Leviticus 14:1

Verse 1 opens with words that stand at the head of law after law in Leviticus: “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying.” The name Yᵉhôvâh, printed “the LORD” in the KJV, is the personal name of the God who made his covenant with Israel at Sinai (Exodus 19:5). The verb dâbar is the ordinary word for speaking, mentioning or telling, and the weight of the sentence lies in who is speaking. Everything that follows comes from God. Moses, Môsheh, a name Strong’s explains as “drawing out”, receives it and passes it on to the people. At Sinai the LORD had told Moses that he would come to him in a thick cloud, “that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever” (Exodus 19:9), so Israel could trust that these rules for cleansing were the LORD’s own.

Israel was to keep God’s words without adding to them or taking from them (Deuteronomy 4:1–2), and we receive Scripture in the same way, as given by inspiration of God (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Hebrews draws the line from Moses to Christ: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

These words begin a new section. Leviticus 13 set out how the priest was to tell when a person had leprosy and how that person was to live apart, and it closes with a summary of the law for leprosy in garments (Leviticus 13:59). Now God turns from diagnosis and isolation to cleansing and return. The law for the cleansed leper runs through Leviticus 14:1–32. Its first stage, in these nine verses, takes place outside the camp. The second comes on the eighth day at the tabernacle, with offerings (Leviticus 14:10–20).

Verse 2 names the subject: “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing.” The word for law, tôwrâh, means a precept or instruction, and here it is the set procedure God gives for this case. “Leper” translates a form of the verb tsâraʻ, which Strong’s gives as “to scourge”, that is, to be stricken with leprosy. “Cleansing” is ṭohŏrâh, purification, and “the day”, yôwm, fixes the time when the rites begin. The first step is simple: “He shall be brought unto the priest.” The healed man had to be presented to the one God appointed, and he could make his way back only by the road God laid down. The priest, kôhên, was to examine him, confirm his recovery and lead him through the cleansing.

Verse 3 begins, “And the priest shall go forth out of the camp.” The leper had to stay outside, so the priest went out to him. yâtsâʼ is the plain verb for going out, and “out of” is chûwts, outside, the same word that comes back in verse 8 as “abroad”. The camp, machăneh, is the place where Israel lived in tents, with the tabernacle in the middle of it. To live outside it was to be cut off from the community and from the worship of God, so the priest’s walk across that line was the first step in bringing the outcast home.

Then “the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper.” “Plague” is negaʻ, a blow or stroke, the word these chapters use for the mark of the disease. The priest’s looking is a careful examination, and the word “if” shows that everything waits on what he finds. The rite that follows is for someone who has already been healed. “Healed” translates râphâʼ, to mend or to cure, a verb used both of God’s healing and of human physicians. Here the healing has already taken place when the priest arrives, and in Israel such a healing was the LORD’s work.

In verse 4 “the priest shall command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop.” The priest gives the order, tsâvâh, and the things are taken, lâqach, on the healed man’s behalf. “Him that is to be cleansed” uses ṭâhêr, the verb that runs through the whole passage. Strong’s gives “to be bright” as the first sense of its root, and in use it means to be clean or pure, or to make clean.

The birds are “alive”, chay, and “clean”, ṭâhôwr, which means they were of a kind the law counted clean and free from defilement. The word for bird, tsippôwr, is a little bird, which Strong’s explains as one that hops, and the KJV translates it “sparrow” in other places. Other offerings allowed birds, turtledoves or young pigeons, for those of lesser means (Leviticus 5:7) and after childbirth (Leviticus 12:8). Here two are needed, because each has its own part to play: one will die and one will live.

“Cedar wood” is ʼerez and ʻêts, cedar and wood. Cedar lasts, resists decay and has a sweet smell, and it suits the lasting health given back to the cleansed man. “Scarlet” stands for two words, shânîy and tôwlâʻ, the crimson colour and the grub from which the dye was made, so the material is thread or wool dyed crimson. Its colour is the colour of blood and life, and Isaiah uses it for the sin that God washes away: “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). Hyssop, ʼêzôwb, is a small plant used for sprinkling. Israel used it to put the Passover blood on the doorposts (Exodus 12:22), and David prayed, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Psalm 51:7). As a humble plant named beside the grand cedar, it is a fitting picture of the lowliness of anyone who comes to God to be cleansed.

Leviticus leaves the meaning of each item unstated, and these are pictures that fit them, drawn from the rest of Scripture. The same three things, cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet, belong to the cleansing from contact with the dead (Numbers 19:6), so they mark this as a rite of passing from death’s uncleanness back into life among God’s people.

Verse 5 says “that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water.” One, ʼechâd, of the pair is taken, and the verb shâchaṭ means to slaughter, the word used for killing sacrifices. “Earthen vessel” is cheres, earthenware, and kᵉlîy, a vessel. The bird is killed over a clay pot holding fresh water, so that its blood runs into the water and the two are mingled for the dipping and sprinkling that follow.

Clay pots were common and cheap, and the law said that a clay pot made unclean had to be broken (Leviticus 15:12). Here the plain pot only holds what God has appointed for cleansing, the blood and the living water, and the power to cleanse comes from God.

“Running water” is mayim chayim, “living water”. mayim is water, and chay means alive, and with water it means fresh, flowing water from a spring or stream, set apart from water that stands still. God speaks through Ezekiel of the cleansing he will give his people in the same terms of sprinkling and water: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean” (Ezekiel 36:25).

The death of the bird is the heart of the rite. One life is given so that another may be made clean. Leviticus explains the place of blood in its cleansings: “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). Hebrews gathers up these old rites, the blood, the water, the scarlet wool and the hyssop, and says, “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:19–22).

In verse 6 the priest takes “the living bird”, and “living” is chay again, the same word as “running” in “running water”. He takes the cedar wood, the scarlet and the hyssop with it, and he dips them all in the blood of the bird that was killed. The verb ṭâbal means to dip or plunge, and “blood” is dâm. The living bird is kept for release, and before it goes it carries the mark of the other bird’s death. Its freedom in the next verse comes through that death, and the hyssop, wet with blood and water, is now ready for sprinkling.

Verse 7 brings the first stage to its climax. “And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times.” nâzâh means to sprinkle, and Strong’s notes that it is used especially of sprinkling to make atonement. The blood and water that marked the living bird are now put on the man himself, so the cleansing is applied to him.

“And shall pronounce him clean.” The verb is ṭâhêr once more, here in the sense of declaring clean, and the priest says it aloud. His word changes the man’s standing before God and before the community. From this moment the people could receive him, because God’s appointed priest had declared him clean.

“And shall let the living bird loose into the open field.” The verb is shâlach, to send away or let go, and the “open field”, sâdeh, is the open country, far from the camp. The bird flies off free, and with it goes the defilement the man once carried. The bird’s freedom is a picture of his own, for he too is now free to go back to his people.

Verse 8 turns to what the man himself must do. “And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean.” The two washings use two different Hebrew verbs. Washing the clothes is kâbaç, which Strong’s traces to treading them underfoot, and washing himself is râchats, to bathe. “Shave” is gâlach, to make bald, so the shaving takes off all the hair. The clothes he wore while he was unclean are cleansed with him, and the whole of his body is bared and washed.

“And after that he shall come into the camp.” For the first time since he was declared unclean, he is back among his people. Yet his return comes in stages: he “shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days.” The verb yâshab means to sit or remain, and “abroad” is chûwts, outside, the same word as “out of the camp” in verse 3. He is inside the camp but still outside his own home, ʼôhel, his tent, for a full week. Those seven days complete the cleansing, make plain how serious his uncleanness had been, and bring him back to family life by a measured path. The cleansing from contact with the dead also ends with washing clothes and bathing in water (Numbers 19:19).

Verse 9 reads, “But it shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off.” The seventh day, yôwm and shᵉbîyʻîy, ends the week of waiting at the time God set. The verse names the head, the beard and the eyebrows, and then says “all his hair” again, so the phrase stands twice in this verse and leaves no doubt how thorough the shaving is. The Hebrew for “eyebrows” joins a word for a rim or curve with the word for the eye.

Then “he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.” The two washing verbs of verse 8 come back, and “flesh”, bâsâr, is the whole body. The verse ends with the goal of every step: “he shall be clean.” The next day, the eighth, he will bring his offerings to the tabernacle.

The priest of Leviticus went out of the camp to confirm a healing that God had already given. Jesus is himself the source of the healing. He touched lepers and made them clean, and he showed that he has authority to forgive sins as well as to heal the body (Mark 2:5–11). The priest went outside the camp to meet the leper, and Christ came further still, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). His touch, which would have made a priest of Israel unclean, made the unclean clean. He is our great high priest, and through him we come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:14–16).

The bird whose blood was shed over living water points to the death of Christ, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). His blood was shed for many for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:28), and “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4–5). Hebrews sets the old cleansings beside his: the blood of bulls and goats sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, and the blood of Christ purges the conscience to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:13–14). The leper’s rites were repeated for each new case, and Christ by one offering “hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10–14). “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

The living bird, dipped in the blood and set free, is a picture of the life that comes out of that death. Christ was raised from the dead, and we who are buried with him rise to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). God, rich in mercy, has quickened us together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4–5). The running water calls to mind the living water Jesus gives (John 4:10), and his promise that rivers of living water will flow from the one who believes in him (John 7:38), which is his gift of the Holy Spirit.

The washing and shaving of verses 8 and 9 picture the clean break God makes in us. In Christ we put off the old man and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22–24), and “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, to cleanse it and present it to himself holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25–27). Hebrews gathers the sprinkling and the washing into one call: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22).

The healed leper came back in stages and waited a week before he could enter his own tent. In Christ, those who were far off are made nigh by his blood, and he has made Jew and Gentile one in himself (Ephesians 2:13–16). He has reconciled us, to present us holy and unblameable in his sight (Colossians 1:21–22), and we are welcomed into fellowship with God through him.

This passage shows a God who plans the way home for the person his own law had sent outside the camp. He is holy, and Israel’s camp had to be kept clean because he dwelt in it. He is also merciful, and he set out every step by which a healed man could be found, examined, cleansed, declared clean and welcomed back. His promise to gather his scattered people and bring them home (Deuteronomy 30:1–5) comes from the same heart.

Each detail is his care made visible: the priest sent out, the living water, the blood, the seven sprinklings, the word “clean” spoken aloud, the bird flying free over the open field. For those who belong to Christ, every one of them points to what he has done. He came to us where we were, gave his life, rose again, and speaks the word “clean” over all who come to him. The God who spoke this law through Moses has spoken to us in his Son.