It is prescribed to purify not only a person from leprosy, but also a house and the things belonging to him. At first glance this is only hygiene, but on closer inspection everything turns out...
It is prescribed to purify not only a person from leprosy, but also a house and the things belonging to him. At first glance this is only hygiene, but on closer inspection everything turns out not to be so simple. These purifications are part of an entire set of norms and rules of ritual purity.
They may look like a tribute to religious schemes, yet the matter is not only religious formalities. Rather, we must speak of purity as the possibility of contact with the holy. Ultimately, with that presence of God that was revealed in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. It required readiness from a person, first of all readiness to live a full life. Meanwhile, everything connected in one way or another with death deprived a person of this fullness.
In pre-Christian times, after all, death was a departure into the world of shadows, into Sheol, where there was no life. There was not life there, but existence, which could be called life only in a very conditional sense. There was no place for God there. Today we live in a different age, in the age of the approaching Kingdom, which, according to the Savior's word, "has drawn near." The completion of one's earthly path today, of course, still involves an encounter with death, but death is no longer all-powerful; now death has exactly as much power over a person as the person allows it to have over him.
The completion of one's earthly path today may well become the continuation of life, and not in a lesser fullness, but in a greater one than the fullness one had on earth. In pre-Christian times, however, it was death that reigned in the world, and the completion of one's earthly path meant entering a world of continuous dying that never came to an end. Everything connected with leprosy was the same: it was precisely dying while still alive, and it could sometimes last for decades.
Everything connected with death and dying hindered sanctification and obstructed the fullness of life that communion with God presupposed. That is why the Book of Leviticus describes the norms and rules of ritual purity so carefully: for people of the pre-Christian age this was a question of life and death, a question of communion with God or its absence. It is no wonder they feared defilement as one fears fire. Of course, it sometimes became unavoidable, but even then people tried to be cleansed of it as soon as the necessity passed; otherwise communion with God became impossible, and therefore life for a believing Yahwist lost its meaning.
14 The manner of cleansing a leper, Lev 14:1-9.
The sacrifices to be offered for him, Lev 14:10-32.
The management of an house suspected of leprosy, Lev 14:33-53.
The summary of the whole, Lev 14:54-57.
14:36 That all be not made unclean - It is observable here, that neither the people nor the household stuff were polluted till the leprosy was discovered and declared by the priest, to shew what great difference God makes between sins of ignorance, and sins against knowledge.
14:37 In the walls of the house - This was an extraordinary judgment of God peculiar to this people, either as a punishment of their sins, which were much more sinful and inexcusable than the sins of other nations; or as a special help to repentance, which God afforded them above other people; or as a token of the mischievous nature of sin, typified by leprosy, which did not only destroy persons, but their habitations also: Hollow streaks - Such as were in the bodies of leprous persons.
14:40 An unclean place - Where they used to cast dirt and filthy things.
14:57 To teach - To direct the priest when to pronounce a person orhouse clean or unclean. So it was not left to the priests power or will, but they were tied to plain rules, such as the people might discern no less than the priest.