end, and dealt with after the rest of the subject has been discussed, being appended to the law of cleansing the leper, instead of preceding it. And I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession. This expression has led to the idea that the leprosy of houses was a special infliction at God's hand in a manner different flora other inflictions or diseases; but the words do not mean that. All that is done is in a sense done by God, inasmuch as his providence rules over all; and, therefore, by whatever secondary cause a thing may be brought about, it is he that does it. It is God that feeds the birds (Luk_12:24), God that clothes the grass (Luk_12:28), nor does one sparrow fall to the ground without him (Mat_10:29). It is he, therefore, that puts the plague in a house, as the Lord of all things (cf. Isa_45:6, Isa_45:7, "I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things"). The expression militates, though not strongly, against the notion that the house caught the leprosy from the leper that lived in it.
Lev_14:35-44
The examination of the suspected house by the priest. First, the house is to be emptied of its furniture, lest the latter should contract a ceremonial uncleanness in case the house were found to be leprous, but not, it will be noted, lest it should convey contagion or infection. Then the priest is to examine the discolouration, and if it bear a suspicious appearance, the house is to be shut up for seven days. It at the end of that time the spot has spread, he is to have the part of the wall in which it shows itself taken down and carried away, and built up again with new stones and mortar and plaster, the parts adjoining to the infected place having been first well scraped. If this treatment does not succeed in getting rid of the mischief, the priest is to determine that it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is unclean.
Lev_14:45
As the leper was removed from the camp, so the leprous house is to be utterly pulled down; the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and all its materials carried forth eat of the city into an unclean place.
Lev_14:46, Lev_14:47
The leprous house conveys uncleanness to those that enter it, but of so slight a nature that it ceases with the evening, and requires only that the clothes of the wearer be washed. Such a regulation would have been ineffectual for preventing the spread of infection, if that had been its purpose.
Lev_14:48-53
The ceremony of cleansing the house is as similar to that of cleansing the leper as circumstances will permit. In case there is no reappearance of the mischief after the new stones and plastering have been put in, the priest shall pronounce the house clean, because the plague is healed. First, the priest assures himself that the plague is healed, then he pronounces the house clean, and still after that the cleansing is to take place (cf. Lev_14:3, Lev_14:7, Lev_14:8). The cleansing is effected by the same ceremony as that of the leper himself, by the two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. The use of this ceremony in the cleansing of a house shows that, in the case of the leper, the symbolical meaning of letting go the living bird out of the city into the open fields cannot be, as has been maintained, the restoration of the cleansed man to his natural movements of liberty in the camp. If a bird's flight represents the freedom of a man going hither and thither as he will, it certainly does not represent any action that a house could take.
Lev_14:54-57
These verses contain the concluding formula for Lev_13:1-59, Lev_14:1-57. The various names of leprosy and its kindred diseases are resumed from Lev_13:2.
(1) God's household;
(2) God's house.
I. GOD'S HOUSEHOLD. As the household of God the Father," of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named" (Eph_3:15), they are the members of that august brotherhood gathered together in Christ, of which God himself is the spiritual Father, into which all that are adopted in Christ are incorporated, ceasing to be "strangers and foreigners," and becoming "fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God" (Eph_2:19).
II. GOD'S HORSE. The representation that God's people form his house is of a more singular character, and less capable of bring immediately grasped. It is even more commonly employed than the other. In the Epistle to the Corinthians, we read of Christians, that is, the collective body of Christians, being "God's temple" (1Co_3:16); "for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (2Co_6:16). In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul dwells at length on the idea of the Christian Church being built up of living stones into a temple for God's Spirit: "Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being himself the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph_2:20-22). And in the Epistle to Timothy, he speaks of "the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (1Ti_3:15). Similarly, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, having described Christ" as a Son over his own house," continues, "whose house are we" (Heb_3:6); and St. Peter writes, "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house" (1Pe_2:3). Just as God's Spirit dwells within the heart of each individual Christian, so, and in a more special manner, he dwells within the Church, his house not being made by hands, or constituted of wood and stone, but of the spirits of those who form the Church.
III. GOD'S HOUSE MAY NEVER BE DESTROYED, BUT IT MAY BE DEFILED. "Upon this rock" (that is, upon himself as confessed by St. Peter), "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Mat_16:18). But though not destructible by the power of evil, it may yet be defiled. "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1Co_3:17). That which defiles God's house is unrighteousness and falsehood, just as physical and ceremonial uncleanness defiles the camp (Deu_23:12). If the latter be allowed to continue in the carol, God will symbolically "turn away" from it; "for the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of the camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee" (Deu_23:14). If the former be found, "the Holy Spirit of God" will be "grieved" (Eph_4:30), and "vexed," so that God is turned into an "enemy" (Isa_63:10).
IV. THE CLEANSING OF GOD'S HOUSE. As soon as there is a prima facie appearance of immorality, or irreligiousness, or superstition in a National Church, a diligent examination should be made by those placed in authority by God. Perhaps it is only an appearance, which will die away of itself. If it does so, no further measures are needed. But "if the plague spread in the walls of the house; then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city: and he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place." Those whose office it is, must not shrink from removing the stones in which the mischief is found, that is, of casting out those who are incurably affected with irreligion, immorality, or superstition. "And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other morter, and shall plaister the house." Discipline must be exercised by substituting sound teachers and members of the flock for those that have become unsound. This is the work of reformation. This is what was done for the Jewish Church by Joash, when he "was minded to repair the house of the Lord So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it" (2Ch_24:4-13); and by Hezekiah, when he said unto the Levites, "Sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken him And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron" (2Ch_29:5-16); and by Josiah, when "he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem … when he had purged the land and the house he sent … to repair the house Of the Lord his God … and they gave the money to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house: even to the artificers and builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings, and to floor the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed" (2Ch_34:3-11). And this is what was done for the greater part of the Christian Church in the West in the sixteenth century. But if these measures prove ineffective, "if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and after he hath scraped the house and after it is plaistered; then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is unclean. And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place." So it was with the Jewish Church. The reformations of Joash, of Hezekiah, of Josiah, were ineffectual, and the Babylonian captivity followed. And so it will be with the various National Churches of Christendom: any one of them to which the taint of impurity in life or doctrine obstinately adheres, will be destroyed utterly when God's forbearance shall have at length come to an end.
V. WARNING. "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent" (Rev_2:5). "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth" (Rev_2:16). "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee" (Rev_3:3). "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev_3:19, Rev_3:20).
I. THREE MAIN PRINCIPLES ON THE SUBJECT OF CORRUPTION. In God's view, as we gain it from his Word,
1. Corruption (impurity) may attach to the "house" or community as well as to the individual. We read of "the iniquity of the house of Israel," and of "the iniquity of the house of Judah" (Eze_4:5, Eze_4:6); of "the house of Israel dealing treacherously with God" (Jer_3:20), etc.
2. That earnest effort should be made to cleanse it from corruption. The leprous house of stone was to be cleansed: the stones in which the plague was were to be taken away (Lev_14:40); the house was to be scraped round about, and its unclean dust cast out of the camp (Lev_14:41); other stones were to be placed and other mortar used instead (Lev_14:42): the leprous part was to be removed and the house renovated. So must the contaminated community purify itself, removing that from it which is evil and corrupting its Achan, its Ananias and Sapphira, its Simon the sorcerer, its guilty member (1Co_5:1-13), etc.
3. That, all efforts failing, the house will be destroyed. "He shall break down the house, the stones of it," etc. (Lev_14:45). A community of any kind that is incurably corrupt
(1) had better be broken up deliberately by the hand of man; but if no
(2) will certainly be dissolved in time by the hand of God. The history of the world abounds in proofs that moral and spiritual corruption lead on to feebleness, decay, dissolution.
II. THREE MAIN APPLICATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLES. To any leprous "house," to any community into which seeds of corruption have been introduced, these principles will apply. They may with peculiar appropriateness be referred to:
1. The nation. The "house of Judah" and the "house of Israel" were continually warned that they had erred from the ways of the Lord and become corrupt, that they must cleanse themselves from their impurities, or that they would be abandoned by God to their doom. Assyria, Judaea, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Ottoman Empire, provide striking and eloquent illustrations.
2. The family. The "house of Eli" and the "house of Saul" illustrate the principles of the text; so also many a "house" in Christian times that has risen to honour and influence, that has grown leprous (corrupt), that has not heeded the warnings of the Word of God to put away the evil of its doings, and that has fallen into decay and has disappeared.
3. The Church. This is the "house of God" on earth (1Ti_3:15; 2Ti_2:20; Eph_2:19; Heb_3:6). This house may show signs of leprosy; and in individual Churches corruption may break out—in doctrine (Galatia), in public worship (Corinth), in morals (Pergamos, Thyatira), in spiritual life (Ephesus, Sardis, Laodicea). The corrupt Church must be cleansed, or it will be disowned of the Divine Lord, and it will perish in his high displeasure (Rev_2:5, Rev_2:16, Rev_2:23, Rev_2:27; Rev_3:3, Rev_3:17-19).—C.
I. WHAT ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND BY THE HOUSE?
1. There is the obvious literal meaning. It is an ordinary habitation (differing, indeed, from the tents in which the Israelites sojourned in the wilderness), composed of stones, and mortar, and wood, and plaster.
2. It must also have a moral interpretation.
(1) If in the person leprosy has a twofold meaning, viz. a literal and moral; and if the garment plagued with leprosy has a moral as well as a literal meaning, so, by parity of reason, must the house.
(2) It cannot be supposed that for sanitary reasons simply the leprosy in the house should occupy the space it takes in the Scriptures.
(3) Over and above the sanitary regulations, we find regulations for the ceremonial cleansing, in which are sacrifices and sprinklings, "to make an atonement for the house" (Lev_14:48-53). These in other cases are admitted to have reference to the provisions of the gospel for moral purposes, and therefore should be so considered here.
3. It should be taken to represent a community.
(1) It is used sometimes to describe a family. Thus we read. of the "house of Cornelius," and of Noah saving "his house" (Act_10:2; Heb_11:7).
(2) It is also used. to express a lineage. Thus we read of a long war raging between the "house of Saul" and the "house of David" (2Sa_3:1).
(3) The larger community of a nation is called a "house." Thus we read repeatedly of the "house of Israel," the "house of Judah," and Egypt is spoken of as the "house of bondage" (Deu_8:14).
(4) An ecclesiastical community is in like manner described as a house. Paul speaks of the "house of God, which is the Church of the living God" (1Ti_3:15; see also Heb_3:2-6; Heb_10:21; 1Pe_4:17).
4. A leprous house is a demoralized community.
(1) Thus a family of wicked persons, or in which are members scandalous for irreligion and vice, is morally a leprous house. Such was the house of Eli.
(2) A lineage of wickedness also is a leprous house. Such was the house of "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." Such that of Omri.
(3) A nation given to idolatry such as Israel became before the Assyrian captivity, and Judah before the Babylonish, may be regarded as a leprous house. So are modern nations demoralized by atheism, infidelity, sabbath desecration, drunkenness, and dissipation, leprous houses.
(4) A Church holding out the poison cup of "damnable heresy" to intoxicate nations, encouraging vice by "indulgences," and "red" with the "blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus," is a house fearfully smitten with the plague of leprosy.
II. WHAT TREATMENT SHOULD IT RECEIVE?
1. The leprosy should be reported to the priest (Lev_14:34, Lev_14:35).
(1) The Priest is Christ, to whom we must carry all our concerns in prayer—domestic, political, ecclesiastical. The voice of suffering cries to him for judgment upon oppressors (Jas_5:4), and the voice from the ashes of the martyrs loudly imprecates judgment upon their persecutors (Rev_6:9-11).
(2) Faithful ministers of Christ should be apprised of the symptoms of the plague of heresy or immorality, that they might use their good offices and influence to stop the mischief.
(3) Any of the spiritual priesthood, persons of recognized sanctity and probity, might be informed of the spreading of moral leprosy, whether it be in the family, or State, or Church.
2. Warning should be given to those concerned.
(1) The priest himself gives the warning. The premonitions of Jesus are written in his Word. It tells us of days of judgment upon nations, upon Churches, upon individuals.
(2) Faithful ministers of Christ will utter his words. No false notions of "charity" will prevent them from sounding the alarm.
(3) The use of the warning is to have everything removed from the leprous house before the priest's inquisition for judgment; for whatever he finds in the unclean house will be concluded to be unclean (see Rev_18:4).
3. It will be duty inspected.
(1) Christ moves in all communities, though unseen, and more particularly amongst the candlesticks, or Churches. His eyes are as flames of fire, searching into all secrets of the "reins and hearts" (Rev_1:12-16, 23).
(2) The light of God's Word should be let in to discover the heresy that may plague any Church, and to rebuke the laxity of discipline which may connive at licentiousness (Rev_2:14-16, Rev_2:20-23).
4. It will be shut up for seven days.
(1) The priest himself withdraws. Jesus cannot abide in a foul community.
(2) Whoever enters it during this interval becomes unclean (Lev_14:46). Where Jesus cannot abide, his people should not go.
(3) He that lieth in the house or eateth in it shall wash his clothes (Lev_14:47). Fellowship in such a community compromises righteousness. What is the condition of those who are perverted to heresy!
5. Efforts towards a reformation should be made.
(1) Where the plague may appear superficial, the place must be scraped; where it has eaten deeply, the stones affected must be removed and new ones substituted, and the whole plastered afresh.
(2) However painful the process, the scraping of discipline must be endured (Job_22:23). There must be an excision of scandalous offenders (1Co_5:13).
6. The sequel.
(1) If the plague remain through the days of trial, breaking out afresh, notwithstanding the efforts for reformation, when the case is hopeless, then comes the visitation of judgment. The house is demolished and the wreck carried outside the city to an unclean place (see Rev_22:15).
(2) If the reformation has proved successful, the house abides. The ceremonies of the shedding and sprinkling the sacrificial blood (Lev_14:48-53) show that salvation is through faith in the merits of Christ. To those merits we are indebted for a present and an everlasting salvation.—J.A.M.