Leviticus 14

The rites enjoined for the cleansing of the leper were evidently not designed as curative of the disease, for it was only after the patient was convalescent that these were applied; and it was for the purpose of removing the legal defilement and restoring the individual to theocratic privileges. As a curative medium such rites must appear utterly inapplicable, while they are highly significant as symbolical of moral and spiritual truths. Than the leprosy and its effects on the human frame, nothing could more appropriately exhibit the corrupting consequences of sin, while the exclusion from the camp and congregation relatively pure, indicated most forcibly exclusion, through sin, from communion with the absolutely holy. D. M.

The purification of the leper had three distinctly marked stages. The first had respect to his reception into the visible community of Israel, the next to his participation in their sacred character, and the last to his full re-establishment in the favor and fellowship of God. When God was pleased to recover him from the leprosy and the priest pronounced him whole, before he was permitted to leave his isolated position outside the camp or city, two living clean birds were to be taken for him; one was to be killed over a vessel of living or fresh water so that the blood might intermingle with the water, and the other, after being dipped in this blood-water, was let loose into the open field. That the two birds were to be regarded as ideally one, and that they together represented what was adjudged to belong to the recovered leper, is clear as day. The life-blood of the one, mingled with pure fresh water, imaged life in its state of greatest purity; and by the other bird being dipped in this was signified a participation in such life, as was done also by the sprinkling of the recovered leper seven times with the same. Then the recovered leper saw represented in the bird’s dismissal his own liberty to enter into the society of living men. But in token of his actual participation in the whole and his being now separated from his uncleanness, he must wash his clothes and his flesh also, even shave his hair, that every remnant of his impurity might appear to be removed. In all this, however, there was no proper atonement; and though the leper could enter into the society of other living men, he was not admitted to the privileges of a member of God’s covenant. He had to remain for an entire week out of his own dwelling. Then, for his restoration to the full standing of an Israelite, he had to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, another for a sin-offering, and another still for a burnt-offering, with the usual meal-offering, and a log of oil. The lamb for the trespass-offering and the log of oil were for his consecration; and for this purpose they were first waved before the Lord. Then with a portion of the blood of the trespass-offering the priest sprinkled his right ear, the thumb of his right hand, the great toe of his right foot, repeating the same action afterward with the oil, and pouring also some upon his head. When the recovered leper had been thus far restored—his feet standing within the sacred community of God’s people, his head and members anointed with the holy oil of Divine refreshment and gladness—he was now permitted and required to consummate the process by bringing a sin-offering, a burnt-offering, and a meal-offering, that his access to God’s sanctuary and his fellowship with God himself might be properly established. What could more impressively bespeak the arduous and solem nature of the work, by which the outcast, polluted, and doomed sinner regains an interest in the kingdom and blessing of God! P. F.

After the blood of the offering had been put with the priest’s finger upon the extremities of the body, to include the whole, some of the oil that he brought, which was first waved, and then sprinkled before the Lord, was in like manner put in the same places upon the blood. “The blood seems to have been a token of forgiveness; the oil, of healing;” for God first forgiveth our iniquities, and then healeth our diseases (Ps. 103:3. See Is. 38:17). Wherever the blood of Christ is applied for justification, the oil of the Spirit is applied for sanctification; for these two are inseparable, and both necessary to our acceptance with God. Nor shall our former leprosy, if it be healed by repentance, be any bar to these glorious privileges. Cleansed lepers are as welcome to the blood and the oil as consecrated priests. Such were some of you, but ye are washed. When the leper was sprinkled the water must have blood in it, when he was anointed the oil must have blood under it, to signify that all the graces and comforts of the Spirit, all his purifying dignifying influences, are owing to the death of Christ: it is by his blood alone that we are sanctified.

We may see in this law the care we ought to take to keep our minds from the dominion of all sinful affections and dispositions, which are both their disease and their defilement, that we may be fit for the service of God. We ought also to avoid all bad company, and, as much as may be, to avoid coming within the danger of being infected by it. Touch not the unclean thing, saith the Lord, and I will receive you (2 Cor. 6:17). H.

Look at the precautions taken in the case of certain malignant diseases! What anxiety! What endeavors to prevent the ravages of the disease! All this is right; but it throws into tremendous and appalling contrast our carelessness about the contagion that poisons the soul. We are anxious to shut out a disease that would kill the body, and yet open all the doors and all the windows and let in the diseases which infect and poison and damn the soul. J. P.—How often is spiritual disease neglected by persons who are extremely anxious respecting some disease of the physical frame! For the former they seek no remedy and have no concern as to its ultimate issue, whereas the latter is viewed with unceasing distress. Would that every spiritual leper entertained just conceptions regarding his state! S. R.