Leprosy, like all diseases, marks the partial fall of a sick person into the sphere of impurity. The “impure” is the most elementary form of what Israel perceives as abominable to the Lord, because it contradicts life. While it awaits with hope that God’s “holiness” will finally come to encompass all profane impurity in the glory of God’s presence, Israel fears the threatening pressure of a deep evil that invades the world and penetrates even the innermost corners of material creation.
Physical evil, sin and impurity are therefore terms that are often interchangeable, as they allude to the same power by which Israel feels crushed, unless the Lord himself comes to its aid. Worship is the instrument that serves to guarantee a healthy, although temporary, containment of the “impure,” for the benefit of the purity that life needs. All the theological strands of the Old Testament, but in particular priestly theology, may be seen in this perspective.
To tell the truth, it is not even known exactly which particular disease the Hebrew word normally translated as “leprosy” designated. Certainly, it did not mean – or did not only mean – the evil that doctors and scientists today are accustomed to characterize with the specific term of their clinical vocabulary. In the Bible “leprosy” is often a generic term that serves to identify various skin diseases, sometimes contagious, but mostly only repugnant and unpleasant, as can happen in such cases (cf. Lev 13:1-44). In any case, these are mostly diseases whose symptoms are considered curable within a certain period of time.
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