John Calvin Commentary Leviticus 13

When a man shall have in the skin. Since every eruption was not leprosy and did not make a man unclean, when God appoints the priests to be the judges, He distinguishes by certain marks a common eruption from leprosy. He then adds the difference between the various kinds of leprosy.

For the disease was not always incurable, but only when the blood was altogether corrupted, so that the skin itself had become hardened by its corrosion or swollen by its diseased state. This, then, must be observed first: the Greek and Latin word lepra, and the Hebrew צרעת tzaragmath, extend further than to the incurable disease, which physicians call elephantiasis,⁴ due to both the hardness of the skin and its mottled color. However, this is not to say there is an entire agreement between the thickness of a human's skin and that of an elephant, but rather because this disease causes the skin to become insensible. The Greeks call this Ψώρα, and if it is not a kind of leprosy, it is nearly allied to it.

Thus we see that there was a distinction between the scab and leprosy, just as nowadays, if it were necessary to judge concerning the itch (which is commonly called the disease of St. Menanus),⁵ the marks that distinguish it from leprosy must be observed.

But, as to the various kinds of leprosy, I confess that I am not a physician, so I cannot discuss them accurately. I purposely abstain from close inquiry about them because I am persuaded that the disease discussed here affected the Israelites in an extraordinary manner, one with which we are now unacquainted. For what do we now know of a leprous house?

Indeed, it is probable that, since heathen writers knew that the Jewish people suffered from this disease, they seized upon it as the basis for their falsehood: that all the descendants of Abraham were infected with the itch and were driven away from Egypt, so that others would not catch it from them. That⁶ this was an ancient calumny is apparent from Josephus, both in the ninth book of his Antiquities and in his Treatise against Apion; and it is repeated by both C. Tacitus and Justin.

Yet I have no doubt that the Egyptians, a very proud nation, invented this lie in order to erase the memory of their own disgrace and of the vengeance God inflicted upon them. They thus grossly turned against this innocent people what had happened to themselves when they were smitten with boils and blains. But we will see later, among God’s curses, that He chastised His people with the same plagues He had inflicted on the Egyptians:

The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, etc. (Deuteronomy 28:27).

From this, it may probably be inferred that God avenged the crimes of His ancient people with special judgments, which are now unknown to us, just as new diseases later arose from which people in old times were free. At any rate, Josephus, by clear and solid arguments, exposes the absurdity of this accusation: that Moses was driven from Egypt with a crowd of exiles so that they would not infect the country with their disease. For if they had been universally affected with this malady, he never would have imposed such severe laws for separating lepers from general society.

God first commands that, whenever a suspicion of leprosy arose, the man was to present himself to the priest. If any symptom of leprosy appeared, He commands him to be shut up for seven days, until it should appear from the progress of the disease that it was incurable leprosy. That God appointed the priests to be judges—and those, too, only of the highest order—is proof that His spiritual service was regarded more than mere bodily health.

If anyone inquires whether leprosy is not a contagious disease, and whether it is not therefore expedient that all who were affected by it should be removed from contact with others, I admit that this is indeed the case, but I deny that this was the main object in view. For, in time, physicians would have been better able to decide by their art and skill; whereas God entrusted this decision to the priests alone and gave them the rule by which they were to judge. Nor did He appoint the Levites indiscriminately, but only the sons of Aaron, who were the highest order, so that the authority of the decision might be greater.

It was, then, by a gross error, or rather impudence, that the Papal priests (sacrifici) assumed this jurisdiction for themselves. It was (they say) the office of the chief priests under the Law to distinguish between the kinds of leprosy; therefore, the same right is transferred to the bishops. But they carry the mockery still further: the official,⁷ the bishop’s representative, sits as the legitimate judge. He calls in physicians and surgeons, and from their answers, he pronounces what he himself confesses he is ignorant of. Behold how cleverly they adapt a legal rite to our times!

The mockery, however, is still more disgusting when, in another sense, they extend to the whole company of priests what they have said belongs solely to the bishops. For, since the sin under which all labor is a spiritual leprosy, from this they infer that all are excluded from the congregation of the faithful until they have been purged and received by absolution, which they hold to be the common office of all priests. They afterward add that judgment cannot be pronounced until the cause is heard, and so they conclude that confession is necessary.

But, if they choose to resort to subtleties, reason would rather lead us to the opposite conclusion. For God did not desire the priests to take cognizance of a hidden disease, but only after the manifest symptoms had appeared. From this it will follow that it is preposterous to bring secret sins to judgment, and that wretched people are dragged to their confession contrary to all law and justice.

But, setting aside all these absurdities, an analogy must be observed between us and God’s ancient people. He, in old times, forbade the external uncleanness of the flesh to be tolerated in His people. By Christ’s coming, the typical figure has ceased; but we are taught that all uncleanness by which the purity of His services is defiled is not to be cherished or tolerated among us.

And surely excommunication corresponds to this ceremony, since by it the Church is purified, so that corruptions do not everywhere assail it if wicked and guilty persons occupy a place in it promiscuously with the good. The command of God that, while the disease was obscure and questionable, the infected person should be shut up for seven days, recommends moderation to us, so that no one who is still curable should be condemned before his time.

In fact, this balance is to be observed: the judge should not be too remiss and hasty in pardoning, and yet he should temper severity with justice, and especially he should not be too precipitate in his judgment. What we translate “shall pronounce him clean, or unclean,” is in Hebrew, “shall clean, or unclean him;” thus the dignity of the judgment is more fully established, as though it had proceeded from God Himself. And assuredly, no medical skill could declare on the seventh day a leprosy to be incurable, concerning which there was doubt so short a time before, unless God, in some special manner, should discover the uncleanness and guide the eyes of the priests by His Spirit.

If a man or woman. What is spoken of here is not the baldness that so often occurs in old age; but that loss of hair, which is the consequence of leprosy, is distinguished from any other, whose cause may be some ailment, and which nevertheless does not defile a person. But, since some kinds of baldness do not differ so greatly at first sight from leprosy—such, for instance, as ophiasis and alopecia⁸—it is therefore necessary to distinguish them.

He is a leprous man, he is unclean. In the first part of the verse, it says that the leprous man must be considered unclean; but, in the latter part, it commands the priest to pronounce judgment against this uncleanness, so that it would not spread to the congregation. On this basis, it says, “his plague is upon his head,” which is to say that he is sentenced to rightful public shame, for Moses takes it for granted that God holds up to public infamy whoever He strikes with leprosy, and from this reminds them that they justly and deservedly bear this punishment.

The two following verses describe how the sentence was executed: namely, that the man was to wear a tear in his garment as a mark of his disgrace, walk with his head bare, and with his mouth covered (for I understand this to be the meaning of covering his lip). Additionally, he was to be the proclaimer of his own pollution. Finally, he had to live outside the camp, as if banished from contact with other people.

Moses here⁹ refers to the situation of the people as long as they lived in the desert; for after they began to inhabit the land, lepers were driven out of the towns and villages to live by themselves.

I do not know if the opinion of some is sound, that they were commanded to cover the mouth or lip so that they would not injure others by the infection of their breath. My own view, rather, is that because they were civilly dead, they also bore the symbol of death by having their faces covered, as their separation deprived them of the ordinary life of men.

Where we translate “shall cry, Unclean, unclean,” some, taking the verb יקרא (yikra),¹⁰ indefinitely, construe it passively as “shall be called,”; and I admit that in many passages it has the same force as if it were in the plural.

But, because the repetition of the word “unclean” is emphatic, it is probable that the word is not to be taken simply as “to call” (vocare); therefore, I am more inclined to the opinion that, by the command of the Law, they warned everyone with their own mouths not to approach them, so that no one would incautiously pollute himself by touching them, although their uncleanness was perhaps also proclaimed publicly, so that all might urge each other to be careful. And Jeremiah seems to allude to this passage where, speaking¹¹ of the defilements of the city, he says that all men cried,

Unclean; fly you, fly you. (Lamentations 4:15)