Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/897

 leprosy.” The apodosis to Lev 13:9 and Lev 13:10 commences with Lev 13:11. חי בּשׂר living, i.e., raw, proud flesh. מחיה the preservation of life (Gen 45:5), sustenance (Jdg 6:4); here, in Lev 13:10 and Lev 13:24, it signifies life in the sense of that which shows life, not a blow or spot (נגע, from מחה to strike), as it is only in a geographical sense that the verb has this signification, viz., to strike against, or reach as far as (Num 34:11). If the priest found that the evil was an old, long-standing leprosy, he was to pronounce the man unclean, and not first of all to shut him up, as there was no longer any doubt about the matter.

verses 12-13
If, on the other hand, the leprosy broke out blooming on the skin, and covered the whole of the skin from head to foot “with regard to the whole sight of the eyes of the priest,” i.e., as far as his eyes could see, the priest was to pronounce the person clean. “He has turned quite white,” i.e., his dark body has all become white. The breaking out of the leprous matter in this complete and rapid way upon the surface of the whole body was the crisis of the disease; the diseased matter turned into a scurf, which died away and then fell off.

verses 14-19
Lev 13:14-19 “But in the day when proud flesh appears upon him, he is unclean,...the proud flesh is unclean; it is leprosy.” That is to say, if proud flesh appeared after the body had been covered with a white scurf, with which the diseased matter had apparently exhausted itself, the disease was not removed, and the person affected with it was to be pronounced unclean. The third case: if the leprosy proceeded from an abscess which had been cured. In Lev 13:18 בּשׂר is first of all used absolutely, and then resumed with בּו, and the latter again is more closely defined in בּעורו: “if there arises in the flesh, in him, in his skin, an abscess, and (it) is healed, and there arises in the place of the abscess a white elevation, or a spot of a reddish white, he (the person so affected) shall appear at the priest's.”

Verse 20
If the priest found the appearance of the diseased spot lower than the surrounding skin, and the hair upon it turned white, he was to pronounce the person unclean. “It is a mole of leprosy: it has broken out upon the abscess.”

verses 21-23
But if the hair had not turned white upon the spot, and there was no depression on the skin, and it (the spot) was pale, the priest was to shut him up for seven days. If the mole spread upon the skin during this period, it was leprosy; but if the spot