Week 47, Day 5: Leprosy

Today’s Reading:  Leviticus 12:1 – 13:59

Some thoughts from the reading..

We begin to have instructions regarding another function of the priests.  The priests were responsible for helping to keep the people of Israel clean.  This included identifying conditions that would make a person unclean.  In this case it is cases of leprosy that caused the person to be unclean.  So we have an extensive account of how the priest is to identify when a condition is leprosy or not.  What that unclean, leprous, person is supposed to then do is only addressed here in 2 verses (13:45-46).  There will be more given on this subject in upcoming chapters.

I am not familiar with leprosy.  It sounds like it was more common a long time ago or in third world countries.  Does anyone know why we do not have more cases of it today?

Question:  Why do you think the role of pronouncing something or someone unclean would fall to the priests?  What does this indicate about the role that the priests had in Israel?

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