Leviticus Day 3

Today's Reading: Leviticus 11-15

Today's Devotion: Lev 14:1-11

Context: After an extensive list of things that will make a person 'unclean', God gives instructions for cleansing someone who has had a skin disease.

Text:

1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing, when he is brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine him. If the person has been healed of his infectious skin disease, 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed. 5 Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields.
8 "The person to be cleansed must wash his clothes, shave off all his hair and bathe with water; then he will be ceremonially clean. After this he may come into the camp, but he must stay outside his tent for seven days. 9 On the seventh day he must shave off all his hair; he must shave his head, his beard, his eyebrows and the rest of his hair. He must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water, and he will be clean.

10 "On the eighth day he must bring two male lambs and one ewe lamb a year old, each without defect, along with three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, and one log of oil. 11 The priest who pronounces him clean shall present both the one to be cleansed and his offerings before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. (NIV)

taken from www.biblegateway.com

Actually the instructions continue on for several more verses. In the close quarters of the Hebrew tents, it was vital to contain infectious diseases quickly. While it might seem harsh to send people outside of the camp in isolation, this practice may have saved many lives over the course of time.

It's hard to understand the rigidity of these instructions, but God has good reasons for all he requires...even if it is just to see if we will obey.

But if it wasn't enough to be sent outside the camp for a long period of time, the returning man or woman had to be sprinkled with the blood of a bird...and the sprinkling agent was a live bird (can you imagine the difficulty in that?). He or she then shaved his head, bathed, and lived outside of his tent for another week. All hair was then shaved again (and remember they didn't have safety razors!), sacrifices were made, and the person was clean. And all knew that he or she had been through this process for several weeks while the hair grew back.

We have times of isolation for health reasons these days, but few are as drastic as these. There is no mention of treatment options for those who were afflicted, but I imagine many of the elders had cures of some sort for a variety of ailments. I'm really glad God has allowed us to discover and use cures and treatments!