14:1–2a The Lord gives instructions to Moses concerning the ritual restoration of the person who has been healed of defiling skin disease. The instructions describe the purification rites following his healing.

14:2b–3 The purification rite shows a steady and progressive movement through space (toward the sanctuary) and time (toward the eighth day) to signal newness of life. The rite begins outside the camp, where the person had been forced to live while he was afflicted (13:46). The priest goes out to inspect the person who has received healing from the Lord. Priests are enabled to move through the spheres of holy ground inside the tabernacle and common space outside the camp to facilitate the rites that move the unclean person into a clean ritual state.

14:4 Two wild birds are taken together with cedarwood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop outside the camp, where the rite will be performed. These same materials are found also in the rite of purification from corpse contamination (Num. 19:6), further supporting the view that the spreading skin disease is identified conceptually with death (Lev. 13:45; Num. 12:12). The skin-diseased person and the one who has touched a corpse are in the same category of having had a brush with death.

The two birds must be “living,” a word that could also be rendered “wild.” The use of a wild bird makes it more likely that it will fly away when released into the open.166 The only other use of a “living”/“wild” animal is the goat for the purification rite on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:10, 20–21). It is possible that specifying these animals as wild signals that they are not sacrifices, since only domesticated animals are offered as sacrifices.167 In addition identifying the birds as “living”/“wild” touches on a number of other usages of this word: skin disease that makes a person unclean by exposing raw flesh (Hb. “living” flesh; 13:10, 14, 15, 16, 24) is purified by blood from “living” birds (14:4, 6, 7), mixed with “living” water (vv. 5, 6). The drumbeat of life courses through the chapter.

Cedarwood is fragrant and durable, resisting decay. Hyssop (wild marjoram) is a bushy shrub whose leaves absorb liquid. It was tied together in bunches and used to sprinkle blood on the doorposts of Israelite houses at the Passover (Ex. 12:22–23). Associated with the sprinkling of purification rites (Num. 19:18), it appears in the prayer of the penitent longing to be cleansed: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps. 51:7). Cedarwood and scarlet yarn have a red hue that associates them with blood, the most powerful agent of purification,168 perhaps to amplify its power.

14:5–7 The two birds play an important role in the person’s movement from outside to inside the camp. One of the birds supplies the blood for the purification ceremony. Its neck is wrung over an earthen vessel and its blood mixed with “fresh water” (Hb. “living water”; Lev. 14:6, 50, 51, 52), that is, water that comes from a flowing source, such as a spring or a running stream. Living water is used for cleansing major impurities (15:13; Num. 19:17 [cf. ESV mg.]).

The performance of the rite suggests that the hyssop branch is tied to the cedarwood with the scarlet yarn, dipped into the blood of the slain bird, and used as a brush for sprinkling. The sevenfold sprinkling recalls the Day of Atonement purification rites (16:15, 19). However, this is the only rite wherein blood is sprinkled on a person for cleansing. Sprinkling with blood is found in two other solemn rites: the ordination that consecrates the priesthood for service on holy ground (8:24, 30) and the covenant ceremony in which the people are dashed with the blood of sacrifice (Ex. 24:8). Read together, these inform how the skin-diseased person who has been outside of the covenant community is readmitted into the congregation. The ordination rite enabled Aaron and his sons to cross the boundary from common into holy ground. The purification rite enabled an Israelite to cross the boundary from exile into the camp. The blood-bond of the covenant is worn upon his healed body through sprinkling as a renewal of his membership among the people of God.

The person healed of skin disease is declared ritually “clean,” just as he had formerly been pronounced “unclean.” The live bird is then dipped in the earthen vessel with the blood of the slain bird and released into the open field. The release of the live bird anticipates the rite on the Day of Atonement, wherein one goat is offered as a purification sacrifice and the other is released into the wilderness, where it removes the community’s impurity (Lev. 16:8–10, 21–22). Here one bird is killed and the other released into the open country. Does the released bird carry away the person’s impurity, like the scapegoat does for the nation?169 Does dipping the live bird in the blood of the slain symbolize the sufferer’s close brush with death and his freedom in newness of life?170 Leviticus itself does not explain the symbolism. Those undergoing the rite do so in faith that it cleanses them (cf. 2 Kings 5:13–14). Although the text does not explain what the two birds symbolize, it is clear that purification is a process through which the healed person is passing from death (outside the camp) to life (inside the camp).

14:8 The person being purified bathes and launders his clothes, as in cleansing from a major impurity (Lev. 15:13). In addition he shaves off all his hair. Once within the camp the person being cleansed must wait a full seven days before appearing at the sanctuary, a period of time marking passage from one ritual state to another. The weeklong waiting period is shared in common with other major impurities (15:13, 24, 28). The difference in the case of skin disease is that the person may not enter his own tent during this time, suggesting that some residual impurity associated with death still clings to him. Death’s impurity would contaminate every person and object inside a home (21:11; Num. 19:14).

14:9 The seven-day period is transitional, a liminal state at the ritual boundary in which the person is readmitted to the camp but not yet fully restored to the congregation. It recalls the ordination of the priests, who must remain at the entrance to the tent of meeting for seven days to complete their consecration (Lev. 8:33). On the seventh day the person being cleansed once again shaves all his hair, especially that of his head and face. Shaving embodies a new identity and ritual status, seen with the completion of a Nazirite vow, the consecration of Levites to service, and the assimilation of a captive woman into an Israelite household (Num. 6:18; 8:7; Deut. 21:12). The person then launders his clothes and bathes in preparation for meeting with the Lord. He must be restored to the Lord before being restored to his family and community.

14:10–11 On the eighth day the person being cleansed assembles a substantial collection of offerings: two male lambs, one ewe lamb a year old, and a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for each of the three lamb offerings. He also brings a measure of oil (about 1/3 quart [0.4 l]) that will be used to anoint him. Such a great amount of sacrificial offerings for an average worshiper speaks to the extreme impurity he has suffered. The purified person is stationed “before the Lord,” a technical phrase signifying the closest a person may come into God’s presence (Lev. 14:12, 16, 18, 24, 27, 29, 31).171 In this act of presentation he is once more recognized as a worshiper.

14:12–18 The lamb of the guilt offering and the measure of oil are “waved” before the Lord in an act of dedication that consecrates the blood and oil to be applied to the person’s body for purification. A guilt offering is typically made in cases of sacrilege that violate the Lord’s holy property (5:15), though there is no indication that the skin-diseased person has sinned.172

Throughout the multiple stages of the rite its focus is always purification. Could the offering be to atone for an unknown sacrilege that may have brought about the disease (cf. 5:17)?173 Could the sanctuary’s loss be that of tithes and offerings while the person was afflicted with skin disease?174 Conceptually the offering may be likened to the guilt offering brought by the Nazirite, whose consecration is desecrated by contact with death (Num. 6:9–12). It could be that the diseased person himself is regarded as the Lord’s “holy property” and his entanglement with death, even symbolically, as theft from the living God. The guilt offering is mandated for holy things that have been desacralized. This is precisely the situation of one of God’s holy people (Ex. 19:6) who has been cut off from the sanctuary. The guilt offering is the logical choice for reparation to the Lord and repatriation into holy community.

Some of the blood of the guilt offering is reserved and applied to the physical extremities of the recovered person: the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of his right foot, recalling the ordination of the priests, who were set apart for divine service by these same actions (Lev. 8:23–24). As the daubing of blood on the priestly bodies consecrated them to holy ground, so the blood application to the body of the one healed of skin disease reestablishes his relationship to the sanctuary.

Next the priest takes some of the oil, pours it in his palm, and sprinkles it with his finger toward the sanctuary (“before the Lord”) seven times—perhaps to consecrate it—before applying it to the person. It is applied to the same bodily extremities as was the blood, and the rest is poured over the head, again recalling priestly anointing (8:12, 30). The act speaks to an elevation of status, especially as one emerges from mourning into the joyous fellowship of life with anointing “instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning” (Isa. 61:3).

14:19–20 The remaining sacrifices emphasize atonement that leads to the restoration of covenant relationship with the Lord. The sin (purification) offering on its own is for cleansing the sanctuary from defilement (Lev. 16:14–19), but, when it also involves the ritual purification of a worshiper (which is the focus here), it is accompanied by other offerings (12:6–7; 15:15, 30; Num. 6:11), underscoring that purification is not an end in itself but the first step to restoring fellowship with God. The burnt offering together with its grain portion is made for atonement and to reestablish the worship of the exiled person, who has now come home. With sanctuary and worshiper fully cleansed the person restored from sickness and death is pronounced clean for the final time (Lev. 14:20).

14:21–22 Throughout Scripture the Lord makes provision for the poor to participate in worship (5:7–13; 12:8). Those who are unable to afford the array of sacrifices may bring instead as their offering one male lamb for a guilt (reparation) offering, a tenth (in place of three tenths) of a measure of fine flour, and two turtledoves or pigeons (in place of flock animals) for the sin and burnt offerings. The lamb for the guilt offering and log of oil for anointing are nonnegotiable and remain the same, demonstrating their importance in the performance of purification.

14:23–32 The ritual performance for complete restoration is the same: sacrifice of the guilt offering and anointing with blood and oil, followed by the purification and burnt offerings. Even though a poor person’s contribution is less, it may represent a greater sacrifice than that of those with means (Mark 12:42–44).

14:33–42 The final section on restoration from tsaraʿat disease addresses the diagnosis and purification of infected houses, just as the previous chapter addressed the diagnosis and purification of infected garments (Lev. 13:47–59). These laws also anticipate life in the land of Canaan where people will dwell in houses of stone (14:34, 40).

If a case of disease appears in a home, the owner must report it to the priest and empty the house of all possessions, lest these be shut up in quarantine or pronounced unclean (v. 36). The priest examines the house as he might examine a person. If signs of disease, decay, or death appear on the walls, presenting as a visible mold, mildew, or fungus with greenish or reddish spots, the home is quarantined for seven days (vv. 37–38). If after seven days the disease has spread, the affected stones and plaster are removed and cast into an unclean location beyond the city’s boundary (v. 40). The inside of the house is scraped and the dismantled walls replaced with fresh stones and replastered.

14:43–47 If the contaminating disease continues to spread in the house, it is pronounced unclean (v. 44). It is torn down and its construction materials of stone, timber, and plaster discarded outside the city’s boundary. Should anyone go inside the house while it is under quarantine, he will contract a secondary impurity (cf. 15:5–11, 16–18, 21–23). Anyone who eats or sleeps in it will contract impurity that requires laundering his clothes.

14:48–53 If the priest inspects the house and finds that the disease has not spread after being replastered, the house is declared clean and the disease “healed” (v. 48). The procedure for cleansing the house recalls the ritual for restoring impure persons. The priest performs the same rite with two birds, together with cedarwood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. One bird is killed, and the other is dipped into the mixture of blood and water. The home is sprinkled seven times, as a skin-diseased person might be, and pronounced clean. The other bird is released into the open country, removing defilement and purging the house from impurity (v. 53).

14:54–57 The concluding statement brings the two chapters together in its summary. Divine instruction given to the priests is for any case of afflicting disease, whether on persons, clothing, or houses, so that Israel might distinguish between unclean and clean.