Chapter 14
2023 - Just Moses, not Moses and Aaron. Does this distinction I keep seeing really mean anything?
Instructions for cleansing a leper, so that he could return to society. The procedure was twofold. First the priest went out of the camp to where the "former" leper was, and a bird is killed, in a clay pot, over fresh water. Then a second bird and some hyssop and some scarlet string is dipped in the clay pot where the dead bird's blood is, and the live bird is set free. Then the leper can come into camp. Step one.
He has to sleep outside his tent for seven days, after shaving off his hair, head to foot, including his eyebrows. On the eighth day two male lambs, some oil, and so on to the priest, who performs first a sin offering and a burnt offering, and then there is an anointing with oil. This is all step two.
It is interesting that both blood from the animal sacrificed and some of the oil brought are put on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the one coming to be cleansed. This was previously seen as the procedure to consecrate Aaron and his sons. That is the only previous time we've seen it. Priests and lepers. The first separated from the people for service to God, the second brought in from without the camp to within it. Our positions might be seen the same way. The inner circle serves God, the next serves God within the body, and then there are those who are without and not associated with us at all.
2021 - It is also interesting that the leper must make guilt, sin, and burnt offerings to atone for his uncleanness. It is easy to see where the Pharisees in Jesus time had gotten the idea that sick people had sinned. In the OT case, you have to remember that Jesus told them that if they behaved he would keep the diseases of Egypt off them. Disease comes up many times in the OT as punishment sent on people also. But Jesus was healing "sinners" well before the Law was abrogated...or maybe it was abrogated at his birth, I really don't know. But it is an interesting area for study. I know we no longer believe all sickness is the result of sin...but how do we think that went away? It is certainly implied here.
2022 - Also interesting is that in order for a leper to return, the priest had to go outside the camp, where the leper was. Somehow, this does not sound like something a Pharisee would ever do. So...you had priests, all the way up to Jesus' time. And you had Pharisees. Was the High Priest in Jesus time either Pharisee or Sadducee? That is, he was a priest, but he also had a "party"? Really, I don't see any priest in Jesus' time going out to cleanse a leper. I note also, in vs 9, that before the cleansing ceremony, the former leper must shave off all his hair and wash his body and his clothes with water. Just as Aaron and his sons had to wash first, before service to God.
2023 - Just as the scapegoat was sent out of the camp to take the sin out there and cleanse the camp, just as Jesus died on Golgotha outside the city of Jerusalem to cleanse all mankind, so the ritual of a healed leper requires action outside the camp.
2023 - Next day - Are we really to see this ritual for cleansing lepers as foreshadowing of the regeneration of the New Covenant? The leper could not enter, he was prohibited because of his leprosy. He could only be admitted to the camp if the priest came out to him. The priest was clean, but went to where the leper was, and ritually cleaned and purified him, and then brought him into the camp. Possible FB post - one of 2 - from Leviticus 14, 15, Lepers and Discharges.
2025 - It is interesting to me that both blood and then oil are put on the lobe of the ear, the thumb, and the big toe of the one being "reinstated" after being a leper. This is very similar to the consecration rites for Aaron and his sons at the beginning. How is being set apart for the priesthood so similar to getting well from leprosy that very similar ceremonies are performed in each case. Perhaps...the priest doesn't just decide to be a priest, God chooses him as priest. The leper does not decide to get well, either. I suspect it was almost miraculous - and very very rare - for someone to get better after leprosy. Only God could make leprosy go away. Those whom God chooses are set apart for service to him. They are ceremonially purified and set apart. When we are lost, we are lepers. Just as unclean and useless to God as a leper is to the camp. We are potentially infectious. But God can bring us home, clean us up, and then use us in his service. I don't know...It is a very difficult passage to understand.
Then laws for cleansing houses. If the house "recovered" from the disease, it was also cleansed using two birds, water, an earthenware vessel, hyssop and scarlet yarn, in the same way a recovered leper was cleansed while outside the camp. Unlike the leper, there was no further offering for atonement of the house.