Metzorah Slides (pdf)
Metzorah Notes (pdf)
Overview of Metzoraha (“Leper”) Leviticus 14:1 – 15:33
In a 12-month Torah Cycle, this week’s Portion would be included with last week’s as a Double Portion; and they fit together nicely: Tazria (last week) was about the diagnosis of leprosy in a person; Metzorah (this week) is about cleansing after leprosy….but there are no instructions concerning the healing of leprosy. Man cannot heal leprosy – only God can do that!
Chapter 14 Cleansing Lepers
We move from diagnosing leprosy in the last chapter to the purification of the leper in this chapter…skipping completely over their healing! There is only one person healed of leprosy recorded in the Tanach: Na’aman, and we read about that supernatural healing in last week’s Haftarah. We see many lepers healed by Yeshua in the New Covenant; so our conclusion has to be that only Yehovah can heal leprosy.
This chapter (also a very long one) gives the elements of the Cleansing Offering: two clean birds, running water, cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop. When we get to Numbers 19 and the Red Heifer sacrifice, we will see these same elements…because that is also describing a purification process. One of the birds is killed and its blood is mixed into the running water; the living bird, cedar, scarlet and hyssop are dipped in the water/blood mixture; and that water of purification is then sprinkled seven times on the leper; he is then pronounced to be clean and the living bird is set free. He washes himself, shaves off all his hair, changes his clothes, and is quarantined for 7 days. On the seventh day he repeats the procedure of the first day, and on the eighth day he returns to the camp and makes a Trespass Offering (to atone for sins against his fellow man), a Sin Offering (to atone for sins against Yehovah), Burnt, and Meal Offerings. The blood of the Trespass Offering is applied to his ear, thumb and toe – just as the Priests were sanctified.
The chapter ends with the treatment of ‘leprosy’ in a house; again, this ‘leprosy’ is obviously something more than just a skin ailment. The Priest is the one making the determination of this plague of leprosy and advising the ‘cure.’ First the house is shut up uninhabited for seven days; if, after seven days the plague of leprosy has spread, then the infected walls are torn down and replaced with new walls. If the plague returns then the entire house is burned down. If, on the other hand, the plague is removed from the house, then the Priest performs the same purification procedure as we saw earlier with the birds, cedar, scarlet and hyssop.
When we fail, God extends His mercy to us. If we confess and repent (change our ways) then we return into covenant with Him. But if the “leprosy is still on the walls” then He will tear down the house! Beware!!
Chapter 15 Laws Concerning Uncleanness
These are situations involving general bodily discharges, discharges from sexual intercourse, and from a woman’s monthly cycle. Again, you are welcome to read the details in this chapter but I won’t dwell upon them here.
What we have learned in this Portion puts the parable of the Good Samaritan into perspective. The incident took place on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Both the Priest and the Levite who encountered the beaten, bloodied man had probably just completed their Temple service (according to their Course of the Priesthood – I Chronicles 24:1-19) in Jerusalem and were on their way to their homes in Jericho. Coming into contact with the bodily fluids of the beaten man would have required them to turn around and make the trip all the way back to Jerusalem to undergo the 7-day purification process before they could return to their homes in Jericho… so they passed him by. Then the hated Samaritan comes along…and we know the rest of the story. Yeshua used the understanding of this week’s Portion to make His point about who our neighbor is.
This is part of the sanctification process that we are all in: we strive for holiness but sometimes stumble and give in to our flesh. Just as Leviticus gives the remedy for this uncleanness, we in the New Covenant also have a remedy. Our S-I-N defect comes not from diseases of our skin, but rather from a defect of our hearts: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The point of all of this is to say that under the imposed Law there is a remedy when one becomes unclean revealed in this week’s Portion. There is also a remedy for us who are in a covenant relationship with Yehovah: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
The Haftarah Reading (II Kings 7:3 – 20)
This week’s Haftarah is the story of four men stricken by tzara’at, a skin ailment caused by sins — the main topic of this week’s Torah Portion. The backdrop to this story: the Assyrians were besieging the Northern Kingdom and the resulting famine was catastrophic…causing the inhabitants to resort to cannibalism. Four men suffering from tzara’at were dwelling in quarantine outside the city. They were starving and decided to approach the enemy camp to beg for food; they found only a deserted camp. They went into the city to report their findings to the gatekeepers. We read II Kings 7:3-20:
“Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.” And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one was there. For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses—the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!” Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact—their tents, their horses, and their donkeys—and they fled for their lives. And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid them; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried some from there also, and went and hid it. Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, “We went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly no one was there, not a human sound—only horses and donkeys tied, and the tents intact.” And the gatekeepers called out, and they told it to the king’s household inside. So the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “Let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore they have gone out of the camp to [c]hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city.’ ” And one of his servants answered and said, “Please, let several men take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they may either become like all the multitude of Israel that are left in it; or indeed, I say, they may become like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed; so let us send them and see.” Therefore they took two chariots with horses; and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army, saying, “Go and see.” And they went after them to the Jordan; and indeed all the road was full of garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king. Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. Now the king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him. So it happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “Two seahs of barley for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, shall be sold tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.” Then that officer had answered the man of God, and said, “Now look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” And he had said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.”
The Brit Chadashah (Mark 1:40-45)
There is no record of a leper being healed in the Tanach; the closest we get to that is last week’s Haftarah of Na’anam being “healed” when he washed himself in the (dirty) Jordan River. No Priest nor any other man laid his ands upon Na’aman to rid him of leprosy. But the Brit Chadashah has not one, but two stories of Yeshua healing lepers. Luke 17:11-19 tells the story of Yeshua healing ten lepers; and Mark also tells of Him healing leprosy. In both cases He told the healed lepers to show themselves to the Priest so he could start the Levitical purification process found in this week’s Torah Portion. We read from Mark 1:40-45:
“Now a leper came to Him [Yeshua], imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Yeshua, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them. However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Yeshua could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction.”