View Leviticus 13 in the note window.
Rules whereby the priest was to judge of the leprosy, ver. 1 - 44.
Directions concerning the leper, ver. 45, 46.
Concerning the leprosy in garments, ver. 47 - 59.
2: In the skin - For there is the first seat of the leprosy, the
bright spot shining like the scale of a fish, as it is in the beginning
of a leprosy. The priest - The priest was to admit to, or exclude from,
the sanctuary, and therefore to examine who were to be excluded.
3: When the hair is turned white - This change of colour was an
evidence both of the abundance of excrementious humours, and of the weakness
of nature, as we see in old and sick persons. His flesh - For the leprosy
consumed both the skin and the flesh.
4: Seven days - For greater assurance; to teach ministers not to be
hasty in their judgments, but diligently to search and examine all things
before - hand. The plague is here put for the man that hath the
plague.
6: Dark - Contrary to the white colour of the leprosy. But the word
may be rendered, have contracted itself, and thus the opposition seems
to be most clear as the spreading of itself. He shall wash his
clothes - Though it was no leprosy, to teach us, that no sin is so small
as not to need to be washed by the blood of Christ, which was the thing
designed by all these washings.
10: White in the skin - With a preternatural and extraordinary
whiteness. Raw flesh - This shewed it was not a superficial leprosy but
one of a deeper and more malignant nature, that had eaten into the very
flesh, for which cause it is in the next verse called an old or
inveterate leprosy.
13: All his flesh - When it appeared in some one part it discovered
the ill humour which lurked within, and withal the inability of nature to
expel it; but when it overspread all, it manifested the strength of nature
conquering the distemper, and purging out the ill humours into the outward
parts.
14: In it - That is in the place where the appearance of leprosy was,
when the flesh was partly changed into a whiter colour, and partly kept its
natural colour, this variety of colours was an evidence of the leprosy, as
one and the same colour continuing, was a sign of soundness.
15: The raw flesh - This is repeated again and again, because raw or
living flesh might rather seem a sign of soundness, and the priest might
easily be deceived by it, and therefore he was more narrowly to look into
it.
16: Unto white - As it is usual with sores, when they begin to be
healed, the skin which is white, coming upon the flesh.
21: Dark - Or, and be contracted.
22: A plague - Or the plague of leprosy, of which he is speaking.
24: A hot burning - A burning of fire, by the touch of any
hot - iron, or burning coals, which naturally makes an ulcer or sore in
which the following spot is.
28: Of the burning - Arising from the burning mentioned,(Le 13:24).
30: A yellow, thin hair - The leprosy in the body turned the hair
white, in the head or beard it turned it yellow. And if a man's hair was
yellow before, this might easily be distinguished from the rest, either by
the thinness or smallness of it, or by its peculiar kind of yellow, for
there are divers kinds of the same colour manifestly differing from one
another.
31: No black hair - For had that appeared, it had ended the doubt,
the black hair being a sign of soundness and strength of nature, as the
yellow hair was a sign of unsoundness.
33: He shall be shaven - For the more certain discovery of the growth
or stay of the plague.
36: He shall not seek - He need not search for the hair, or any other
sign, the spreading of it being a sure sign of leprosy.
39: If the spots be darkish white - Or, contracted, or
confined to the place where they are, and white.
42: It is a leprosy - It is a sign that such baldness came not from
age, or any accident, but from the leprosy.
45: His clothes shall be rent - In the upper and fore parts, which
were most visible. This was done partly as a token of sorrow, because
though this was not a sin, yet it was an effect of sin, and a sore
punishment, whereby he was cut off both from converse with men, and from the
enjoyment of God in his ordinances; partly as a warning to others to keep at
a due distance from him wheresoever he came. And his head bare - Another
sign of mourning. God would have men though not overwhelmed with, yet
deeply sensible of his judgments. A covering on his upper lip - Partly as
another badge of his sorrow and shame, and partly for the preservation of
others from his breath or touch. Unclean, unclean - As begging the pity
and prayers of others, and confessing his own infirmity, and cautioning
those who came near him, to keep at a distance from him.
46: He shall dwell alone - Partly for his humiliation; partly to
prevent the infection of others; and partly to shew the danger of converse
with spiritual lepers, or notorious sinners.
47: Leprosy in garments and houses is unknown in these times and
places, which is not strange, there being some diseases peculiar to some
ages and countries. And that such a thing was among the Jews, cannot
reasonably be doubted; for, if Moses had been a deceiver, a man of his
wisdom, would not have exposed himself to the contempt of his people by
giving laws about that which their experience shewed to be but a fiction.
48: In the warp or woof - A learned man renders it in the
outside, or in the inside of it. If the signification of these words
be doubtful now, as some of those of the living creatures and precious
stones are confessed to be, it is not material to us, this law being
abolished; it sufficeth that the Jews understood these things by
frequent experience.
55: If it have not changed its colour - If washing doth not take
away that vicious colour, and restore it to its own native colour.
