Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

The Laws of Leprosy

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 24

Track: 24

Dictation Name: RR172M24

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the Throne of Grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. “My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and look up.” Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that we are in Thy hand, and Thy purposes for us are entirely righteous and good. Thou hast made us for thy purpose that we should fulfill Thy purpose that Thy kingdom should come, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us joy in our calling, boldness as we face our problems, and confidence in Thy victory. Bless us now by Thy word and by Thy Spirit and enable us to grow in Thee. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is Leviticus 13, “The Laws on Leprosy.” And “leprosy” should be in quotes. This is a long chapter, and we will read just the first eight verses because the whole of it is given to a series of specific details of diagnosis. Leviticus 13:

“1 And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying,

2 When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests:

3 And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.

4 If the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and in sight be not deeper than the skin and the hair thereof be not turned white; then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days:

5 And the priest shall look on him the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague in his sight be at a stay, and the plague spread not in the skin; then the priest shall shut him up seven days more:

6 And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague be somewhat dark, and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean: it is but a scab: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean.

7 But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin, after that he hath been seen of the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen of the priest again:

8 And if the priest see that, behold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a leprosy.”

In Leviticus 13 and 14, we have extensive and very specific legislation on what in the English Bible is called ‘leprosy’. The term leprosy, however, is misleading. As we look at this fact of the word leprosy, we have to realize several things.

First, words change their meanings, or they are applied to different objects as time passes. For example, we call, in the United States, and animal a buffalo which is not a buffalo; it is a bison. But since people are expecting something like Asia, they applied the name of the Asiatic Buffalo to the American Bison, although they are two different animals. When some of us were young, the word ‘rheumatism’ was regularly used by a doctor. It is no longer used. ‘Arthritis’ has replaced it. But, a doctor told me a few years ago, it was possible that in our lifetime the word arthritis might disappear because they are finding that it covers several conditions and does not serve as a helpful term. So, words change their meaning and then they are pulled out of oblivion and applied to something else.

Then second, the word ‘leprosy’ comes not from the Hebrew text, but from a Greek word, ‘lepra,’ which refers to a disease very unlike what is described in Leviticus 13. So that the term is not proper, however, the Greek translators were not aware of what the leprosy here described was, or the disease here described, so they used something, a term, they were familiar with. Some say the word lepra applied to what we call ‘elephantii…’ something. [Laughter] At any rate…

Then third, there are a variety of diseased described in Leviticus 13. In verses 2-46, there are twenty-one different cases—twenty-one varieties, and three in verses 47-48. So, there is not one particular type of infection here described, but a number.

Then fourth, what we now call Leprosy, or Hanson’s Disease, according to some scholars, was unknown before the 5th Century A.D. Others claim that it existed in ancient Mesopotamia and one scholar claims to have found evidence of it on an ancient Egyptian mummy.

Then fifth, the Mishnah refers to as many as 72 ailments covered by the Hebrew word, {?} which is not leprosy.

Then finally, we must say that many medical scholars as well as biblical scholars have sought to identify the ailments here described. But I believe they have made a mistake, in that they assume the ailments here described have to be something we know about. There’s no evidence for that. There is reason to believe that some of these ailments, if not most of them, have disappeared. After all, history has seen the rise of ailments that previously did not exist—leprosy on the walls of the house—how are you going to describe that in modern terms? Thus to attempt to identify everything here is a mistake, or to identify anything.

What we do know is that the human victims suffered from a physical infirmity. This barred them from the sanctuary. Such a person was accounted as dead with respect to the membership in the covenant people, the kingdom of priests, since a physical defect disqualified the priest. On recovery, the sick man was formally rededicated as a covenant man. The text is very precise in providing means of diagnosis, although the priest does not treat the disease; he has a medical function as an examiner.

Now it is important to recognize that there is here a concern for the family and the community. The person pronounced diseased had to be isolated. Neither the family nor the community was to be sacrificed out of pity for the victim. The very source of quarantine, of the idea of quarantine comes out of Leviticus and out of this chapter. It is a biblical concept. It has been applied by Orthodox Jews and by Orthodox Christians. It has included the quarantine of infected persons, animals, plants and also ships. However, what we need to recognize first is that quarantine laws are specifically biblical. They do not exist elsewhere. And such laws are important in the development of Christendom and of the progress of Christendom over other parts of the globe. Then second, we need to recognize that a concern for quarantine declines as biblical faith declines or wans. There is a correlation between the decline of quarantine and the decline of a victim’s rights. The criminal is now given more and more rights by the courts and a victim’s rights to restitution decline with modernism.

Quarantine is a moral fact and a biblical fact. It asserts that there is a good and an evil response to situations, situations involving moral facts and physical facts. The fact of quarantine does not say that a sick man is evil, but that to expose others to infection is evil, that separation is in such cases is good, healthy, and necessary. To punish or to execute a criminal, to require restitution, is a form of quarantine, in that it separates the wrongdoer by court action from the rest of the population until either restitution or execution. It is not accidental that quarantine is now under attack and is not used for the AIDS epidemic. It is a logical concomitant of the moral relativism of our time. Quarantine is a moral concept. It is a biblical concept. It disappears when biblical faith wans.

In verses 1–8, before the confirmed diagnosis, there was a week of isolation pending further medical evidence. At the end of that time there was either a discharge, or exclusion. Now, some forms of these ailments infected clothing, and therefore the clothing had to be quarantined also and inspected. And after a week, either washed and restored or burned, as verses 47-59 make clear. We do not know what these infections were. There were a variety of them. But they did infect clothing, and clothing can pass on infection. And ugly fact from the American frontier was that in the Midwest, some traders, to get rid of troublesome Indians, took clothes from small pox victims and placed them where they felt Indians would steal them. And vast numbers of Indians perished.

The tests of the persons involved concentrated on the skin and the scalp and the hair. On occasion the quarantine could be continued for another seven days. All persons without exception had to go through quarantine if they showed any evidence. For example, Moses’ sister, Miriam (Numbers 12:9 and following) had to be quarantined. The priest had a central role, although the doctors were common enough. The priest as the guardian of the faith and of the sanctuary had a duty—a moral duty—to make sure that the people were safeguarded. Whoever else took part, the priest pronounced the verdict. The total health of the people, religious and physical, was his concern. Whenever you have an exclusively spiritual concern on the part of a church, you have an abdication of responsibility. G. Campbell Morgan said of this chapter and its regulations, “In the instructions two principles are of perpetual importance are manifested. The first is the necessity for guarding the general health of the community. And the second is that no injustice be done to the individual in the interest of the community. These two principles are perpetual in their application.”

Now Morgan was right on both counts, however, these laws also had as their essential purpose, the holiness of God’s kingdom and of His covenant people. The animals used in the sacrifices of Israel had to be unblemished. The priests had to be whole men, undeformed and morally upright. We find in the Laws of God, sanitation required, set forth as an aspect of holiness.

Now the rigorous nature of these laws is important to note. Soon after they were given, as I’ve said, Miriam, Moses’ sister was barred from the community for a week. Although Uzziah was one of Judah’s greatest kings, he was, after being stricken with one of these diseases called ‘leprosy,’ kept in a several house, being a leper, II Chronicles 26:21 tell us. That is, he was kept in a segregated house. In non-biblical cultures, such quarantines were not normal. Only as biblical faith began to permeate various cultures did segregation begin, and always it was emphatically not the case for powerful rulers.

A very common temptation on the part of many commentators has been to read all kinds of extraneous meanings into the text. The starting point of such eisegesis or false interpretation is that these ailments called leprosy here, mean a form of living death and hence are made a type of death. This is true up to a limited point, but the simple and blunt fact is that the Bible never calls them that. So that while it may be a fitting bit of symbolism, it isn’t biblical. What we have here are laws governing an important aspect of personal and community safety, and the text means nothing more.

Calvin gave a healthy corrective to such interpretations, one which has too seldom been heeded. He said in part, “I am aware how greatly interpreters differ from each other and how variously they twist whatever Moses has written about leprosy. Some are too eagerly devoted to allegories. Some think that God is a prudent legislator, merely gives a commandment of a sanitary nature in order that a contagious disease should not spread among the people. This notion however is very poor and almost unmeaning. And it’s briefly refuted by Moses himself, both where he recounts the history of Miriam’s leprosy and also where he assigns the cause why lepers should be put out of the camp, namely that they might not defile the camp in which God dwells. Whilst he ranks with those—them with those that have an issue and that are defiled by the dead.”

Thus there are two extremes which must be avoided. First, we must not see these as allegorical statements, and therefore neglect their plain and obvious meaning. They are sanitary regulations. The second, we cannot see these laws as merely sanitary rules. They are a part of the laws of holiness, laws of clean and unclean and they require us to recognize that holiness has a physical as well as a moral and spiritual implication.

The goal of God’s creation is a mature and godly man developing in religious and physical health, developing all the potentialities of his being and that the material world around him. All God’s laws have this focus and purpose. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, make us strong in Thy service so that again we can have a full application of Thy Word. We are desperately in need in our day of moral and physical quarantines, of a recognition that holiness requires these things. Use us to this purpose we beseech Thee. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes.

[Audience] Well, I don’t recall when quarantine was abandoned in the United States, but I remember when I was a boy, we were quarantined when I had Measles, and also Whooping Cough, and those are pretty common childhood ailments.

[Rushdoony] Sometime in the late 30s or 40s it began to disappear, and since the war I have not known of any quarantine. It used to be that the doctor would come by and give a sign to be posted and you were legally required to post the sign that there was Whooping Cough or Measles or whatever else within the house.

[Audience] Yeah, Diphtheria, Pneumonia; any contagious disease.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Now, the abandonment of this is like abandoning the protection of society. [0:22.19.9]

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] It’s placing an individual above the society.

[Rushdoony] It’s, ah, comparable, as I pointed out, to what’s happened in law. The criminal has more rights than the victim.

[Audience] …victim has no rights.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Is he only, ah, he’s remembered as having been the victim. That’s the extent of it.

[Rushdoony] Well, before this present epidemic is over, we may see a return to some Christian common sense on this subject, this subject.

[Audience] That book on the Influenza in 1918, where everyplace that broke the quarantine became infected? Yes, there was one island as a matter of fact, where they didn’t have the disease, and they allowed a ship to come in. They lost thousands after that.

[Rushdoony] Well, not only do we have AIDS, but Herpes, and I was told in Sacramento yesterday by someone, that a new form of Herpes is developing which is very rapid and makes AIDS look tame.

[Audience] Oh, gosh!

[Rushdoony] How true this is, I don’t know but, ah, this should not surprise us, with the heedlessness for the very facts of health. We should not be surprised at what develops in the days ahead.

Are there any other questions or comments? Well if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee that Thou art our shield and our defender, that in times of judgment, we are ever in Thy hand. And Thou hast ordained judgment for the deliverance of Thy people, the flourishing of Thy kingdom, and the growth of Thy saints and their dominion. Bless us to this purpose. And now, go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.