And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,
Leviticus 13 left the leper shut out, living alone outside the camp. Chapter 14 opens with God speaking again, and what He gives is not a cure but a law of cleansing — a set way home for a man already healed.
The chapter opens almost as the previous one did. The way back is God's own word, just as the verdict was.
God opens the way of cleansing with almost the same words He used before. Those earlier words told a man how to know he had leprosy. "The LORD spoke to Moses, saying." Leviticus 14:1. These words that tell of the way of cleansing are the very words of the living God, and are true and faithful. Let us listen to them with all our hearts.
Putting the man out had already satisfied God's holiness. The next word comes to Moses alone, and it is about bringing the man back.
Shutting the leper out of the camp had cared for God's holiness. Now the Lord Jehovah speaks again, but this time only to Moses. If keeping that holiness had been Jehovah's only concern, the leper would have stayed outside the camp forever, away from the Tabernacle and from life with God's people. But He cared for the leper. He made a way to bring him back to all his privileges in the camp, if only he was healed first... Money, pleading, promises, efforts, all would be of no use. Jehovah Himself must heal the man, or he never could be cleansed. So grace had room to display itself, once the claims of divine holiness had been acknowledged.
Leprosy in Scripture stands for more than a disease. It pictures sin as God sees it.
These scriptures are enough to show two things. God inflicted leprosy as the expression of His righteous judgment of sin. It also showed His rejection of religious man — of his pride in the flesh, of his assumed ability to draw near to God, and of his refusal of the truth about his real condition. Leprosy shows sin: its inward workings as God knows them, brought out into the open in all their repulsive, revolting character. Chapter 14 now sets before us "the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing."
The law holds no cure. It only says what happens after God heals.
Leviticus 14 gives a richly instructive account of the cleansing of the leper. There is no such thing as the cure of leprosy named here. This belonged to God alone. No ceremony, no rite, could heal — nothing but divine power, direct or through another. Suppose the leprosy stopped: the man must still be cleansed. The ceremony for that stands at the beginning of the chapter.
Do not confuse the two. A real change in a person does not by itself fit him for God.
The healing and the purification are different things. Being healed does not by itself make a man clean for God. No work in the soul, however necessary, can truly restore him. For this, God's grace in Christ must come in.
Watch who moves in this law. It is never the sick man.
So we read, "The priest shall go forth out of the camp." Scripture does not say, "the leper shall go." That was out of the question... He might make efforts after cleansing; but his efforts could only prove him unclean, and tend to spread defilement. Before he could be called "clean," a work had to be done for him. He could not do it, and he could not help with it. Another had to do the whole of it... The priest accomplished all. The leper did nothing.
The priest who goes out points beyond himself.
Seen as a type, the priest is the Mediator, the Saviour. As the leper could not come where He was, the priest must go out of the camp to the leper. Indeed "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."
What that man proved about God has not changed.
A cleansed leper at the altar, with his two birds in his hands, gave his testimony. God had come into the land. He was meeting men's need quite apart from priests' work and religious ceremonies. This is a principle of the greatest possible importance for our souls today. Cleansing for the soul is found, not in human doing of any kind, but in the fountain of the Saviour's blood.
- God speaks. The way back opens the same way the sentence came — with God speaking to Moses. Restoration is His word, not man's invention.
- God heals. The chapter gives no cure, because no rite could heal; that belonged to God alone.
- God comes. The priest leaves the camp for the leper, because the leper could never reach the priest.
- God cleanses. Healing and cleansing are not the same; a work in the soul still needs God's grace in Christ to fit a person for Him.
- God is proved. A cleansed leper at the altar was living proof: God Himself had come among His people.
This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing he shall be brought unto the priest,
Leviticus 13 ends with the leper shut outside the camp, calling out that he is unclean. Chapter 14 opens with God setting out the rules for the day that exclusion ends. The verse raises the question the whole chapter answers: on that day, who does the work?
The exclusion of chapter 13 was not God's last word on the man He had driven out. One commentator sets the two chapters side by side:
The chapter assumes the disease has already stopped. That is a separate matter from the ceremony that follows:
Healing and purification are two different things. A man who is healed is not by that fact cleansed for God. No work in the soul, however necessary, can truly restore him. For that, God's grace in Christ must come in.
The priest in this chapter never cures anybody. His job is to give the verdict:
It was the priest's job to pronounce a leprous man unclean, and it was also his job to pronounce a man clean when he was cured. The law had no power to heal. It only took notice of whether a man had been healed or not. The work of ceremonial restoration started only after something else had already cured the disease.
The wording is passive, and that is deliberate:
So others seek out the person who is to be restored. He is not told to go and find the means of restoration himself. Hands are ready to serve him.
Someone unnamed does the bringing. One writer points to that friend as a model:
The friend who brought the leper to the priest mattered greatly. May we be more like him — unnamed, almost unmentioned, and yet the link in the chain without which the leper could not have been cleansed.
The unclean man cannot come to where the priest lives, so the priest goes out to him:
Seen as a picture, the priest stands for the Mediator, the Saviour. As the leper could not come where He was, the priest must go out of the camp to the leper. Indeed "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."
Telling the leper to come would have been useless advice, and the text never gives it:
It is not said, "the leper shall go." That was completely out of the question. It was no use talking to the leper about going or doing... He might make efforts to get clean, but his efforts could only prove him unclean and spread the defilement further. Before he could be pronounced "clean," a work had to be done for him. It was a work he could neither do nor help to do. Another had to carry it out entirely. The priest did it all. The leper did nothing.
The leper's certainty did not rest on his feelings but on a sentence spoken over him:
There the leper stood, looking at God's work for him, then receiving God's remedy, and hearing God's sentence. He did nothing to earn any good thing, but received everything from the God of Israel... Whatever he felt, and whatever others said to him, he knew he was under the power of the blood. Through that alone, God's Priest had "pronounced him clean."
Only after that verdict does the man become active — and the reason for his activity has changed:
From verse 1 to the end of verse 7, as we have seen, the leper does nothing. All he brings to the priest is his leprosy and uncleanness. Everything is done for him. But the moment the priest has pronounced him clean and has let the bird go free, the leper begins to work. He does not work to be cleansed before God — he is clean before God already. He works to bring his outward life into line with his standing before God.
- Healed — the cure comes first and comes from God alone; no ritual, effort or payment could produce it.
- Brought — the verb is passive on purpose. Someone else carries him in, and that unnamed friend is the link without which nothing happens.
- Met — the unclean man cannot come in, so the priest goes out to him.
- Pronounced — someone else speaks the verdict "clean" over him, so his assurance never rests on how he feels.
- Working — his work starts only after the verdict, and it brings his life into line with a standing he already has.
and the priest shall go out of the camp; and when the priest looketh, and behold, the sore of leprosy is healed in the leper,
The law for cleansing a leper does not open with a command to the sick man. It opens with the priest, who goes out to the outcast, looks, and finds the disease already healed before any ceremony starts.
The man shut out cannot come to God's house. So God's priest comes out to him.
So we read, "the priest shall go out of the camp." It is not said, "the leper shall go." That was out of the question. It was no use talking to the leper about going or doing. Shut up in dreary loneliness, where could he go? Held in helpless defilement, what could he do? … He might make efforts to get clean; but his efforts could only prove him unclean, and spread the defilement further. Before he could be pronounced "clean," a work had to be done for him. It was a work he could neither do nor help to do, a work that another had to carry out entirely… The priest accomplished all. The leper did nothing.
Commentators read the priest's walk out of the camp as a picture of Christ. He did not stay in glory. He came to where the defiled man was.
But the Priest Himself has made a way. So we read in verse 3, "the priest shall go out of the camp." The great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, came out of His glory more than 1900 years ago. He came down to this sad, wicked world. Even down here, "He went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull." John 19:17. Yes, the Priest has already gone outside the gate. (Hebrews 13:12.) He sees you, poor defiled sinner, and He has already gone where you are.
The verse assumes a cure that has already happened.
Note this carefully: the ceremonies did not cleanse the leper. They began only when it was clear that he was already cleansed. The healing that is in view is an act of God, which took place while the leper was still outside the camp. The priest had to go outside the camp and inspect him. If the man was cleansed, the priest had the responsibility of pronouncing him clean. He then carried out the set ceremony, which pictured the ground and basis of that cleansing.
Leprosy stands for sin at work in a person. That makes healed and cleansed two different things.
In general, leprosy is sin acting in the flesh… Here its activity has been stopped, and so, though he is a leper, he is to be counted clean… Such a man was healed, but not yet cleansed. The sacrifices had not yet taken effect for him, and he was not yet back in relationship with God inside the camp. In the picture, he is a sinner judging himself before God. He is defiled by sin and knows it, and the activity of sin has stopped, because he is in the place of repentance… He is still a sinner. Though he has repented, the death and resurrection of Christ have not yet taken effect for him. But while he is still a sinner, the working of the flesh has now stopped, and so he may be said to be "healed."
The priest had looked at this man before and shut him out. Now he looks again, searching for the opposite thing.
Those eyes of flame search you once again. Before they searched you to find if there was one spot of leprosy, and the priest had to pronounce you unclean. Now they search you to see if there is one spot without leprosy. If you truly are "all covered," the priest may pronounce you clean… In the same way, our Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, searches the sinner who comes to Him. Is he truly coming as a poor, lost, ruined, guilty sinner? Has he no good word to say for himself? Is he full of sin?
William Kelly applies this first to Israel, driven out of their land as the leper was driven out of the camp — and then widens it.
Leprous Israel will certainly be cleansed. Prophecy declares it in sure, abundant, and glowing testimony… But here the picture is so general that we have no right to narrow how it applies. We should see instead how grace fits it to the need of every and any ruined sinner.
- Distance. The leper stands outside, unable to come in, unable to clean himself, and able only to spread what he has.
- Descent. The priest crosses that distance himself. Commentators see the same move again when Christ went outside the gate.
- Cure. The healing is God's act, done before any ceremony starts. The ceremonies rest on it; they do not cause it.
- Inspection. The second look asks whether the plague is over. The sinner who admits he is wholly lost is the one who can be pronounced clean.
- Reach. Israel, driven out of the land, will be cleansed too. The picture is broad enough to cover any ruined sinner.
then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two clean living birds, and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop.
Leviticus 14 sets out what happens when a leper is healed and comes back among God's people. The list of items in this verse looks strange, so what is each one there to say?
The ritual of verse 4 is not what makes the leper well. By the time the priest gives this command, God has already healed him. The birds, wood and yarn only explain how.
We must carefully note that the ceremonies did not cleanse the leper. They only began when it was quite clear that he was cleansed. The healing in view is an act of God, which took place while the leper was still outside the camp. The priest had to go outside the camp and inspect him. If he was cleansed, the priest had to pronounce him clean. Then the priest carried out the prescribed ceremony, which pictured the ground and basis of his cleansing.
The priest commands every item, and others bring it for the leper. He does nothing himself.
On the face of it, others did the work for the leper first of all; he did none of it himself. The priest gave the command: take two clean living birds for the man to be cleansed, and cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop. Then he commanded further that one bird be killed in an earthen vessel over living water.
Then that changes. After the blood, the man has his own work to do.
So the leper stood by while the bird was killed for him, and he was sprinkled with its blood. But after this service he could act. First he washed his clothes, shaved off all his hair, and washed himself in water, so that he might be clean. After that he could enter the camp.
The offering is small — just two birds. But one word in the command carries great weight.
When the leper was to be cleansed, God prescribed a very lowly offering — two sparrows. But they had to be clean. This is how God teaches us in pictures about His Holy One: "He committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22); "who knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21); "in him there is no sin" (1 John 3:5).
One death is not the whole story. The priest dips the second bird in the blood of the first, tying the two together.
The two clean birds set forth Christ dead and risen — the one killed, the other let loose into the open field. But there is far more here, for the bird that was to die was killed in an earthen vessel over living water. How plainly this points to Him! Through the Eternal Spirit He offered Himself spotless to God, willing to be crucified in weakness. Again, see the pains taken to identify the living bird with the slain one. The priest dipped it in the blood of the bird killed over the living water. What could be clearer?
The second bird carries as much weight as the first.
In the slain bird He is delivered up for our trespasses; in the freed bird He is raised for our justification. It is liberty out of condemnation... Yet how few consider what the resurrection of Christ means. "If Christ has not been raised ... you are still in your sins." Without it there is no justification. There is no assurance that the sacrifice is enough and acceptable. There is no certainty that there will ever be any resurrection at all.
The other three items cover the whole of nature and the glory of man.
Notice too that the cedar wood, the scarlet and the hyssop were to be dipped into the blood of the slain bird. The cedar is the most majestic of trees, hyssop is the humblest of herbs, and scarlet speaks of the glory of men. The death of Christ has stained the pride of all human glory. It has stained all that is natural to this first creation, from the greatest things to the least.
They are dipped, not burned up. What the cleansed man keeps, he now sees differently.
He was to see all that belonged to nature, and the glory of the world, dipped in the blood of the slain bird. In the same way now, whatever matches those emblems should be seen through the cross. The cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet were not destroyed. Dipped in the blood, they appeared in a new light — and so should it be with us.
- Healed first. The ceremony never cured anyone. It started only after God had healed the man, and it explained the basis of his cleansing.
- Done for him. The priest commands and handles every item on the man's behalf. The leper adds nothing to the work done for him.
- Clean birds. The birds had to be clean. That pictures the sinless One: He committed no sin, knew no sin, and in Him there is no sin.
- Dead and risen. The priest killed one bird in an earthen vessel over living water. He dipped the other in its blood and set it free: Christ delivered up for our trespasses, raised for our justification.
- Cedar to hyssop. The tallest tree, the lowest herb and the world's glory all go into the blood. The cleansed man then sees them through the cross. He washes, and comes home to the camp.