Leviticus 13:36, commentary and pictures

The rule for examination is that when the scall has spread in the skin the priest is to declare the person unclean without seeking further for yellow hair. It stands as part of the law of cleansing in Leviticus 12-15, under which an object had to be made visibly clean before the cleansing of the sanctuary with blood. It belongs to sanitary instructions concerning leprosy and other contagious or infectious conditions, and those chapters give especially valuable guidance about such conditions. Observing such sanitary law has real value for preserving life and preventing disease.

The passing of August 1913 without a single death from disease in the American colony in the Panama Canal Zone when modern sanitary laws were rigidly enforced serves as a modern object-lesson of that value. The laws of sanitation given through Moses still stand at the head of sanitary law. Their enduring preeminence proves that divine inspiration guided Moses.

Leprosy as described in the chapter in its utmost loathsomeness is a type or figure of sin as a dreadful, terrible moral disease embracing every kind of evil thing, widespread, infectious, and incurable by human means, never getting well of itself and needing healing. Like leprosy, sin spreads and consumes its victim, and has its chief seat within, polluting the source of life as well as bringing outward shame. Like leprosy, sin is contagious: the sinner contaminates the very atmosphere, introduces pollution where all before was comparative purity, and his society leads others to sin, giving more reason to fear his influence than to fear infection from a leper. The same loathsome leprosy is still as prevalent in the Holy Land as in scriptural days, and with other diseases of the same types as then it bears witness to scriptural truth, while its healing shows the power of Jesus Christ to heal.