And there comes to him a leper, beseeching him, and falling on his knees to him, and saying to him, If thou wilt thou canst cleanse me.
A man whose disease had cut him off from every other person pushes through to Jesus and drops to his knees. His words mix full confidence in Christ's power with open doubt about Christ's willingness.
Under the law of Israel, a leper was not just ill. He lived shut out, and no human cure existed for him.
Leprosy was a striking picture of sin. It made a man completely unfit for the presence of God. His place was "outside the camp." Whether he had few spots or many, he was pronounced "utterly unclean." All he could truly say of himself was, "Unclean, unclean." The disease was deeply defiling. God alone could make a leper clean, and fit to come into the camp.
The ban did not stop with the leper himself.
Leprosy — terrible disease! — was a figure of sin. The one who had it was shut out of the camp as unclean. Even a man who touched him was shut out too, because the disease contaminated him. Nothing could cure the leper. Jehovah alone could cure him. Once Jehovah had cured him, the priest pronounced him clean, and after certain ceremonies he could take part in the worship of God.
Mark records the man's posture and his exact words. He does not keep the usual distance, and he does not ask for pity. He states what he believes about the person in front of him.
See the afflicted outcast coming to Jesus. He does not stand at a distance like the ten lepers (Luke 17:12). In his eagerness he comes near to Him whose great power over pain he had heard of… In the intensity of his emotion he threw himself on his knees before the Lord. That attitude signals both reverence and dependence. He does not say, as the passion of his actions might lead us to expect, "Have mercy on me," or "Heal me; cleanse me." Instead he expresses his conviction that in the person of Jesus of Nazareth there is a power present able to meet even such a desperate case as this.
Some have faulted the prayer for what it leaves out. One writer refuses to join that criticism:
We wish to record an emphatic protest against human criticism of the leper's prayer, or of anyone's prayer. Prayer is the passing of the inner cravings of a man's spiritual nature — whether put into words or not — to his God. Who shall interfere in this? Who has a right to censure what is meant for the divine ear?
His sentence has two halves, and they do not come from the same place.
A poor leper comes to the Lord. His need drives him, and a power he realises can meet that need draws him. But he doubts His grace. He wonders whether He would use that power for one whose loathsome disease made him an outcast from other people… Looking at Christ, he had no doubt about His power. Looking at himself, he questioned the Lord's grace. So it is at times with ourselves. If we get a view of the blackness of our hearts, we may question the grace of His heart. Then, in His presence, we find, like the leper, that the heart of Jesus is moved with compassion towards the vilest sinner who turns to Him… His grace is greater than our sin.
Another writer names where such distrust comes from.
The malice of Satan and the cruelty of man had sown in that poor heart distrust of the heart of Christ. That is what you find here. "Ah," he says, in effect, "I do not question your power; I have seen that, I have witnessed your great works — but I doubt the will, I doubt the love, I doubt the interest. I know you can do it. But I question whether there is enough readiness of heart, enough willingness, and enough interest in my case to lead you to give me, in my misery, the mercy I know you have."
The same "if" surfaces in believers who have never had leprosy.
Have we not often said that in our hearts? Difficulties often come in our family, or in our business, or in daily life. We reach the parting of the ways and do not know what comes next. And have we not thought, "Well, I know He has the power, I know He has the ability, I know you can do all things," as Job says — but, but! Ah, that is just where this poor leper was.
Christ's reply settles where the real limit sits.
The Saviour answered the leper's faltering "If you will, you can" at once with a wholehearted "I will; be clean." There is no limit to His ability and willingness to heal and to bless. Whatever limits there are lie in the trembling faith of the human heart.
- Shut out. Leprosy left a man outside the camp, cut off from God's presence and beyond every human cure — a picture of sin that only God could cleanse.
- Came close. Unlike the ten who stood at a distance, this man pushed through to Jesus and knelt, sure that Christ's power could meet his desperate case.
- Half faith. His confidence covered Christ's power but stopped short of Christ's willingness, because he was measuring the Lord's heart by his own condition.
- Old doubt. Satan's malice and man's cruelty sowed distrust of Christ's heart in this man. The same doubt still surfaces in believers who say "I know He can, but…"
- No limit. Christ's ability and willingness have no limit. The only limit lies in our own trembling faith.
But Jesus, moved with compassion, having stretched out his hand, touched him, and says to him, I will, be thou cleansed.
The man kneeling before Jesus had no doubt about His power. His only question was whether Jesus wanted to help him. The answer came in three parts: a stirred heart, an outstretched hand, and words only God had the right to say.
The leper's "if you will" shows where his faith stopped short. The answer went far past what he dared to hope.
What a picture of helpless misery — this leper kneeling before Jesus! Yet he was not without hope, for he begged the Saviour in his deep distress. There was no cure for leprosy... "If you will, you can make me clean." This was the only question left in his heart. He was broken down enough to feel his real condition and his urgent, extreme need. Was Jesus willing? And what an answer came to feeble faith! For God will be God for ever, and surpass even our truest thoughts of Himself... No mere display of power could have met the leper's needs like this — his needs of soul as well as of body.
The limit was never on His side.
The leper said hesitantly, "If You will, You can." The Saviour answered at once, and answered warmly: "I will; be clean." There is no limit to His ability and willingness to heal and to bless. Any limits there are lie in the trembling faith of the human heart.
One small detail here carries Mark's whole picture of the Servant.
Here again Mark tells us something about our blessed Lord. We find it in neither Matthew's nor Luke's account. He was moved with compassion. So the Spirit of God, in some brief additions, portrays the Servant in His loving service. The leper is healed. The Servant is Jehovah, and both His love and His power are revealed.
Set that beside how anyone else would have reacted to the same man.
If it had been any one of us, there would have been a shudder and a shrug of the shoulder. We would have backed away from that revolting sight of misery... I know well how we should have turned away from something so loathsome. This poor man admitted Christ's power, but he would not believe in the goodness of His heart. If even a little ordinary human kindness had been left in us, his refusal would have left us without a shred of compassion for him.
Under the law, anyone who touched a leper became unclean. Here it works the other way round.
Now if anyone touched a leper, he was unclean. But His holiness and His nature meant He could show love to the fullest in the middle of evil. He stayed undefiled, and nothing could ever defile Him. And He touches him and says, "I will" — Jehovah, whom none could defile — a man, bringing perfect love in power to the vilest.
The touch says something the words alone could not.
The act spoke of the love of His heart in a way that no word could. Oh, the touch of that hand, that blessed hand, that hand of mercy! Oh, the tenderness of that touch!... Jesus neither speaks roughly nor touches roughly.
Leprosy was the disease no one but God removed. So the short answer settles who is speaking.
Now Jehovah alone healed leprosy... But love and power were both found there: Jehovah was there in grace to heal. "I will," said Jesus, "be clean." Who had the right to speak like that — "I will, be"? One only: and it was done.
Commentators read leprosy as a picture of sin. That picture points beyond this healing to what removing sin would cost.
Thank God that the love of the Lord Jesus is no less great than His power. Moved with compassion, He touched the leper. With that healing touch came the reassuring words, "I will; be clean." The dreaded disease disappeared at once — not gradually. This shows His great power over sin, and leprosy is a type of sin. Yet more than His word was needed to remove the guilt and power of sin from mankind. Only His great atoning sufferings at Calvary would display both the power and the love needed to do this work.
- Power admitted. The man never doubted that Jesus could cleanse him. He doubted only whether Jesus wanted to. Any limit sits in the trembling heart, not in the Saviour.
- Willingness declared. "I will" answers the doubt. On a disease only God could cure, that word belongs to God alone.
- Compassion added. Only Mark records the stirred heart. It fits his picture of the Servant: love and power in a single act.
- Contact made. Under the law, touching a leper defiled you. Nothing could defile His holiness, so His love reached the vilest instead.
- Cleansing completed. The disease went at once, not gradually. But removing sin's guilt would cost more than a word. It would cost His atoning sufferings at Calvary.
And as he spoke straightway the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.
Mark's account of the leper reaches its turning point in a single clause: the disease is gone, and the man is clean. It follows a hand stretched out and two short words. Who can speak like that and get such a result?
The verse says the man was made clean, not simply healed. Leprosy needed more than a cure, and one writer shows how hopeless the case looked — even a king panicked at the request to cure it:
What a picture of helpless misery this leper kneeling before Jesus! And yet he was not without hope, for he begged the Saviour in his deep distress. There was no cure for leprosy; if God cured, there were offerings for cleansing. The alarmed King of Israel said, "Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends to me to cure a man of his leprosy?" In truth, to be a leper was to be like a child born dead, with half his flesh already eaten away as he comes from his mother's womb.
Under the law, anyone who touched a leper became unclean. Here the contact works the other way round.
This was purity in power that could not be defiled, and so it could serve the worst of people in love — and it delights to do so. He came to defiled man, not to be defiled by the contact, but to remove the defilement. He touched the leper in grace, but the leprosy was gone.
The cleansing followed a claim as much as a touch. One writer ties the right to say "I will" to what the Lord said about Himself elsewhere:
But He added words, recorded in all three Gospels, of the greatest weight — "I will; be clean." No one on earth but He was free to speak like that. His Person gave Him the right. He, who could truly say "I am," was entitled to say "I will." In anyone else born of woman it would have been not only presumption but sin. He could say these words — the same One who says in John 8, "Before Abraham was, I am." "Be clean" brought power at once that no one could dispute.
Mark's favourite word turns up again here. It marks the gap between what medicine can do over time and what God does at once:
We get the word "immediately." I have pointed out before that it is the typical word of the Gospel of Mark. It comes up often, and it is not always translated "immediately" — sometimes it is "instantly," or "quickly," or "at once"... And so in this case, "immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean." Man is very skilled at medicine now, but he cannot do this. He cannot bring about a result like this at once. There are stages of cure, and progress, just as there are stages of disease. But in an instant the whole order of things changed — that is the mighty power of God.
What the priests were authorised to do, and what they were powerless to do, is exposed by this cure. The man doubted not the power but the willingness, and that doubt is met first:
It is a sad thing when someone who confesses the power of Jesus to heal him can doubt His will. And yet, with sin, how common this is! But the Lord would have nobody question it. He does not merely speak. He goes further: with a touch He breaks through the barrier of the law at once, and removes what the law could only mark out, not cure. "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy has left him. Now the very priest of the law must pronounce him clean; and Jesus sends the healed man to him for that purpose.
One writer applies the verse to every reader, calling him a fellow-leper:
My fellow-leper, every poor wretched sinner who was brought and given to Jesus just as he was heard the voice of God in the words of Jesus that very moment. And those blessed words came true of him: "and he was made clean."
- Incurable — Leprosy had no cure. If a leper became clean, God did it, and the priest only confirmed it.
- Willing — The man doubted the will, not the power. "I will" answered his doubt; the touch answered his disease.
- Undefiled — Under the law, touching a leper made you unclean. Here the touch ran the other way and took the defilement away.
- Immediate — No stages, no slow recovery. The instant result is the fingerprint of divine power, and Mark's word for it is "immediately."
- Cleansed — Writers read the leper as a picture of the sinner: brought just as he is, he hears the same word and is made clean.
And having sharply charged him, he straightway sent him away,
Jesus has just touched a leper and made him clean. Now He speaks sharply to the man and sends him off at once — and commentators ask what the sharpness means, why He ordered silence, and where the man had to go in such a hurry.
The Greek verb here is the one usually translated "cast out." One writer notes that translators have rightly chosen a gentler word in places like this, where the Lord has just shown compassion:
For the most part "cast out" is a suitable translation. Still, there are places in our Authorised and Revised Versions where our translators have rightly given a better fitting one, such as Mark 1:43 "sent away," and John 10:4 "puts forth." In this very chapter (verse 43) did our Lord ("moved with compassion," verse 41) at once "drive" away (!) the cleansed leper?
What the word does carry is speed. The man had an errand, and it came before everything else:
The verb (ekballo) used of the Lord sending him on this errand literally means "to drive forth," and it implies urgency and speed. He told the man to carry out his duties to the priesthood before giving himself up to the selfish joy of announcing his cure to his excitable friends and neighbours. God's claims came first.
Writers have guessed at many reasons for the ban on speaking. One ties it to the errand itself, which could not wait:
There has been much guesswork about why Jesus imposed silence on the man. But the account shows that the Lord made the leper's errand to the priests look like one that had to be carried out at once. After the healing, Jesus sent him off straight away. He charged him strictly to say nothing to anyone, but to show himself to the priest. The priest would then have undeniable evidence in front of him that this cure was real.
The errand also put the priest on the spot. He had to face proof he could not deny:
It was important that the priest, at the sight of the cleansed leper, should be forced to admit and witness — to take official notice of — the proof that the hand of God was at work there. God's hand was not now writing judgment on the proud contempt of man. It was working in might, and with the deepest stooping down of grace, to cure a misery and suffering that were hopeless otherwise — the standing picture of a sinner. Besides, grace respects and upholds law, until death and resurrection bring in another glory, greater and lasting.
The same charge also hides the Healer. He works for someone else's reputation, not His own:
Another beautiful trait of the perfect Servant is seen in what follows. He does not seek His own glory, but the glory of the One He serves... Still, he is to tell the priest, and so the law becomes a witness to the presence of God in grace.
Commentators differ on what danger the silence guarded against. One sees the threat not in hostility but in fame:
The command here to tell no one does not seem to come from the opposition. It is more that the crowds, by treating Him as a mere healer, were in danger of hampering His true service. Miracles themselves were only acted parables, and our Lord came from heaven to do more than cure the ills of the body.
The man did the opposite of what he was told, and some have excused him for it. One writer refuses the excuse:
But the healed leper disregarded both the word of his Healer and the express commandments of the law. And there have been those who have sought to justify the act of disobedience, as if grace such as the leper had received freed the person who received it from the duty of obedience. On the contrary, "to obey is better than sacrifice"... Silence is as much a grace as speech, when it agrees with the will of the Lord.
The cost was real. The publicity narrowed the Lord's own movements:
Again we see how our Lord did not chase popular excitement and fame. He told the man to let the testimony to his cure flow in the channel Moses had marked out. But the man, filled with delight, did the very thing he had been told not to do. As a result, the Lord had to avoid the cities for some days and stay in desert places.
- Touched — the compassion of verse 41 still rules verse 43. The sending is urgent, not harsh, and "drove out" goes beyond what the context allows.
- Charged — the sternness protects an errand. The priest came before friends and neighbours, because God's claims came first.
- Sent — the priest is forced to take note of the cure, so the law itself becomes a witness to God at work in grace.
- Hidden — the Servant seeks the glory of the One He serves. He will not be reduced to a public healer, since He came to do more than cure bodies.
- Disobeyed — grace received never cancels obedience owed. Silence can be as much a grace as speech, and ignoring it drove the Lord out into desert places.
and says to him, See thou say nothing to any one, but go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing what Moses ordained, for a testimony to them.
Jesus has just healed a man of leprosy. Instead of sending him out to tell the story, He sends him to a priest with an offering. Two orders sit side by side. Say nothing — and keep the old ceremony. Why both?
The law that governed leprosy had no cure in it. It gave a procedure for inspecting and declaring, and nothing more.
The priest's job was to pronounce a man with leprosy unclean. It was also his job to pronounce him clean once he was cured. The law had no power to heal. It only noted whether a man was healed or not. The work of ceremonial restoration began only after some other means had cured the disease.
So the priest was the one man who could feel the full force of what had happened. He knew what human hands could not do.
Showing himself to the priest should have raised a question there. If the priest's lips still guarded knowledge, or his heart looked for it, he would have asked: Who has healed him? It would have drawn out the answer from faith — the Lord is here; the Lord has healed him. No one knew better than the priest that man is powerless here. The law has no provision for healing leprosy. It only gives directions for the ceremony that cleanses a man who is already healed.
Older translations read "for a testimony to them." The man's obedience was itself the message. Jehovah, in the next quote, is the Old Testament name of God.
He hides Himself from human praise. He tells the healed man to go and show himself to the priests, as the law of Moses said. Yet this obedience to the law was itself testimony that He is Jehovah. Under the law, Jehovah alone cleansed the leper, and He did it by His own sovereign will. The priest was only the witness that it had been done.
The rarity of the scene gave it weight.
A striking testimony indeed. As far as Scripture tells us, this was the first Israelite leper cleansed since the instructions of Leviticus 13 and 14, given about 1,500 years earlier. Now a cleansed leper stood at the altar with his two birds in his hands. His presence testified that God had come into the land, and was meeting men's need quite apart from anything priests did or any religious ceremony.
Commentators differ on the reason for the silence. One reading takes it as a matter of sequence and speed — the errand came first, and everything else could wait.
Compare "See that you say nothing to anyone" with the Lord's direction to the seventy, "Greet no one on the road" (Luke 10:4). In matters of urgency it was necessary to avoid these long and elaborate greetings. Elisha gave similar instructions to Gehazi (2 Kings 4:29). The word used for the Lord sending him on this errand means "to drive forth." It points to urgency and speed. The Lord told the man to meet his duties to the priests first. Only then could he give himself to the selfish joy of announcing his cure to his excitable friends and neighbours.
Others read the silence as belonging to the character of the One who gave it. He is working for another's reputation, not His own.
He does not seek His own glory, but the glory of the One He serves. So hear the Lord saying to the healed leper, "See that you say nothing to anyone." Still, he is to tell the priest, and so the law becomes a witness to the presence of God in grace. Under the law, God alone could heal the leper, and the priest could only bear witness to what God had done.
The man ignored the instruction. What followed shows why Jesus gave it.
This would be solid testimony for the priests that the man really was healed, without the excitement that many words might cause. The man, however, did not obey. In the same way today, some put so much emphasis on healing that they hinder the true work of God. Healing the body is a simple thing for the Lord. The deeper work in the soul is far more important, and excitement over visible miracles can smother it.
- Cure — the law could inspect and declare, but never heal; the ceremony began only after the cure.
- Certificate — the priest who had once ruled the man unclean was the one fit to confirm him clean, so Jesus sent him there first.
- Claim — by keeping Moses' command, Jesus let the evidence make the claim for Him: only God cleansed leprosy, and God had done it.
- Concealment — the lips He told to stay silent He also sent to the priest. He wanted the witness, not the fame.
- Cost — the man talked instead of obeying, and excitement over healing can smother the deeper work God wants to do in the soul.
But he, having gone forth, began to proclaim [it] much, and to spread the matter abroad, so that he could no longer enter openly into the city, but was without in desert places, and they came to him from every side.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.