The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 246

because they are superficial, strike the eye, provoke general remark, and stand in th& way of effective service. 1. It is right that those who observe them in others should remember that they are O'Tlly blemishes, and nothing more; detracting in some degree from " the beauty of holiness," but not inconsistent with real and even admirable excellence. "He is bald, yet he is clean" (ver. 40). 2. It is right that those who possess them should reflect, and act on the reflection, that these things, though only blemishes, may importantly diminish the power of the possessor to influence, guide, and win other people. The candle (character) is of much more importance than the candlestick (mental habit), but if character be obscured by some darkening "bushel," and not put on the candlestick of pleasant and agreeable habits, it will not "give light to all that are in the house" (Matt. v. 15), II. THE EVIL OF ERBOB. There might come on the bald head a spot, a sore; this might be e. "white reddish sore "-leprous (vers. 42, 43). But it might not; it might be nothing but e. boil or some cutaneous disorder, which was not leprosy. In that case the p11tient would be treated as described in vers. 2-6. There would be something wrong, bnt it was not the unclean thing, leprosy. There is a mental disease which is something more serious than peculiarity and SQmething Jess serious than guilty perversity. It is error; the arrival at wrong conclusions. There may be but small faultiness in coming to convictions which are not correct, but there may be positive disaster resulting therefrom. A man may innocently take the wrong road, but his innocency will not save him from walking into the bog or over the precipice to which it leads. Error is not the worst thing in the world, but it is a seriously bad and dangerous thing. When we are earnestly warned, by obviously thoughtful e.nd godly men, that we are wrong in our judgments, it becomes WI to listen patiently and consider well whether we a.re in the right track, or whether we have mistaken a false path for the "path of life." III. THE SIN OF MENTAL PERVERSITY. (Vars. 4-3, 44.) There is great significance in the sentence "the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean." The man who had leprosy in the head was accounted unclean in an especial degree: he was utterly unclean. Sin, of which this m11lady was so striking a type, never assumes so dangerous a phase as when it appears in the form of a perverted judgment or a darkened con- science. When, by sinning, a man he.a blunted his spiritual perceptions so thllt he "calls evil good, and good evil," he is in the last stage of moral decline ; death is near at hand. If" our eye be evil" (if our judgment be perverted, our faculty of spiritual perception be diseased), our "whole body is full of darkness;" if "the light that is in us" (our own mental and spiritual faculty) be darkness, how great is th11t darkness!" (Matt. v. 23). Witness the Pharisees in their treatment of our Lord. We may well be actively on our guard against, and may well be earnest in prayer that God will deliver us from, that of which leprosy in the head is the painful picture,-& guilty, blinding, ruinous perversity of mind.-C. Ver. 46.-The right and duty of ezcommunlcaticm, "He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be." The right of expulsion from the Jewish camp would be founded, in the mind of Moses, on the Divine commandment (text; Numb. v. 2, etc.). That was all-sufficient for the great legislator. We may, however," justify the ways of God to men " to our mind by the considerations: 1. That if the disease were not positively contagioWI, the dread of contagion would be most harmful to the community. 2. That the exceeding repulsiveness of the loper was ample reason for his being kept from the sight of men, women, and children. 3. '!'hat the most important and salutary lesson concerning sin was thereby vividly enforced, viz. that the sinner is, through his iniquity, separated from all that is purest and best. Unquestionably, with this and other clear commandments from Jehovah, it was both the right and the duty of the Hebrew commonwealth to expel the leper from the camp. Excommunication from human society is a sad and severe measure; but it is, in mnny cases, lawful and even obligatory. The foul and the" unclean" must be separated sometimes, even now and here, from the holy e.nd the pure. Excommunication may be- I. THE BIGHT AND DUTY OF THE NATION, 1. The nation has e. right to transport or imprisoil those of its members who have committed crime, and who have shown that their presence "in the camp" Is noxious and daQgerous to the rest. 2. The nation LEVITlCUB. P .210 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [ea. xm. 47-50