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Leviticus 13 Bible study: The priest shall examine
Leviticus 13 never tells the priest to heal anyone: he looks, waits seven days, looks again, and says clean or unclean (13:3-6). Covered head to foot and turned white, a person is clean (13:13). The same word for the plague is used of a garment (13:47). And the leper who cried "Unclean! Unclean!" lived alone, outside the camp (13:45-46).
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“All the days in which the plague is in him he shall be unclean. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside of the camp.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In Leviticus 13, when the leprosy covers all the skin and has all turned white, the priest pronounces the person clean.”
Is that in Leviticus 13, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
The priest looks
From the first case to the last, the priest's work is to look. "The priest shall examine the plague in the skin of the body" (13:3). The WEB says examine or examines 25 times in this chapter; in Hebrew each one is the everyday verb ra'ah, "see" (Brown-Driver-Briggs). What he looks for is set out plainly: whether "the hair in the plague has turned white", whether "the appearance of the plague is deeper than the body’s skin" (13:3), and whether it has spread (13:5, 13:8). Then he speaks: "pronounce him unclean" (13:3) or "pronounce him clean" (13:6). The chapter never gives him a remedy to apply. When it says a sore has healed, it doesn't say who healed it (13:18, 13:37).
Where it leads to Jesus
Go and show yourselves to the priests
Leviticus 13:46leads toLuke 17:14
The leper cries, "Unclean! Unclean!" (13:45), and "His dwelling shall be outside of the camp" (13:46). In Luke, "ten men who were lepers met him, who stood at a distance" (Luke 17:12), and called out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" (Luke 17:13). Jesus said, "Go and show yourselves to the priests", and "As they went, they were cleansed" (Luke 17:14). In Leviticus 13 it is the priest who examines and pronounces clean (13:6, 13:13), and the next chapter gives "the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing" (14:2). Luke doesn't cite Leviticus 13 or say which law Jesus had in mind, so setting the two side by side is an interpretation: some see in it Jesus cleansing those whom the priest could only examine and pronounce on, and others read it simply as a healing with the law in the background, since Luke makes no such comparison.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Leviticus 13
That was a taste
The rest of Leviticus 13 is waiting in Favor
- Seven days, then look again
- Cloth and leather too
- What the priests were told not to do
- Miriam outside the camp
- Lepers who met Jesus
- 20 questions as you read
- 10 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Leviticus 13 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
צָרַעַתtsara'atsay tsa-RA-at
Brown-Driver-Briggs and Strong's both give "leprosy", and Strong's says it comes "from 6879", the verb tsara' (see leprous). It comes 21 times in this chapter and 35 times in the Hebrew Bible: 29 in Leviticus 13 and 14, and the rest in Deuteronomy 24:8, 2 Kings 5 (Naaman and Gehazi) and 2 Chronicles 26:19 (King Uzziah). The chapter describes it only by what the priest sees (13:2-3), and uses it for a garment as well as for skin (13:47). The WEB mostly renders it leprosy, but for the garment it also says mildew (13:51, 13:52, 13:59), and for a house in the next chapter, "a spreading mildew" (14:34). The text doesn't tie it to any disease known by another name.
For your group
Leviticus 13 Bible study questions
- 1The leper had to live alone, outside the camp (13:46). Who around you lives on the outside of things right now, and what would it look like to go to them?
- 2When the signs were unclear, the priest waited seven days and looked again before he spoke (13:4-6). Where are you quick to pronounce a verdict on someone before you've looked twice?
- 3The ten lepers "stood at a distance" and called out to Jesus (Luke 17:12-13). What keeps you at a distance from him, or from his people, and what would it take to call out?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Leviticus 13 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
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Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home