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Good Morning.

And if leprosy breaks out all over the skin, and the leprosy covers all the skin of the one who has the sore, from his head to his foot, wherever the priest looks, then the priest shall consider; and indeed if the leprosy has covered all his body, he shall pronounce him clean who has the sore. It has all turned white. He is clean. (Leviticus 13:12-13)

If you take the time to truly study all of the particulars that are addressed in these laws regarding tzarat (leprosy), you are going to come away scratching your head in wonderment. For example, according to the Scripture, a house could be afflicted with tzarat. While many are of the opinion that it was what we call mildew, as with the tzarat that affects a person, this seems to be something different. Furthermore — and this is the point — before the house could be deemed unclean, all of contents had to be removed from the house (Leviticus 14:33-36). Now, it the tzarat was something that posed the danger of contagion, why would they remove the contents from a potentially infected house?

Here is another intriguing point to consider. When someone first showed signs of being infected with tzarat, they were to go to the priest to be examined. If the priest saw a raw sore that was turning white, the person was quarantined for seven days to see if it would spread. At the end of the seven days they were inspected again and if it had continued to spread through the person’s body, they were quarantined for another seven days. If they remained in this condition, they would continue to be isolated. However, as we see in the verses above, if the tzarat spread throughout their entire body and turned white, they were considered to be wholly unclean — they were regarded as clean.

So if the separation was to assess whether the disease was spreading, and if the isolation was also to provoke repentance, why was a person completely covered with this condition regarded as clean!!? The answer offered by rabbinical interpretation is this was describing someone whose heart was hardened and who would not repent. In short, there was no hope for an inner cleansing to take place and they were deemed lost.

That is an interesting thing to consider and, frankly, the Bible is replete with examples of those who hardened their hearts against God and were, indeed, lost. On the other hand, no one is ever so far gone that repentance and faith won’t provoke the Father to reach out to them. As it is written in the prophets, “Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? (Isaiah 50:2).

Thankfully, there is no one beyond His reach because our Father sent His Son to deliver the hopeless — even the outcasts of society, separated from the community by the dreaded tzarat. It seems appropriate, therefore, to close today’s thoughts with an exchange that occurred between such a man and the Son of God — and to remember that what He was willing to do for him, He is willing to do for us.

And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Yeshua put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” (Matthew 8:2-3)

Blessings and Shalom,  

 

Bill 

 

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