Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 13:27 And the priest shall look upon him the seventh day: and if it be spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean…
Leviticus 13:35-36 But if the scall spread much in the skin after his cleansing;
Psalms 38:3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
Isaiah 1:5-6 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
Romans 6:12-14 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
2 Timothy 2:16-17 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Leviticus 13:1-17
I. Concerning the plague of leprosy we may observe in general, 1. That it was rather an uncleanness than a disease; or, at least, so the law considered it, and therefore employed not the physicians but the priests about it. Christ is said to cleanse lepers, not to cure them. We do not read of any that died of the leprosy, but it rather buried them alive, by rendering them unfit for conversation with any but such as were infected like themselves. Yet there is a tradition that Pharaoh, who sought to kill Moses, was the first that ever was struck with this disease, and that he died of it. It is said to have begun first in Egypt, whence it spread into Syria. It was very well known to Moses, when…
But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin--Those doubtful cases, when they assumed a malignant character, appeared in one of two forms, apparently according to the particular constitution of the skin or of the habit generally. The one was "somewhat dark" [Lev 13:6] --that is, the obscure or dusky leprosy, in which the natural color of the hair (which in Egypt and Palestine is black) is not changed, as is repeatedly said in the sacred code, nor is there any depression in the dusky spot, while the patches, instead of keeping stationary to their first size, are perpetually enlarging their boundary. The patient laboring under this form was pronounced unclean by the Hebrew priest or physicia…
The priest shall - pronounce him unclean - וטמא אתו vetimme otho; literally, shall pollute him, i. e., in the Hebrew idiom, shall declare or pronounce him polluted; and in Lev 13:23, it is said, the priest shall pronounce him clean, וטהרו הכהן vetiharo haccohen, the priest shall cleanse him, i. e., declare him clean. In this phrase we have the proper meaning of Mat 16:19 : Whatsoever ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. By which our Lord intimates that the disciples, from having the keys, i. e., the true knowledge of the doctrine, of the kingdom of heaven, should, from particular evidences, be at all times able to distinguish…
The Church Fathers
Then he continues: But if the meaning were again spread on the skin after the priest had examined it to purify it - that is, if after examining the priest on the seventh day and seeing him healthy, to declare him pure, that meaning spread on the skin , the stain on the skin - and it was examined a second time by the priest - after another seven days -, and the priest examined him and verified that the meaning had spread on the skin - that is, he did not continue with that state of health in which I had seen him after the first seven days - and the priest will stain him: it is leprosy. In this case, as what had been healthy after the first seven days did not remain in his state, but was changed to evil first, it is declared as it is leprosy. It is no longer expected in this case, or that the place is more sunken or that the hair has turned white. Since leprosy is not striking or vicious, but only its change, the fact of moving from diseased to healthy color and returning from healthy color to diseased color is so striking that in this case we would not have to wait for what in the first case had been ordered to wait for the place of the skin that was more sunken and the whiteness of the hair. For the mere fact of the change there would be no doubt that it would be leprosy.
But if the significance was changed again in the skin, after the priest had examined it to purify it, and it appeared again to the priest and the priest examined it and verified that the significance was changed in the skin, and the priest would stain it: leprosy. Here, too, "it will stain" is equivalent to "declare it stained". "And" (in the last sentence) is an addition to the language of Scripture. It seems that the text advises that, when the white color has been seen alone and bright, different from the healthy color, the priest examines it again to declare that it is leprosy, that is, that it smears the man declaring him a leper, but only if it is checked that also the hair has turned white and the place of the skin where the white color is is more sunken. And he continues: But if in the skin of its color there was bright white -that is, if the touch were bright white: it calls the stain like that- and its visible place was no more sunk than the skin and the hair would not have turned white, but it is dark - that is, the hair, which is not white - and the priest will separate the affected person for seven days. And on the seventh day the priest will check the touch-the stain that-and if the touch remains before him, but the touch has not spread across the skin - that is, it has no different color or is different from the skin. Then he has healed what was sick. But the text still examines health for another seven days, and therefore says: - And the priest will separate him for seven days a second time - another seven days - and the priest will examine him on the seventh day a second time and if the touch is dark - since it is not white and bright and therefore of the same color as the healthy color - the touch has not spread through the skin - as it was said a little above, that is, it is not different of the rest of the skin - and the priest will purify it (Lv 13, 4.5.6), that is, he will declare that he is free from the suspicion of leprosy; not because he had leprosy, which he no longer has, but because he has not existed, since in that bright and white color of the touch, of the stain that had appeared, when he hoped that the place had sunk more and the hair of that one The place had turned white, it did not happen that way, but the touch, which had previously been bright and white, became rather dark, similar to the rest of the color of the skin,…
Dictionary and topics
Leprosy — (Heb. tsara’ath, a “smiting,” a “stroke,” because the disease was regarded as a direct providential infliction). This name is from the Greek lepra, by which the Greek physicians designated the…
Purification — The process by which a person unclean, according to the Levitical law, and thereby cut off from the sanctuary and the festivals, was restored to the enjoyment of all these privileges. The great…
Leprosy · The priests: Had rules for distinguishing — The priests: Had rules for distinguishing
Priests · Services of: Deciding in cases of leprosy — Services of: Deciding in cases of leprosy
Sanitation · CONTAGION — CONTAGION
Scab · Disease of the skin — Disease of the skin
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin,.... Or "in spreading spread" (k); spreads, and proceeds to spread more and more:
after that he hath been seen of the priest for his cleansing: even after he had been viewed upon the first presentation of him to him, and after he had been twice seen by him by the end of two weeks, in which he was shut up, and after he had been pronounced clean, and had washed his clothes for his purification:
he shall be seen of the priest again; either he shall go to him of himself, or be brought to him, to be reviewed and pass under afresh examination.
(k) "diffundendo diffuderit se", Montanus, Drusius, Piscator.
John Calvin on Leviticus 13:2-28
When a man shall have in the skin. Since every eruption was not the leprosy, and did not render a man unclean, when God appoints the priests to be the judges, He distinguishes by certain marks a common eruption from the leprosy; and then subjoins the difference between the various kinds of leprosy. For the disease was not always incurable; but, only when the blood was altogether corrupted, so that the skin itself had become hardened by its corrosion, or swollen by its diseased state. This, then, must be observed in the first place, that the Greek and Latin word lepra, and the Hebrew tsrt tzaragmath, extend further than to the incurable disease, which medical men call elephantiasis [4] both o…
The symptoms of leprosy, whether proceeding directly from eruptions in the skin, or caused by a boil or burn. - Lev 13:2-8. The first case: "When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh (body) a raised spot or scab, or a bright spot." שׂאת, a lifting up (Gen 4:7, etc.), signifies here an elevation of the skin in some part of the body, a raised spot like a pimple. ספּחת, an eruption, scurf, or scab, from ספח to pour out, "a pouring out as it were from the flesh or skin" (Knobel). בּהרת .)le, from בּהר, in the Arabic and Chaldee to shine, is a bright swollen spot in the skin. If ether of these signs became "a spot of leprosy," the person affected was to be brought to the priest, that he migh…
The purpose of a quarantine was primarily diagnostic. It gave the priest an opportunity to examine the patient’s symptoms over a period of time.
Rashi on Leviticus 13:6
כֵּהֶה means it has become paler than its former color — consequently if it remains in its color or if it has spread he is unclean.
מספחת — This is the name of a clean leprous disease.
וכבס את בגדיו וטהר AND HE SHALL WASH HIS GARMENTS AND BE CLEAN — Since he required shutting up he was termed (was regarded as coming under the term) “unclean” (although it now transpires that he was clean), and he must undergo immersion in a ritual bath.
