Leviticuschapter 13
59 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
then the person must shave himself except for the scaly area. Then the priest shall isolate him for another seven days.
It stands in Plague in the head or the beard, verses 29 to 37.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Identification of leprosy. The priest is the examiner. House-by-house, garment-by-garment, body-by-body. White hair, deep-lying skin, raw flesh in the rising: uncleanness. The leper rends his clothes, covers his upper lip, cries ‘unclean, unclean’, and dwells alone outside the camp. Clothes and skins with the plague are burned. The chapter's 59 verses set a careful case law for a disease the ancient world could neither cure nor easily name. Henry reads it as the figure of sin; Gill notes the priestly function of diagnosis before cleansing. A disease that separates is met with ceremony and discipline.
Context
Law · Moses · Leviticus overview
The world of this chapter
- Who
- A camp in which an affliction of the skin could put a man outside the boundary for as long as it lasted
- Where
- Wherever a priest could be brought to look at a person, and the ground outside the camp where the condemned then lived
- When
- Israel encamped at Sinai, within the purity instructions. c. 1445 BC, in the second year after the Exodus, on the traditional dating that follows the book's own setting
Historical context
The speech is addressed to Moses and to Aaron together, which is the pattern across these laws at 11:1, 13:1 and 14:33, because a priest has to give the verdict.
The Hebrew word is tsara'ath, and it occurs here for the first time in Scripture. It covers a range of skin conditions wider than the disease the English word leprosy now names, and the same word is applied in this chapter to a garment and in the next to the walls of a house, which no illness of people would explain.
A first hearer knew that the man in front of the priest was not being treated. Nothing is prescribed anywhere in fifty-nine verses. The priest looks, and what he is given to do is decide and say.
He also knew what the seven days meant in a camp. Isolation was a real cost in a community where food, water and work were shared, and the chapter imposes it twice over on a doubtful case before any verdict is given.
The signs the priest looks for were visible to anyone: hair turned white inside the patch, a sore that looks deeper than the skin, raw flesh, spreading, and on the head or in the beard, yellow hair against black. The man was shaved everywhere except the patch itself so the priest kept the evidence and cleared the ground around it.
Verses 45 and 46 describe a life a first hearer could picture: torn clothes, uncovered head, a covering over the upper lip, the man's own voice calling out, and a dwelling alone outside the camp.
Significance
For the person examined this was the most consequential hour of his life, since the verdict decided whether he stayed inside the camp with his family or lived alone beyond it.
For the community the procedure was a public health measure written into a covenant document, and the instrument it used was time rather than medicine.
The chapter also cleared people. The verdicts fall both ways, and a freckled rash, a bald head and a bald forehead are each named in order to be pronounced clean.
Where the chapter sits
Leviticus 13 falls in Laws of clean and unclean (chapters 11–15). Diet, childbirth, skin disease, mildew in garments and houses, bodily discharges, holiness traced through ordinary life.
Before it: Consecration of the priesthood, chapters 8–10. After it: Day of Atonement, chapters 16.
The whole shape of Leviticus→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The priest looks, and shuts him up
The chapter puts a priest where a reader expects a physician and gives him nothing to prescribe. The word rendered leprosy occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and the Hebrew tsara'ath covers a range of skin conditions wider than the disease that carries the English name now. Across fifty-nine verses the priest looks or sees seventeen times and no treatment is ordered anywhere, so his whole office here is to decide and to say.
Leviticus 13:1
“Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, which was more than the priests could do, Matt. viii. Some think that the leprosy signified, not so much sin in general as a state of sin, by which men are separated from God (their spot not being the spot of God's children), and scandalous sin, for which men are to be shut out from the communion of the faithful.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 13:2
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 13:2
“The plague of leprosy - This dreadful disorder has its name leprosy, from the Greek λεποα, from λεπις, a scale, because in this disease the body was often covered with thin white scales, so as to give it the appearance of snow. Hence it is said of the hand of Moses, Exo 4:6, that it was leprous as snow; and of Miriam, Num 12:10, that she became leprous, as white as snow; and of Gehazi, 2Ki 5:27, that, being judicially struck with the disease of Naaman, he went out from Elisha’s presence a leper as white as snow.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 13:2
“There is every reason to believe that this was the case: that the leprosy was not a family complaint, hereditary among the Hebrews, but that they got it from intercourse with the Egyptians and from the unfavorable circumstances of their condition in the house of bondage.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Leviticus 13:3
“The hair in the plague is turned white - The sparing growth of very fine whitish hair on leprous spots in the place of the natural hair, appears to have been always regarded as a characteristic symptom. the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh - Rather The stroke appears to be deeper than the scarf skin. The bright spot changed to a brownish color with a metallic or oily luster, and with a clearly-defined edge. This symptom, along with the whitish hair, at once decided the case to be one of leprosy.”
Where the case is doubtful the answer is time. The priest shuts the man up for seven days and looks again, and if it is still doubtful he shuts him up seven days more, which the chapter does eight times over. Nothing is done to the sore during those days, so the instrument of diagnosis is waiting.
Leviticus 13:4
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 13:5
“And the plague spread not - Rather, advance not, so as to show that the disease is under the cuticle and assuming the symptoms of Lev 13:3.”
Leviticus 13:6
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 13:7
“Seen of the priest for his cleansing - The purport of these words is doubtful. They probably mean “seen by the priest and pronounced clean,” and refer to the visit of the suspected leper to the priest at the end of the second week. But some have taken the words to mean “seen by the priest with a view to be pronounced clean,” and regard the sentence of the priest as provisional, holding good only until the symptoms may appear to resume their progress. Compare Lev 13:35.”
When the white covers all the fleshvv. 9-17
The rule here runs the opposite way to what a reader expects. A man covered with it from his head even to his foot is pronounced clean at verse 13, and one patch of raw flesh appearing in him makes him unclean at verse 14. What defiles is the living sore rather than the extent of the whiteness, and the chapter states the rule twice without explaining it.
Leviticus 13:9
“Several of these characteristics, taken separately, belong to other blemishes of the skin as well; so that none of them was to be taken alone, and it was only when the whole of them concurred that the Jewish priest, in his capacity of physician, was to pronounce the disease a malignant leprosy.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Leviticus 13:10
“If the rising be white - Or, If there be a white rising. The term very probably denotes the white Bulla or patch of Anaesthetic elephantiasis when it has re-appeared. Quick raw flesh in the rising - The margin gives the literal rendering. The symptom here noted exhibits a more advanced stage of the disease. The expression might denote an ulcer or open sore with “proud flesh” appearing in it.”
Leviticus 13:12
“The disease here indicated appears to be that now known as Lepra commonis, the common White Leprosy, or Dry Tetter. It first shows itself in reddish pimples, the surface of which becomes white and scaly, spreading in a circular form until they meet each other and cover large patches of the body. It scarcely affects the general health, and for the most part disappears of itself, though it often lasts for years.”
Leviticus 13:13
“If the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean - Why is it that the partial leper was 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 disease was contagious, the total not contagious. That there are two different species or degrees of the same disease described here, is sufficiently evident. In one, the body was all covered with a white enamelled scurf; in the other, there was a quick raw flesh in the risings.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:13
“Thus he wished us to understand that the man who is changed from his former carnal state to the whiteness of faith (which the world considers a blemish and a stain) and who is completely renewed is clean. He is no longer spotted, no longer mottled with both the old and the new.”
Tertullian· written before 220· ON PURITY 20.7patristic
Leviticus 13:14
“But when raw flesh appeareth in him,.... Between the white spots, scabs, or swellings, or in the midst of them: he shall be unclean; be pronounced unclean, and be subject to all the prescriptions of the law concerning lepers.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:14
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 13:15
“And the priest shall see the raw flesh,.... Or when he sees it, the person being brought to him to be viewed: and pronounce him to be unclean; or shall pronounce him to be unclean: for the raw flesh is unclean; made a man so in a ceremonial sense; See Gill on Lev 13:10, it is a leprosy; wherever any quick raw flesh appears in a swelling.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:15
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 13:16
“Or if the raw flesh turn again,.... Changes its colour, from redness, which is in raw flesh: and be changed unto white: and does not look ruddy as flesh in common does, nor red and fiery, as raw and proud flesh, but is white, of the same colour with the swelling or scab: he shall come unto the priest; again, and show himself, even though he was before by him pronounced clean.”
Leviticus 13:17
“And the priest shall see him,.... Review him, and examine him thoroughly: and, behold, if the plague be turned into white; the raw flesh in the swelling, which looked red, is become white: then the priest shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague; that was supposed to have the plague of leprosy; but upon a review, and on this change of things, has not, he shall declare him free from it: he is clean; and under no obligation to the laws and rites concerning it.”
A spot where a boil or burn had beenvv. 18-28
The same procedure runs twice more for sores that begin from something else, a boil that healed and a burn. The signs looked for do not change, white hair and a depth below the skin, and the seven days return in both. The word healed occurs twice in the chapter, at verse 18 and verse 37, and in both places it describes something that got better on its own.
Leviticus 13:18
“The flesh also, in which, even in the skin thereof, was a boil,.... Or hot ulcer, by which, says Maimonides (n) you may understand any stroke by a stone, stick, or iron, or any other thing: and in the Misnah (o), it is asked, what is an ulcer (or boil)? a stroke by wood, stone, pitch, or hot water; all that is from the force of fire is an ulcer: and is healed; by the use of medicine, and the part, in all appearance, as well and as sound as ever. (n) In Misn. Negaim, c. 6. sect.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:18
“In the skin thereof, was a boil - Scheuchzer supposes this and the following verse to speak of phlegmonic, erysipelatous, gangrenous, and phagedenic ulcers, all of which were subjected to the examination of the priest, to see whether they were infectious, or whether the leprosy might not take its origin from them. A person with any sore or disposition to contagion was more likely to catch the infection by contact with the diseased person, than he was whose skin was whole and sound, and his habit good.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 13:20
“Lower than the skin - Rather, reaching below the scarf skin.”
Leviticus 13:23
“But if the bright spot stay in his place, and spread not,.... Continues as it was when first viewed: it is a burning boil; but not a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall pronounce him clean; as clear of a leprosy, and so not bound by the law of it, though attended with an inflammation or burning ulcer.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:23
A burning boil - Rather, the scar of the ulcer; literally, “the burn of the ulcer.”
Leviticus 13:24
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 13:26
“But if the priest look on it,.... On the hot burning and bright spot in it, in another person: and, behold, there be no white hair on the white spot, and it be no lower than the other skin; why the word "other" should be supplied I know not, any more than in Lev 13:21, but be somewhat dark; or "contracted"; see Gill on Lev 13:21, then the priest shall shut him up seven days; as in the case of the burning boil or hot ulcer, as in Lev 13:21.”
Leviticus 13:28
“And if the glossy spot continues unchanged and makes no advance in the skin, and is rather indistinct” (see the note at Lev 13:6), “it is the mark of the inflammation, and the priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is the (mere) hurt of inflammation.”
Plague in the head or the beardvv. 29-37
A plague on the head or in the beard is judged by the colour of hair, yellow against black. The man is shaven everywhere except the patch itself, so the priest keeps the evidence and clears the ground around it. Black hair growing up in it at verse 37 is the sign that the thing is healed, and the priest pronounces him clean.
Leviticus 13:29
“If a man or a woman hath a plague upon the head or the beard. Any breaking out in those parts a swelling, scab, or spot, on a man's beard or on a woman's head; or on the head of either man or woman; or on a woman's beard, if she had any, as some have had though not common.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:29
“A plague upon the head or the beard - This refers to a disease in which, according to the Jews, the hair either on the head or the chin dropped out by the roots.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 13:30
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:30
“Scall - As this is the name for another disease not allied to the leprosy, it would have been better to retain the original word נתק netheq. It is a true elephantiasis, and is recognized by modern writers under the name of the Fox mange.”
Leviticus 13:31
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:31
“There is no black hair in it More probably, there is no yellow hair in it.”
Leviticus 13:33
“The scall shall he not shave - Lest the place should be irritated and inflamed, and assume in consequence other appearances besides those of a leprous infection; in which case the priest might not be able to form an accurate judgment.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 13:35
“But if the scall spread much in his skin after cleansing. After he has been declared clean by the priest; for it was possible that it might spread after this, though so much precaution had been used, and so much time taken to observe it: with this compare 2Pe 1:9.”
Leviticus 13:36
“Then the priest shall look on him,.... Again, and which is no less than the fourth time; for notwithstanding his being pronounced clean, he was still subject to the inspection of the priest, if any alteration appeared: and, behold, if the scall be spread in the skin; which was a certain sign of a leprosy: the priest shall not seek for yellow hair; or be solicitous about that, whether there is any or not, for either one or the other of these signs were sufficient to determine the case: he is unclean; and so to be pronounced.”
Leviticus 13:37
“Be in his sight at a stay - Or, Does not alter in appearance.”
Bright spots, bald heads, and the cry Unclean
Three conditions are named here only to be cleared. A freckled spot is clean, a bald head is clean, a bald forehead is clean, and the chapter says yet is he clean twice in two verses. Across the whole chapter the priest pronounces clean eight times and unclean eleven, so this is a procedure for clearing people about as often as for excluding them.
Leviticus 13:38
“If a man also, or a woman,.... One or the other, for the law concerning leprosy respecteth both: have in the skin of their flesh bright spots; and them only; not any rising or swelling, nor scab, nor scall, nor boil, nor burning, only bright spots, a sort of freckles or morphew: even white bright spots; these, Ben Gersom observes, are white spots, but not plagues; and which were in whiteness inferior to the four species of the plague of leprosy, the white spot, the white swelling, and the scab of each.”
Leviticus 13:39
“Freckled spot - If Lev 13:12 refers to the Lepra commonis, the Hebrew בהק bôhaq here may denote some kind of eczema, a skin disease of a somewhat similar external character. Lev 13:38, Lev 13:39 would seem more in their natural place between Lev 13:17-18.”
Leviticus 13:42
“Sore - Rather, stroke. It is the same word which elsewhere in this and the next chapter is rendered plague.”
Leviticus 13:44
“If the leprosy of sin have seized the head, if the judgment be corrupted, and wicked principles which countenance and support wicked practices, be embraced, it is an utter uncleanness, from which few are ever cleansed. Soundness in the faith keeps the leprosy from the head, and saves conscience from being shipwrecked.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
These two verses are the only place in the chapter that says how the man then lives. Rent clothes, a bare head, a covering upon the upper lip, his own voice calling Unclean, unclean, and a dwelling alone outside the camp. Luke 17:12 has ten lepers standing afar off in obedience to this verse, and Mark 1:41 has Jesus putting out his hand and touching one.
Leviticus 13:45
“As to "the putting a covering upon the upper lip," that means either wearing a moustache, as the Hebrews used to shave the upper lip [CALMET], or simply keeping a hand over it. All these external marks of grief were intended to proclaim, in addition to his own exclamation "Unclean!" that the person was a leper, whose company every one must shun.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:45
“And this was all that the law could do, in that it was weak through the flesh; it taught the leper to cry, Unclean, unclean, but the gospel has put another cry into the lepers' mouths, Luke xvii. 12, 13 , where we find ten lepers crying with a loud voice, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. The law only shows us our disease; the gospel shows us our help in Christ.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
When the plague is in cloth or leather
The same word is then used of a garment, which has no skin and cannot fall ill. Wool, linen, warp, woof and anything made of skin are shut up seven days and looked at again on the same schedule as a man. A spreading plague in cloth is burnt whole, and Leviticus 14:33-53 will run the procedure again on the stones of a house.
Leviticus 13:47
“The garment - Rather, The clothing, referring to the ordinary dress of the Israelites in the wilderness; namely,, a linen tunic with a fringe Num 15:38 and a woolen cloak or blanket thrown on in colder weather.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:47
“The garments also, that the plague of leprosy is in,.... Whether this sort of leprosy proceeded from natural causes, or was extraordinary and miraculous, and came immediately from the hand of God, and was peculiar to the Jews, and unknown to other nations, is a matter of question; the latter is generally asserted by the Hebrew writers, as Maimonides (e), Abraham Seba (f), and others (g); but others are of opinion, and Abarbinel among the Jews, that it might be by the contact or touch of a leprous person.”
Leviticus 13:48
Rather, “And the clothing in which there is a stroke of leprosy, whether the stroke is in clothing of wool or in clothing of linen; or in yarn for warp or in yarn for woof, either for linen clothing or for woolen clothing; or in a skin of leather or in any article made of leather.”
Leviticus 13:50
“And the priest shall look upon the plague,.... The green or red spot in the garment, &c. and shut up it that hath the plague seven days; the woollen or linen garment, the warp or the woof, or skins, and those things that were made of them.”
Leviticus 13:51
“A fretting leprosy - i. e. a malignant or corroding leprosy. What was the nature of the leprosy in clothing, which produced greenish or reddish spots, cannot be precisely determined. It was most likely destructive mildew, perhaps of more than one kind.”
Leviticus 13:52
“He shall therefore burn that garment - There being scarcely any means of radically curing the infection. It is well known that the garments infected by the psora, or itch animal, have been known to communicate the disease even six or seven years after the first infection. This has been also experienced by the sorters of rags at some paper mills.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A garment that does not spread is washed and shut up again, and only the part that keeps the mark is torn out. Where the washing works the thing is washed a second time and is clean, so cloth is given a remedy that no man in this chapter was offered. Verse 59 closes the passage as the law of the plague of leprosy, and states its purpose as pronouncing a thing clean, or pronouncing it unclean.
Leviticus 13:53
“And if the priest shall look,.... On the seventh day as before, after shutting up: and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of skin; but is at an entire stay, that it may be hoped it is not a fretting leprosy: so when men do not proceed to more ungodliness, as wicked men commonly do, but there is a stop put to their vicious life and conversation, it is an hopeful sign of future good.”
Leviticus 13:54
“He shall shut it up seven days more - To give time for the spreading of the contagion, if it did exist there; that there might be the most unequivocal marks and proofs that the garment was or was not infected.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 13:56
“Somewhat dark - Rather, somewhat faint. Compare Lev 13:6.”
Leviticus 13:57
“Either - in these verses, should be or. See Lev 13:47, Lev 13:49. It should be noticed that no religious or symbolic rite is prescribed for leprosy in clothing. The priest had only to decide whether the process of decay was at work in the article presented to him and to pronounce accordingly. Compare the leprosy in houses, Lev. 14:33-53.”
Leviticus 13:58
“It shall be washed the second time - According to the Jews the first washing was to put away the plague, the second to cleanse it. Both among Jews and Gentiles the leprosy has been considered as a most expressive emblem of sin, the properties and circumstances of the one pointing out those of the other. The similitude or parallel has been usually run in the following manner: - 1. The leprosy began with a spot, a simple hidden infection being the cause. 2. This spot was very conspicuous, and argued the source whence it proceeded.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 13:58
“The signification also was much the same, to intimate the great malignity there is in sin: it not only defiles the sinner's conscience, but it brings a stain upon all his employments and enjoyments, all he has and all he does. To those that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, Tit. i.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 13:59
“This is the law of the plague of leprosy,.... The rules by which it was to be judged of; whether or no it was in a garment of woollen, or linen, either the warp or woof, or any thing of skins; which include everything in which this sort of leprosy was: to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean; either to declare it free from the plague of the leprosy, or as infected with it, and so accordingly dispose of it.”
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.