Healing the Leper

Leviticus 14:1-7 “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest: and the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water: as for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water: and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.”

It is a curious fact that from the giving of the Mosaic law up until the time Jesus arrived on the scene, there is no biblical record of a leper being healed by the method prescribed by the Mosaic law above. There are several names of actual lepers spoken of in the bible, some Jewish and some Gentile, but aside from Moses and Miriam (both of whom were special cases and both of whom were healed by God directly, not per the instructions of the Mosaic law as far as I can tell) the only ones ever healed were Gentiles. Gentiles did not fall under the guidelines of the Mosaic law. All Jews who were leprous during that period between the Mosaic law and the time of Jesus, died lepers. They were never healed! I find that very curious indeed.

It has been suggested by a man in England named Beresford Job that this is because healing a leper as prescribed by the Mosaic law was something understood to be possible only by the Messiah Himself.

I find that a very interesting theory as, if you continue to read the remainder of Leviticus 14 dealing with the cleansing of the leper (verses 8-32), you could not help but be struck by (as you should also have been struck by verses 1-7 above) how much of what was prescribed seems to foretell of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Yet how many of the religious Jews of Jesus’ time recognized this about Him? Or did they recognize it, yet still turn their backs on Him (as Beresford Job implies is the case.)

What is funny is that one king of Judah, during this period of time that we are dealing with between the Mosaic law and Jesus, threw up his hands in shock and dismay that someone (the Syrian King) would ask HIM to implore to God for the healing of a particular leper: that leper being Naaman, the Gentile captain of the Syrian army. What tremendous lack of faith was shown by this king of Judah!

Fortunately, Elijah, man of God, saved the day for the glory of God, and passed on the Lord’s directions for healing to Naaman, who although at first reticent to do what was instructed, eventually did heed the advice of his servants to listen to this man of God and do whatever he said, thus bringing about Naaman’s complete healing of leprosy. [See 2 Kings chapter 5]

The only other cases of leprosy I could find in the Old Testament other than what has already been mentioned are these in which all were Jews and none were ever healed:

2 Samuel 3:29 “May his blood fall upon the head of Joab [a Jew]and upon all his father's house! May Joab's house never be without someone who has a running sore or leprosy or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food."

2 Kings 5:27 “The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto they seed for ever. And he [Gehazi, greedy servant of Elijah] went out from his [Elijah’s] presence a leper as white as snow.”

2 Kings 15:5 “The Lord afflicted the king [Azariah, King of Judah] with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house.

2 Chronicles 26:21 – “And Uzziah the king [of Judah] was a leper unto the day of his death...”

And then we arrive in the New Testament, and find that Jesus heals a leper who is also a Jew:

Matthew 8:2-4 “And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.”

We know that he was a Jew because Jesus told him to go to the priest of the Jewish temple, taking the offering that Moses commanded. Obviously only a Jew would know what that meant.

The words of Jesus here are also confirmation to us that he gave the healed leper these instructions for the purpose of reminding the priest of what was written in the Mosaic law, and giving an opportunity for the priest (and all those of his kind at the temple) some insight as to who exactly Jesus was. For, if no other Jew had ever been healed before, if this Mosaic law had remained unused through the centuries until this moment, then this had to say something very remarkable about Jesus, did it not?

Wouldn’t any honorable Jewish priest, wanting to be obedient to God in all things, get a little excited about this? Maybe want to dig deeply into scriptures to see what this might possibly mean? Could this be the Messiah, for example?

But they didn’t recognize Him as the Messiah from this particular miracle. Do you know who did (besides his disciples)? John the Baptist.

Sometime later after that miracle took place, we see in chapter 11 of Matthew, John the Baptist is in prison awaiting his execution, and he sends two of his disciples to Jesus with a question:

“And [they] said unto Him [Jesus], Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”

I always wondered why Jesus answered them in this manner. It seemed to me sort of as though He were avoiding the answer in a way, but in fact, if healing the lepers, and restoring blindness to one who was blind from birth, and healing the lame who also had been lame from birth (others miracles that the religious priests had never seen done before) were in fact miracles only the Messiah would do, then John the Baptist, being full of the knowledge of scripture, would recognize Jesus to be the Messiah by the very things that the religious folk would NOT recognize Him by.

Therefore the answer Jesus gave was scriptural confirmation for that other man of God.

There is more to be said about the miracles of Jesus and the religious folk of His time, and I will go into that tomorrow. But in the study of all of this today, I found this interesting bit of information about the ways in which the Talmud spoke absolutely contrary to the word of God, and in such a way that I don’t think they thought very highly of John the Baptist:

From the Talmud in the Tractate Shabbot (laws concerning the Sabbath):

"R. Jehudah says: A locust (which must not be eaten)," etc. Why did not the first Tana of the Mishna mention this? Because in his opinion it is forbidden to carry it even on week-days, lest one eat it. If such is the case, why should an eatable locust be allowed to be carried? Did not R. Kahana stand before Rabh and a small locust lighted on his lips: Rabh said to him. (R. Kahana), Take it away, lest people say that thou hast eaten it and thou hast violated the commandment [Leviticus, xi. 43]: "Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth"?

Unfortunately, the Rabbis (R before the names indicates it is a Rabbi speaking) created a law forbidding the eating of locusts using one scripture out of context, ignoring completely a scripture written just previous to it in the same chapter of Leviticus that said eating locusts was NOT forbidden:

Leviticus 11:23 “Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.”

By the standards of the Talmud, John the Baptist was guilty of breaking the law. By the standards of the Mosaic law, he was not guilty.

Be sure to read all of Leviticus 14 (the opening scripture for today's blog posting).