Leviticus 13:11-59
skin ...... covers .... skin <03680 05785> [cover all.]
disease <06883> [if the leprosy.]
It may seem strange that the partial leper should be pronounced unclean, and the person totally covered with the disease clean. This was probably owing to a different species or stage of the disease; the partial being contagious, the total not. That there are two different species, or degrees, of the disease described here, is sufficiently evident: in one, the person was all covered with a white enamelled scurf; in the other, there was a quick raw flesh in the risings. On this account, the one was deemed unclean, or contagious, the other not; for contact with the quick raw flesh would be more likely to communicate the disease, than the touch of the hard dry scurf. The ichor proceeding from the former, when brought into contact with the flesh of another, would soon be taken into constitution by means of the absorbent vessels; but where the surface was perfectly dry; the absorbent vessels of another, coming in contact with the diseased man, could imbibe nothing, and there was consequently but little or no danger of infection. This is the learned Dr. Mead's view of the subject; who thus accounts for the circumstances mentioned in the text.
clean <02889> [he is clean.]
boil <07822> [a boil.]
appears <04758> [in sight.]
quarantine .... seven <05462 07651> [shut him.]
infection <05061> [a plague. i,e., "The plague of leprosy."]
burn ........... burn <04348 0784> [a hot burning. Heb. a burning of fire.]
This is supposed to state the case of such as had been hurt by fire; which would leave a scar, in which the leprosy might appear, and which was to be distinguished by the rules here given.
turned white <03836 02015> [turned white.]
priest ........................... priest <03548> [then the priest.]
diseased infection <05061 06883> [it is the plague of leprosy. See on ver.]
scall <05424> [scall.]
seven days <07651 03117> [seven days.]
yellow hair <08181 06669> [yellow hair.]
seventh <07637> [the seventh.]
spread <06581> [be not.]
wash <03526> [and he shall.]
bright spots <0934> [if the bright.]
harmless <0933> [a freckled spot.]
The word {bohak,} from the Syriac {behak,} to be white, or shining, here rendered "a freckled spot," is used by the Arabs to denote a kind of leprosy, of which Niebuhr says, "{Bohak} is neither contagious nor dangerous. A black boy at Mocha, who was affected with this eruption, had here and there upon his body white spots. We were told that the use of sulphur had relieved this boy for a time, but had not entirely removed the disease." He adds subsequently from Forskal's papers, "The Arabs call a sort of leprosy, in which some little spots shew themselves here and there on the body, {behaq;} and it is without doubt the same as is named {bohak,} (Le ch. 13). They believe it to be so far from contagious, that one may sleep with a person affected without danger." "On the 15th day of May, 1765, I myself first saw the {Bohak} leprosy in a Jew at Mocha. The spots in this disease are of an unequal size. They do not shine; are not perceptibly higher than the skin; and do not change the colour of the hair. Their colour is an obscure white, inclining to red. The rest of the skin of the patient was darker than that of the people of the country in general; but the spots were not so white as the skin of an European, when not sun-burnt. The spots in this leprosy do not appear on the hands, or near the navel, but on the neck and face, yet not on that part where the hair grows thick. They gradually spread, and continue sometimes only about two months, but in some cases one or two years, and then disappear by degrees, of themselves. This disorder is neither contagious nor hereditary, nor does it occasion any inconvenience." Hence a person infected with the {bohak} is declared clean.
head <07218 04803> [hair is fallen off his head. Heb. head is pilled.]
unclean because <02930> [utterly unclean.]
infection <05061> [his plague.]
clothes <0899> [his clothes.]
head <07218> [and his head.]
cover <05844> [put.]
Unclean Unclean <02931> [Unclean.]
time <03117> [the days.]
outside <02351> [without.]
garment ............. garment <0899> [The garment.]
This leprosy in garments appears so strange to us, that it has induced some, with Bp. Patrick, to consider it as an extraordinary punishment inflicted by God upon the Israelites, as a sign of his high displeasure; while others consider the leprosy in clothes (and also houses) as having no relation to the leprosy in man. When Michaelis was considering the subject, he was told by a dealer in wool, that the wool of sheep which die of a disease, if it has not been shorn from the animal while living, is unfit to manufacture cloth, and liable to something like what Moses here describes, and which he imagines to be the plague of leprosy in garments. The whole account, however, as Dr. A. Clarke observes, seems to intimate that the garment was fretted by the contagion of the real leprosy; which it is probable was occasioned by a species of {animacula,} or vermin, burrowing in the skin, which we know to be the cause of the itch; these, by breeding in the garments, must necessarily multiply their kind, and fret the garments, i.e., corrode a portion of the finer parts, after the manner of moths, for their nourishment. The infection of garments has frequently been known to cause the worst species of scarlet fever, and even the plague; and those infected with {psora}, or itch animal, have communicated the disease even in six or seven years after the infection.
leather .... made ... leather <04399 05785> [thing made of. Heb. work of.]
leather ........ article ... leather <05785 03627> [thing of skin. Heb. vessel, or instrument. it is.]
malignant disease <06883 03992> [fretting leprosy.]
burn .................................. burned up <08313> [burn.]
malignant disease <06883 03992> [fretting leprosy.]
after <0310> [after.]
back side ... front side <01372 07146> [it be bare within or without. Heb. it be bald in the head thereof, or in the forehead thereof.]
burn up <08313> [shalt burn.]
wash .......... washed <03526> [be washed.]
The plague of leprosy was inflicted immediately from the hand of God, and came not from natural causes, as other diseases; and therefore must be managed according to a divine law. Miriam's leprosy, and Gehazi's and King Uzziah's were all the punishments of particular sins; and if generally it was so, no marvel there was so much care taken to distinguish it from a common distemper, that none might be looked upon as lying under this extraordinary token of Divine displeasure, but those that really were so.
