Metzora (Law of the Leper) Podcast April 28, 2022
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Introduction
Introduction
So far in the Leviticus Torah portions we have talked about what is clean and unclean in the eyes of the Lord.
We have been given guidliness (Mishpatim) of what to eat, how to do motherhood, how to server in the Tent of meeting
And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.’ ” So Aaron held his peace.
We must consider the holiness of God before we draw near to Him
Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying:
“Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations,
that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean,
and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses.”
There is a call to distinguish what is clean and unclean
For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
There is a call to be clean=holy
Leprosy (צָרַעַת, tsara'ath; λέπρα, lepra). An infectious skin disease. The word often translated as “leprosy” in the Bible should actually be translated generally as “skin disease” because the exact type of skin disease is unclear; few, if any, of the cases mentioned align with the modern understanding of leprosy. These skin diseases cause uncleanness to the one bearing the disease.
Biblical Relevance
The translation “leprosy” for צָרַעַת (tsara'ath) is still used in many translations, although what modern medicine calls leprosy is likely not the referent. The NRSV (new revised standard version) gives a general indication of what the current state of translation for צָרַעַת (tsara'ath) is. The newest variation of the NIV (2011) has deleted the word “leprosy” entirely from its translation in the Pentateuch and includes a footnote similar to that of the NRSV: “A term for several skin diseases; precise meaning uncertain.”
Leprosy seems to be the physical manifestaation of not being holy.
Guidelines regarding Skin Diseases according to the Bible
• The skin diseases are detailed in Lev 13. If it is a new infection, the person is to be put in isolation for seven days, followed by an additional seven days if no change has occurred. If there has been no change in the infection after 14 days, the person is considered to be clean. If there has been any change, the person is considered unclean until the infection disappears (and thus indefinitely).
• Response to having a skin disease. The priest’s role is significant, as shown in Lev 13 where 11 instances of “he shall pronounce him unclean” and seven instances of “he shall pronounce him clean” occur. A mention of a person being clean or unclean without an announcement of the priest’s pronouncing it is rare. (The word translated as “leprosy” is also used for clothing, and thus may refer to some sort of mold).
• Required actions of one pronounced unclean. The diseased person must live alone outside the camp, wear torn clothes, keep his or her hair disheveled, cover his or her upper lip, and cry out “unclean, unclean” (Lev 13:45–46).
• In order to be considered clean, the person must go to a priest. The official cleanliness ceremony includes cleaning of clothes, shaving of hair, and a ritual cleansing. Additionally, at least one lamb—if the person was too poor for multiple lambs, birds could be used as a substitution—and flour and oil must be given as an offering (Lev 14).
Brenda Heyink, “Leprosy,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
Presentation
Presentation
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
“This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest.
And the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him; and indeed, if the leprosy is healed in the leper,
then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed two living and clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop.
Hebrew thought explains that the unclean cannot be clean at night time (in the dark), but “in (for) the day of his cleansing” vs 1- some other examples:
Pay attention to the mention of evening which actually means: WHILE IT IS EVENING
Also, cleaning happens by WATER which represents the WORD, Law of God
And whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
He who sits on anything on which he who has the discharge sat shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
And he who touches the body of him who has the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
If he who has the discharge spits on him who is clean, then he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
Any saddle on which he who has the discharge rides shall be unclean.
Whoever touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until evening. He who carries any of those things shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
And whomever the one who has the discharge touches, and has not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
Cleansing happens in the morning:
I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me.
O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.
“he shall be brought” also means his counterparts have to bring him - present him to the priest, because after the plague is removed the afflicted person will not want to bring what he is obligated to. Vs 1
Another implication is that cleasing is available whenever the person wants to be made clean. The person cannot attain purity unles it is by the word of the priest.
The priest has to go and meet the afflicted outside the camp, to heal
Notice in verse 1 the day of his cleansing is pronounce, but still needs to be healed
He is to bring an offering
then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed two living and clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop.
‘When the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
Then he shall offer it before the Lord, and make atonement for her. And she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who has borne a male or a female.
‘And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’ ”
And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”),
and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
As it has been established before, in other presentations, they brought Jesus during the feast of Sukkot.
We know Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, but did it really happen in the winter or perhaps a few months earlier, in the fall?
While the Bible does not specify the timing of Yeshua’s birth, like it does for His death and resurrection, we can determine its approximate timing:
Miryam (Mary) conceived when her cousin Elisheva (Elizabeth) was in her sixth month of pregnancy (Luke 1:24–26).Elizabeth probably conceived early in the fifth month of the Jewish calendar (Av or early July). This is likely since the angel Gabriel appeared to her husband Zachariah while he was serving in the Temple as a priest in the division of Abijah (Luke 1:5), and advised him that Elizabeth would become pregnant (Luke 1:11–24).The Talmud and other historical sources reveal that the Abijah served during the last two weeks of the fourth month of the Jewish calendar (Tammuz), which is about late June.And the Bible says that after Zechariah came home from his service (in early Av), Elizabeth conceived (Luke 1:23–25).Nine months of pregnancy and another six months of Mary’s pregnancy (15 months total) brings us to the seventh month of the Jewish calendar (Tishrei), during which the Fall Feasts occur.
Yeshua may have been born at any time of this season, but it is interesting that the apostle John tells us how Yeshua is the Word that tabernacled among us.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt [eskēnōsen] among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
The word that John uses in Greek for dwell and tabernacle share the same root word, skéné.
“But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles [skēnopēgia] was near …” (John 7:2)
Through these Biblical, historical, and linguistic clues, we can come to a fairly educated guess that Yeshua may have, indeed, been born during the season of the Fall Feasts, which includes Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) occuring in September or October.
We know His family kept the feasts
So when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth.
His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water.
As for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water.
Also, let us remember that leprosy comes as a result of slander as it happened to Miriam in Numbers 12. This sin is done by chattering.
Birds also are compulsory for this leper’s purification because they, the birds, also chatter with a twittering sound
Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in the open field.
He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, and shall stay outside his tent seven days.
Just like in the case of Miriam, the leprosy stopped after 7 days
Then the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again.”
So Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days, and the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again.
But on the seventh day he shall shave all the hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows—all his hair he shall shave off. He shall wash his clothes and wash his body in water, and he shall be clean.
Head - purification of his mind
Beard - purification of his mouth
eyebrows - the purification of his perception
“And on the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without blemish, one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering, and one log of oil.
Then the priest who makes him clean shall present the man who is to be made clean, and those things, before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
The priest brought the clean person who was unclean to the door of his tabernacle.
Jesus said I am the door
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
Jesus is the lamb
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Then he shall kill the lamb in the place where he kills the sin offering and the burnt offering, in a holy place; for as the sin offering is the priest’s, so is the trespass offering. It is most holy.
The priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.
The thumb of his right hand - what he does
On the big toe of his right foot - any step he takes he will be clean
He will put it on the tip of his ear
We need to be made clean on the way we HEAR
“Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them:
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing.
If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.
If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.
But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’
then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.
Being set free, healed and cleaned not to do our own thing but to hear His voice to obey and serve Him.
Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters.
Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called.
Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it.
For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave.
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ;
not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,
We are called to have our ear nailed to the door to hear clearly
“The Lord God has given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak A word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear To hear as the learned.
And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” ’
But the one who has not been made clean cannot hear
“Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house.
And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;
for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Summary
The leper has a condition or plague that can only be cured by God through the examination of the priest
Cleasing happens with water on the DAY the person is ready to receive it
Water represents the word/ law of God
To be clean is to be holy
Cleansing can only happen in the light, at day time, not while it is dark
When we are made clean we can hear the word of God