Leviticus 13:1-17

The Voice

Humans suffer from many different kinds of skin disorders. Although one of the most dreaded diseases known to antiquity was leprosy, it is most likely that few Israelites in Moses’ day suffered from the disease we know as leprosy. The Hebrew word that appears in this chapter covers many disfiguring and debilitating skin diseases that certainly can be infectious. The priests are given the challenge of making critical observations as to what is indeed infectious and what is not. The term applied not only to a variety of skin diseases, but it was also used to describe articles of clothing or buildings marred from leprouslike outbreaks.

By the time of the New Testament, leprosy is present in Israel. It is caused by a bacterium that can begin as a blemish on the skin; but when it runs its course, the skin is left discolored. There are unsightly lumps and scaling, and eventually the nerves are paralyzed so that there is no feeling of pain. Without the pain sensation people eventually wear down their fingers and toes into mere nubs. It is a terrible, contagious disease that socially marginalized people from their families’ loving touch and intimate relationships.

13 The Eternal One spoke to Moses and Aaron.

Eternal One: ²Any time a person has an area of swelling or a rash or a white patch of skin, it may be the sign of a serious skin disease; so he must be taken to one of the priests—Aaron or one of Aaron’s sons. ³The priest must examine the spot on the skin. If the hair on it has turned white, and the affected area appears to go deep beneath the skin, then it is a serious skin disease. After the examination, he will then pronounce the diseased person unclean. ⁴But if the patch on the skin is white and does not appear to go deep beneath the skin, and the hair on it has not turned white, then the priest will quarantine the person for seven days. ⁵When the seventh day arrives, the priest will examine the affected area again; and if the priest thinks it has not grown worse and has not spread to other parts of the skin, then the priest will continue the quarantine for another seven days. ⁶At the end of the second seven days, the priest will examine the person again; and if the affected area has faded and has not spread to any other part of the body, then the priest will pronounce that he is clean and suffers only some minor skin problem. The person is to wash his garments and must be considered clean again.

Only if the individual is declared clean by the priest can he or she come back fully into the life of the community.

⁷But if the rash spreads to other parts of the skin after the priest examines the person and pronounces him clean, then he must go back to the priest to be examined again. ⁸The priest will check the person again; and if the rash has grown worse and spread, then the priest must pronounce the person unclean. He does, in fact, have a serious skin disease.

⁹When a person contracts any serious skin disease, he must be taken to the priest. ¹⁰The priest will check the skin; and if the priest finds an area of white swelling on the skin where the hair has turned white, and if there is a raw, open sore, ¹¹then the person has a chronic skin disease and the priest must pronounce him unclean. The priest does not have to quarantine the person because it is evident that he is already unclean. ¹²If the disease gets worse, spreads across his body, and involves all of his skin from head to toe—as far as the priest can tell— ¹³then the priest will check; and if the disease has covered the person’s entire body, then the priest will pronounce the infected man clean because the disease has turned his entire body white. ¹⁴But if a raw, open sore shows up, then he must be declared unclean. ¹⁵The priest will examine the raw skin and pronounce the man unclean because the raw skin is unclean. It is definitely a serious skin disease. ¹⁶If the raw skin changes again and becomes white, then the infected person must go see the priest ¹⁷to be examined. If the affected area has turned white, then the priest will pronounce the diseased person clean; for he is in fact clean.