13:1-17 The plague of leprosy was an uncleanness, rather than a disease. Christ is said to cleanse lepers, not to cure them. Common as the leprosy was among the Hebrews, during and after their residence in Egypt, we have no reason to believe that it was known among them before. Their distressed state and employment in that land must have rendered them liable to disease. But it was a plague often inflicted immediately by the hand of God. Miriam's leprosy, and Gehazi's, and king Uzziah's, were punishments of particular sins; no marvel there was care taken to distinguish it from a common distemper. The judgment of it was referred to the priests. And it was a figure of the moral pollutions of men's minds by sin, which is the leprosy of the soul, defiling to the conscience, and from which Christ alone can cleanse. The priest could only convict the leper, (by the law is the knowledge of sin,) but Christ can cure the sinner, he can take away sin. It is a work of great importance, but of great difficulty, to judge of our spiritual state. We all have cause to suspect ourselves, being conscious of sores and spots; but whether clean or unclean is the question. As there were certain marks by which to know it was leprosy, so there are marks of such as are in the gall of bitterness. The priest must take time in making his judgment. This teaches all, both ministers and people, not to be hasty in censures, nor to judge anything before the time. If some men's sins go before unto judgment, the sins of others follow after, and so do men's good works. If the person suspected were found to be clean, yet he must wash his clothes, because there had been ground for the suspicion. We have need to be washed in the blood of Christ from our spots, though not leprosy spots; for who can say, I am pure from sin?

And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day,.... On the second seventh day, at the end of a fortnight from his being first presented to him, and shut up:

and, behold, if the plague be somewhat dark; the spot be not so bright, or so white as it was at first; though Aben Ezra observes, that indeed many wise men say, that is as signifying dark, and the testimony or proof they bring is Genesis 27:1 but according to my opinion, adds he, the word is the reverse of to spread; and the sense is, if the plague does not spread itself in another place; and so some translators render it "contracted", or "contracts itself" (h): and this seems best to agree with what follows:

and the plague spread not in the skin; but is as it was when first viewed, after waiting fourteen days, and making observations on it:

the priest shall pronounce him clean; that is, from leprosy, otherwise there was an impure disorder on him, a scabious one:

it is but a scab; which is the name, Jarchi says, of a clean plague or stroke, that is, in comparison of the leprosy, otherwise such cannot be said with any propriety to be clean. Ben Gersom better explains it, it is a white scab, but not of the kind of leprosy, although it is found as the whiteness of the bright spot; but there are not seen in it the signs of leprosy, the hair is not turned white, nor has the plague increased:

and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean; for seeing he was obliged to be shut up, as Jarchi observes, he is called unclean, and stood in need of dipping, that is, his body and his clothes into water; so the people of God, though they are justified by the righteousness of Christ, and are pronounced clean through it, yet since they have their spots and scabs, they have need to have their conversation garments continually washed in the blood of the Lamb.

(h) "contracta est", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "contraxerit sese", some in Vatablus. Wesley's Notes on the Bible

13:6 Dark - Contrary to the white colour of the leprosy. But the word may be rendered, have contracted itself, and thus the opposition seems to be most clear as the spreading of itself. He shall wash his clothes - Though it was no leprosy, to teach us, that no sin is so small as not to need to be washed by the blood of Christ, which was the thing designed by all these washings.

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