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Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so the saying goes. There are things that bring us closer to God and things that move us away from God. There are things that happen to us that are beyond our control that can make us unclean before God, but there are also things that we do to ourselves that make us unclean. That’s the underlying message of the Torah reading מצורע Metzora (“leper,” Leviticus 14–15).
Without Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ), we are basically “the walking dead.” Does God want us to “come as we are” and “stay as we are”? No, God wants to bring us up and if we claim to be the sons and daughters of Israel, we should be willing to follow God’s instructions to elevate us from our base selves to His higher self.
Is it evil to be ‘unclean’?
Let’s review some vocabulary before we move forward with the reading.
- clean = טָהוֹר tahor (H2889)
- Tahor doesn’t make one holy ― set apart by God ― but it does keep one holy.
- Tahor doesn’t block entry toward the Presence.
- unclean = טָמֵא tamé (H2931)
- Doesn’t make one sinful or wicked.
- Tamé does blocks entry toward the Presence. However, trying to enter God’s Presence while tamé is wicked.
- offering = קָרְבָּן qorban (Strong’s lexicon No. H7133a) = that which approaches, i.e., an offering
- The qorban doesn’t remove sin, it allows the offerer to approach God’s Presence.
Those things that are clean make it easier for us to approach God and those things that are unclean block our path to God. Not everything that is unclean is sinful, after all, sometimes life is just messy. Natural biological functions such as menstruation, childbirth and seminal emissions are not sinful but the rituals associated with them teach both physical and spiritual lessons.
Cleansing a leper and ordaining a priest
Some of the rituals in this chapter are similar to the rituals of dedicating a priest.
One of the great disservices that modern society has done for us is our overemphasis on sanitation. We have become so disconnected to the messiness of life.
Is the Temple a building or simply a place God chose to bestow His presence? Are we just wanting to be clean so we can go to a place and “let ourselves go” the rest of the time?
This is not just getting spiffied up to go to the Temple. Now that the Temple is gone, is it true that we don’t have to concern ourselves about cleanliness?
The bonds of civilization actually hang by a very thin thread. Just look at what happens when there’s a widespread power failure of a failure of a sewer system. The uncleanness of daily life comes closer to us when the veneer of civilization fails.
Looking for ‘leprosy’ in all the right places
Yuck! is how God sees our world on the best day. We are completely unaware of how dirty we are. Just because something is “natural” doesn’t mean it’s “clean.”
We need to be aware of what the Kingdom of Heaven is and what it is not. We are not in the Kingdom of Heaven right now.
At the end of the book of Exodus, God moved into His house and everyone moved out. In Leviticus, God tells us how we can come back into His house.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing….” (Leviticus 14:1–2 NASB)
Leviticus 14 tells us how to redeem the metzorah, the leper.
הַמְּצֹרָע ha-metzorah (H6879) = the person “struck down” with a significant skin disease
We see several possible root meaning of this word when we look at other Semitic languages such as Arabic and Sabean:
- Arabic: صَرَعَ saraʿa = throw down, prostrate
Sabean (ancient in habitants of modern-day Yemen): צרע tsr’ = humble oneself
A metzorah is someone humbled by a skin condition. The metzorah had to live outside the community, and that person’s presence was treated like a corpse, causing Tabernacle-unfitness from being in the same room or by touch. As long as you are in this condition, you can’t enter the camp, period. The metzorah is treated very much like the walking dead.
Cleansing a leper and Day of Atonement
The symbols used to cleanse a leper have overtones of the red heifer or for someone who has had contact with a corpse. We will see these coincidences go on top of each other in quick order.
When Yeshua “cleansed” lepers but directed them to go through the Torah cleansing process, which was an eight-day process (One leper: Mark 1:40–44; Matt. 8:2–4; Luke 5:12–14. Ten lepers: Luke 17:11–19). When Yeshua healed the 10 lepers, it was only the Samaritan who came back and thanked Yeshua. It seems he was the only one who really understood the source of his healing.
There are many Priestly purification elements in the ritual of the healing of lepers.
First, the sacrifice included two clean birds, usually doves. Like with the two goats on Yom haKippurim, detailed in Leviticus 16, one bird is killed and the other is set free.
We also see the use of cedar wood. It is a red-colored wood. The look would be similar to blood. It also resists decay and was symbolic of restoring to preserving life. We often store our clothes in cedar to keep them from getting eaten by moths. Cedar is also very aromatic, like an incense.
Scarlet wool is also a part of the restoration of the leper. The scarlet wool is a white-ish wool had been dyed red. That would be blood-colored.
By tradition, the wool was spun into yarn, which was used to bind the cedar, live bird and hyssop for “baptizing” into the water mixed with blood from the other bird.
White wool turned red is a picture of the reverse that only God can accomplish: “though [your sins] are red like crimson, they will be like wool” (Isa. 1:18).
The hyssop is also a key element in the restoration of the metzorah. Hyssop can hold water for sprinkling and is very aromatic. It is also a key element in painting the blood of the Pesakh (Passover) lamb on the doorposts of Yisrael’s homes on the eve of the Exodus from Mitsraim (Egypt).
Hyssop was part of the red heifer purification process ― making of waters of niddah (purification) ― for contact with a corpse (Numbers 19).
The red heifer ceremony has a number of hints and connections with Yeshua’s role and life of transforming those in contact with death into those able to be alive in God’s presence.
There’s also the living water, the clean, flowing water. In Hebrew, this isמַיִם חַיִּים mayim khayim (chaim), or “living water,” is part of purification ceremonies.
The idea is that it’s not from stagnant water like a well or cistern but from a river, stream, spring, or something that will carry away corruption.
The cedar, wool, hyssop and living water also were part of the red heifer ceremony.
‘How have we wearied Him?’
The next reading we will discuss is the Haftarat Shabbat haGadol reading in Malachi 3–4.
“You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them,’ or, ‘Where is the God of justice?'” (Malachi 2:17 NASB)
Malachi 3-4 answers this question.
Summary: Tammy.
Photo Credit: Cleansing of the Ten Lepers from the Codex Aureus Epternacensis (WIkimedia Commons image)