(39) Then the priest shall look.--If the priest, upon examination, finds that these elevated spots are of a dull or palish white colour, then he is to pronounce the patient clean, that is, free of leprosy, since it is simply a white eruption or tetter, which lasts for a few months, causes no inconvenience, and by degrees disappears of itself. Hence it is called bahack, or "white scurf," and not leprosy. This nameless disorder, which still prevails in the East, is to this day called by the Biblical name bahack.
13:18-44 The priest is told what judgment to make, if there were any appearance of a leprosy in old sores; and such is the danger of those who having escaped the pollutions of the world are again entangled therein. Or, in a burn by accident, ver. 24. The burning of strife and contention often occasions the rising and breaking out of that corruption, which proves that men are unclean. Human life lies exposed to many grievances. With what troops of diseases are we beset on every side; and thy all entered by sin! If the constitution be healthy, and the body lively and easy, we are bound to glorify God with our bodies. Particular note was taken of the leprosy, if in the head. If the leprosy of sin has seized the head; if the judgment be corrupted, and wicked principles, which support wicked practices, are embraced, it is utter uncleanness, from which few are cleansed. Soundness in the faith keeps leprosy from the head.
Then the priest shall look,.... Upon the man or woman that has these spots, and upon the spots themselves, and examine them of what kind they are:
and, behold, if the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white; their whiteness is not strong, as Jarchi observes; but dusky and obscure, or "contracted" (w); small white spots, not large and spreading:
it is a freckled spot that grows in the skin; a kind of morphew, which the above writer describes as a sort of whiteness which appears in the flesh of a ruddy man:
he is clean; from leprosy; this is observed, lest a person that is freckled and has a morphew should be mistaken for a leprous person; as every man that has some spots, failings, and infirmities, is not to be reckoned a wicked man.
and, behold, if the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white; their whiteness is not strong, as Jarchi observes; but dusky and obscure, or "contracted" (w); small white spots, not large and spreading:
it is a freckled spot that grows in the skin; a kind of morphew, which the above writer describes as a sort of whiteness which appears in the flesh of a ruddy man:
he is clean; from leprosy; this is observed, lest a person that is freckled and has a morphew should be mistaken for a leprous person; as every man that has some spots, failings, and infirmities, is not to be reckoned a wicked man.
(w) "costractae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.