Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Leviticus 14:1 - 14:32
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Manner Observed in Purifying a Leper
v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
v. 2. This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing, when he is found cured of the terrible disease with which he had been suffering: He shall be brought unto the priest;
v. 3. and the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper, literally, healed away from, that is, healed and gone away from, a careful inspection showing that all symptoms and marks of the disease have disappeared;
v. 4. then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar-wood, and scar let, and hyssop. The purpose was to make the person that had been sick Levitically clean. The living birds signified that the leper's dead flesh, the body that was all but dead, was restored to life and vigor; the cedar-wood denoted restoration from evil-smelling rotting of the tissues and the endurance of life: the scarlet (wool or thread or a bit of cloth), restoration of the color of health and freshness to the skin; the fragrant hyssop, the restoration from the exceedingly bad odor of the disease and the purity of life which was now to be expected of the patient.
v. 5. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel, which could afterward be destroyed,over running water, the vessel having been partly filled with water from a spring or brook.
v. 6. As for the living bird, which yet remained, he shall take it, and the cedar-wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water, so that the mixture of water and blood would cling to the feathers of the bird and to the other objects;
v. 7. and he (the priest) shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, as on similar occasions of peculiar solemnity, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in to the open field. This signified that the former leper was released from the fetters of his sickness and could once more return to the enjoyment of full social and religious fellowship with the other people of his nation.
v. 8. And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, on his whole body, and wash himself in water that he may be clean; and after that he shall come in to the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days. "This remaining restriction seems designed still further to impress upon the mind the fearful character of the disease from which the leper had recovered; and still more, to postpone the full restoration of the leper to his family until he had first, by the prescribed sacrifices, been restored to fellowship with God. " (Lange. )
v. 9. But it shall be on the seventh day that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off, for a second thorough cleansing; and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean, restored to full Levitical purity. He was now in a condition to offer the prescribed sacrifices of the eighth day.
v. 10. And on the eighth day he shall take two he-lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three-tenth deals of fine flour for a meat-offering, one-tenth of an epha (about two and one half quarts) being figured for each sacrificial animal, mingled with oil, and one log (about seven-tenths of a pint) of oil.
v. 11. And the priest that maketh him clean shall present the man that is to be made clean, and those things, all the prescribed sacrifices, before the Lord, at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation;
v. 12. and the priest shall take one he-lamb, and offer him for a trespass-offering, and the log of oil, and wave them for a wave-offering before the Lord, this ceremony distinguishing the leper's sacrifice from others of the same kind and serving for the worshiper's consecration;
v. 13. and he shall slay the lamb in the place where he shall kill the sin-offering and the burnt offering, in the Holy Place, north of the altar of burnt offering:for as the sin-offering is the priest's, so is the trespass-offering; it is most holy.
v. 14. And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass-offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip, or lobe,of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, to consecrate the organs of the hearing of the Word, of doing the will of the Lord, and of walking in the path of His commandments, as in the consecration of the priests.
v. 15. And the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand;
v. 16. and the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the Lord, before the altar in the court;
v. 17. and of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass-offering which he had just applied in the same manner;
v. 18. and the remnant of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall pour upon the head of him that is to be cleansed, to restore him to the privilege of his priestly kingship, from which he had been excluded by his disease; and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord. Thus was the propitiation made and the gulf which had existed between God and man bridged over and covered.
v. 19. And the priest shall offer the sin-offering, and make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed from his uncleanness, for the leprosy was only the outward expression of the inner impurity of sin; and afterward he shall kill the burnt offering, the ewe lamb which had been provided.
v. 20. And the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the meat-offering up on the altar; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and he shall be clean. All this was but a shadow and figure of the sacrifices of good works in which the believers of the New Testament are diligent.
v. 21. And if he be poor and can not get so much, then he shall take one lamb for a trespass-offering to be waved, instead of the two animals which the more well-to-do were expected to bring, to make an atonement for him, and one tenth deal of fine flour (about two and one half quarts), mingled with oil for a meat-offering, and a log of oil (about seven-tenths of a pint);
v. 22. and two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, such as he is able to get, as he can afford, according to his means; and the one shall be as in-offering and the other a burnt offering.
v. 23. And he shall bring them on the eighth day, after the first ceremony of washing or lustration, vv. 4-8, for his cleansing unto the priest, unto the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, before the Lord.
v. 24. And the priest shall take the lamb of the trespass-offering and the log of oil, and the priest shall wave them for a wave-offering before the Lord, to distinguish the leper's offering from the ordinary sacrifices of the same kind and to symbolize his renewed consecration to the Lord
v. 25. And he shall kill the lamb of the trespass-offering; and the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass-offering, and put it up on the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and up on the thumb of his right hand, and up on the great toe of his right foot;
v. 26. and the priest shall pour of the oil in to the palm of his own left hand;
v. 27. and the priest shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the Lord;
v. 28. and the priest shall put of the oil that is in his hand up on the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and up on the thumb of his right hand, and up on the great toe of his right foot, up on the place of the blood of the trespass-offering;
v. 29. and the rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put up on the head of him that is to be cleansed, to make an atonement for him before the Lord, as before, vv. 16-18, and with the same significance.
v. 30. And he shall offer the one of the turtle-doves or of the young pigeons, such as he can get,
v. 31. even such as he is able to get, the one for a sin-offering and the other for a burnt offering, with the meat-offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed before the Lord. The necessity of atonement, of propitiation, of bridging the gulf between God and sinful man by means of the sacrifices that prefigured the perfect offering of Christ, is brought out again and again.
v. 32. This is the law of him in whom is the plague of leprosy, whose hand is not able to get that which pertaineth to his cleansing, who is actually not in a position to afford the more expensive sacrifices. While cleansing was absolutely necessary, the Lord did not intend to place insuperable obstacles in the way of the person who wished to be restored to full communion with God and full fellowship with the covenant people.