EXPOSITION. Tm: LEPROSY OP A HOUSE, AND 1TB ple.ced at the end, and dealt with after the OLEANSING (vere. 33-53). The subject of rest of the subject has been discussed, being appended to the law of cleansing the leper, leprosy in houses must be regarded from instead of preceding it. And I put the the same point of view a.a that of leprosy plague of leprosy in a house of the land of in clothes. The regulations respecting it your posseeaion. This expression has led a.re not sanitary laws, as Lange repre- to the idea that the leprosy of houses waa sents them, but rest, as Keil argues, a special infliction e.t God's hand in a upon e.n ideal or symbolical basis. The me.oner different from other inflictions or disee.ees; but the words do not mean the.t. ea.me thought is attached to all species of All that is done is in o. sense done by God, uncleanness. Something-it matters not ine.emuch 1\8 his providence rules over all ; what-produces a foul e.nd repulsive o.p- e.nd, therefore, by whatever secondary ea.use peare.nce in the we.Us of e. house. That is a thing may be brought a.bout, it is he tho.t in itself sufficient to make that house un- does it. It is God the.t feecls the birds (Luke xii. 24 ), God that clothes the grasa clean; for whatever is foul and repulsive is (Luke xii. 28), nor does one spa.rrow fa.II to representative of moral e.nd spiritual defile- the ground without him (Me.tt. x. 29). It is ment, and therefore is itself eyrubolice.lly he, therefore, that puts the plague in a hoiue, defiling and defiled. It he.a be~n suggested a.a the Lord of e.ll things ( of. Isa.. xiv. 6, 7, that the special cause of the offeotion of the " I am the Lord, and there is none else. I houses in Canaan wns saltpetre exuding form the light, and create do.rknesa: I maki> peace, and create evil : I the Lord do o.11 from the materiols employed in their build- these things"). The expression militntes, ing, or iron pyrites in the stone used. Thie though not strongly, age.inst the notion may have been so, or more probably it we.a the.t the house caught the leprosy from the the growth of some fungus. Whatever it leper tho.t lived in it. was, the appearance created by it was so Vere. 35-44.-The exo.mino.tion of the similar to that of leprosy in the hume.n suspected house by the priest. First, the house is to be emptied of its furniture, lest body, as to derive its name from the latter the latter should contract a ceremonial un- by e.na.logy. cleanness in case the house were founcl to Ver. 84.-When ye be ooma into the land be leprous, but not, it will be notecl, lest it of Cana.an, whioh I give to you for a posses- should convey contagion or infection. Then sion. This is the first instance of o. law the priest is to examine the discolouration, being given which has no bearing on the e.nd if it bee.r o. suspicious o.ppce.rance, the present condition of the Israelites, but is to house is to be shut up for seven days. It rngulate their conduct when they had come at the end of tho.t time the spot ha.a spread, into the promised le.nd. From the time of he is to ha.ve the part of the wnll in which Abro.ham downwards, the assure.nee of their it shows itself to.ken clown o.nd co.rried entrance into that land had been possessed a.way, e.nd built up a.gain with new stones by the people of Israel (Gen. xvii. 8), and e.nd mortar and ple.ster, the parts adjoining the expectation of the speedy fulfilment of to the infected ple.ce having been first well that promise had been quickened by their scraped. If this treatment rloes not succeed exodus from Egypt, and the preparations in getting rid of the mischief, the priest is ma.de to march through the wilderness. to determine that it is a frettiDg leprosy 'in There would, therefore, be nothing sur- the house : it is unoleo.n. prising to them in receiving instruction, to Ver. 45.-As the leper was removed from guide their conduct when the entr~nce the camp, so the leprous house is to Le should have been effootecl. All the question utterly pulled down ; the house, the atones is one of leprosy, it is n11tural that it should of it, and the timber thereof, and all the be treated of with the leprosy of the human morter of the house; and all its nmtorials subjP,ct e.nd the leprosy of garments; but oarried forth out of the oit)' into an unoloa.n ns it is not of immedia.te application, it is plaoe. 228 THE BOOK llF LEVITICUS. [OH, XIV. 33-67.
Vers. 46, 47.-The leprous house conveys clennsing is effected by the same ceremony nnclee.nness to those the.t enter it, but of as that of the leper himself by the two l!O slight e. natur~ that it ceases with the birds, and oedar wood, and' eoarlet, and evening, and req mres only that the clothes hyssop: The use of this ceremony in the of the wearer be washed. Such a regula- cleansing of a house shows that in the oase tion would ha,e been ineffectual for pre- of the leper, the symbolical ~eaning of venting the spread of infection, if that had letting go the living bird out of the oity heen its purpose. into the open fields cannot be as has been Vers. 48-53.-The ceremony of cleansing maintained, the restoration of' the cleansed the house is as similar to that of cleansing man to his natural movements of liberty in the leper as circumstances will permit. In the camp. If a bird's flight represents the case there is no reappearance of the mischief freedom of a me.n going hither e.nd thither after the new stones and plastering have e.s he will, it certainly does not represent been pnt in, the priest shall pronounoe the any action that e. house could take. house olean, because the plague is healed. Vers. 54-57.-These verses contain the First, the priest assures himself that the concluding formula for che. xiii., xiv. The pl,ague is healed, then be pronouncea the various no.mes of leprosy e.nd its kindred house clean, and still after that the cleansing disee.ses a.re resumed from eh. xiii. 2. is to take place (cf. vers. 3, 7, 8). The