Tazria, She conceived, & Metzora, Cleansing the Leper
Vayiqra (Leviticus) 12:1 – 13:59; 14:1 – 15:33
Melekim Bet (II Kings) 4:42 – 5:19; 7:3-20
Matthew 8:1-4, 9:20-26, 11:2-6; Mark 5:24-34
Have you ever felt hung up and don’t know how to get down and get moving in life? Does anyone have to be held up with anything in life like a bad rap or a dis-ease all their life? I’ve had to ask myself: is my hang-up with YHWH, or is it with me?
A Leper Comes to the Rabbi
And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Matthew 8:2
The Gospel writer doesn’t tell us why the leper questioned whether the Messiah was willing to heal Him or not. It makes sense that he believed in the power of the Messiah to heal. The leper probably saw and heard much evidence of healing going on among even the common people of the lowly estate. Why not go to the Healer and see if He could heal even his leprosy?
But lepers were hung up on the lowest of the low on the ladder of society. The leper who came to Yeshua had to be an isolated outcast whom no one could be around.
Command the sons of Israel, and they shall send every leper out of the camp… You shall send them to the outside of the camp. And they shall not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell. Numbers 5:2-3
Not only was a leper to be banished from the community but check out how he had to live:
And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ Leviticus 13:45
He had to declare and display his own bad rap. The poor guy had to live his life under constant humiliation and isolation. What a horrible way to have to live!
The Probable Cause
How did the guy get hung up in such a miserable state in the first place? Consider the Scriptural accounts of how whole people turned into lepers.
Miriam bad-mouthed Moses over his African wife; she questioned his authority to speak to the people bringing leprosy upon herself. (Numbers 12) But because Moses interceded for her sister, she was made whole and received seven days later back into the community by the grace of God. Yes, by the grace of God, a leper was healed and restored to her people even in the days of Moses as written in the Torah.
King Uzziah started as a righteous king of Judah but ended up a leper (2 Chron 26). He sought YHWH Who prospered the king. But his heart grew proud and he acted corruptly, burning incense that only the priests had the right to do. Uzziah became enraged with God’s priestly authority who told him, “Get out of the sanctuary!” So YHWH struck him with leprosy on his forehead before the priests in the house of God. Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. Rooted in pride, usurping and being enraged with authority in Yah’s house caused the king’s leprosy.
From these lessons in God’s Word, we can connect the cause-and-effect relationship of bad-mouthing and trying to usurp righteous authority to be a root cause for the affliction of biblical leprosy.
A Contagion
From the Torah, we learn that leprosy was contagious and could spread into other areas of the body, even the walls of a house. Like leprosy, gossip and evil speaking of righteous leaders can affect the members of a community with defilement, death, and dying of an entire community. Lashon harah can infect more and more members, who then have to be isolated and quarantined from public discourse, causing division and separation.
Could that be why lepers had to use their mouths to cry “unclean, unclean!” because they had used their mouths for evil speaking beforehand? Was it because they had used their mouths to defile and kill the good reputation of others’ righteous character, who influenced the community?
A leper like that would have known he deserved his affliction for running his mouth, infecting the whole community with lashon harah. Maybe he realized that he offended even God by bad-mouthing His authority on the earth. Leprosy was his just deserve.
Even the paleo Hebrew for the word ‘leper’ – ‘tsarua,’ confirms this cause-and-effect relationship. Tsarua is spelled tsade, resh, vav, and ayin. Right to left, the pictographs paint the picture of that which issues out (tsade) from the head (resh) and fastens (vav) an eye or a welt (ayin).
Paleo Hebrew interpretations should always be interpreted in the light of the known meaning of the word. It makes sense that what is issued out from the head would be evil speaking. Speaking lashon harah fastened the welt in the body. Wells in a landscape were known as the yes of the land, and welts in a body were known to be like eyes as well.
So why would the Master Yeshua be willing to heal, of all people – a leper?
The Love of God
Yeshua saves from the guttermost to the uttermost! His love lifts up the lowest. The fact is, we were all unclean, sin-sick, and sin-dying when we first came to the Master. Why would anyone come to the Lord of Heaven and Earth for healing unless they believed that He might, just might, show him favor? I believe that the leper was drawn by the amazing grace, the compelling love, and the favor of the Divine for his lost soul. The lovingkindness of our compassionate Savior saves even a wretch of a man like a leper. The compassion of our Messiah for the lost, the unclean, and the outcast is one thing I absolutely love about my Savior, my Messiah! Praise His Name!
The Big IF
Could it be that the leper was about to go even deeper into the amazing grace of our Messiah than any other sin-sick and sin-dying soul had come?
Even the Torah wouldn’t allow for a leper to approach anyone but a Levitical priest to be examined first, before going to anyone else in the community.
The Jewish Rabbi wasn’t known as a Levite priest, so Yeshua could have been justified in sending the leper away from the multitude. Other rabbis would have done just that.
Coming to Yeshua was a big step of faith in the love, favor, and healing power of the Messiah. The leper believed Yeshua loved people, but did he love him personally?
What was the Messiah’s response to the big IF –
“IF you are willing”?
Yeshua stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; to be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Matthew 8:3
The Touch of the Messiah
Not only did He say “I am willing,” The Messiah touched the leper. What other Torah-keeping rabbi would have done that? I dare say none other than Yeshua, only the Messiah could touch a leper and not break the Torah.
One of the most common words in all of the Gospels is ‘immediately.’ The unclean leper had to be healed IMMEDIATELY, or Yeshua would have broken the Torah and been defiled. How do we know that?
Command the sons of Israel, and they shall send every leper out of the camp… You shall send them to the outside of the camp. And they shall not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell. Numbers 5:2-3
Yeshua could have chosen to not touch him but to send him away outside the camp, lest he defile the multitude. But being Divine, the touch of the Messiah immediately made him completely clean without defiling Himself or anyone else.
One out of Ten Thank Yeshua
Out of ten lepers whom Yeshua healed, the one who returned to give God the glory and to thank Him was a Samaritan. Not only had he been an outcast due to his leprosy, but he was also a Samaritan, a foreigner, with whom the Jews had nothing to do with.
Let’s read the account of how the Good Shepherd went out to the outcasts of Israel; the number ten represents the ten tribes of Israel, exiled for their uncleanness.
While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him. Luke 17:11-12
No one was more outcast among Jews than lepers in Samaria. You just can’t get more outcast and isolated than that!
Like our Jewish Rabbi, shouldn’t we have a heart of compassion that goes out to the outcasts and rejects of our society? Paul wrote to the Romans to not be ‘haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.’ (Romans 12:16) Here’s a way to not be like proud King Uzziah, but to be like the humble King Yeshua.
And they raised their voices, saying, “Yeshua, Master, have mercy on us!” Luke 17:13
The lepers must have known about the mercy of the Savior given to the poor, common people of the day and how He healed them and lifted them up out of their lowly estate. If He had mercy on outcast demoniacs liberating and healing them, why not call on the Master to heal and liberate them as well?
When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were going, they were cleansed. Luke 17:14
Isn’t it amazing how Yeshua went around healing, but each happening was so unique and different from the others? This time, Yeshua didn’t touch the lepers, He simply sent them on their way to do the same thing we read about in the previous story – to go do what Moses said to do; to go show themselves to the priests (Mat 8:4). Here, Yeshua upholds keeping the Torah once again.
As the ten obeyed the word of the Lord, they were healed as they went to do what the Torah said to do. I believe this is the type of the last revival before Yeshua comes again. As the outcast exiles of Israel go home to the Promised Land, obeying the Master’s voice to do the Torah as He commands, then a healing revival will take place such that there won’t be a sick one among us, just like in the first exodus! Let’s look forward to the Greater Exodus! HalleluYah!
Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:15-16
The most outcast of outcasts, the Samaritan, turned back with the most grateful heart glorifying God, worshiping Yeshua and thanking Him.
In my early studies of Hebrew in the Scriptures, one of the first things I learned was how dynamic the Hebrew words for praise and worship really are. None of them describe the frozen chosen sitting with arms folded just watching others entertain them by doing the praising. All Hebrew words are dynamic, all-out expressions of praise, worship, and thanksgiving to our Elohim.
A common word for praise is ‘yadah.’ It means literally to throw the yod, throw hands up in the air to praise Him. A cognate word is ‘todah,’ which means once the hands are thrown up, to hold them up stretched out to Yah thanking Him. ‘Barak’ is to break the knee blessing the Giver.
But the most dynamic of all is what the Samaritan did – go all out glorifying God with all that he had! That’s basically what hallel means in ‘HalleluYah’ – Strongs #1984: to shine, make a show, to boast, be clamorously foolish, to rave, rage, celebrate, glory, feign mad… Sounds like King David dancing undignified before the ark with all his might coming into Jerusalem (2 Chron 6:14-22)! I believe that the Samaritan was much like that with his praise and worship for His God and Savior Yeshua.
Then Yeshua answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine – where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” Luke 17:17-18
How many Hebrew Roots people get healed of their uncleanness by believing in Yeshua, hearing the Spirit of Yah go do what Moses said, and then forgetting to bow their will to the Master and thank Him? Is it nine out of ten? Was it that the nine were hung up on their newly healed bodies and their new beginnings that they wouldn’t turn back to Yeshua to give Him the glory and thank Him?
How many of us exiles of Israel keep Torah but will not shout His praises, fall at His feet and give the Messiah thanks? When we thank God, are we thanking Yeshua personally? After all, Yeshua Himself told Phillip who asked Him to show them the Father that ‘he who has seen Me, has seen the Father.’ (John 14:9)
Thank You, Lord, for saving and sanctifying my spirit, soul, and body!
And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:19
Faith in Hebrew, emunah, pictures the Almighty imparting life to the seed of the word in the womb of the soul, causing it to sprout up and grow. Our challenge is to not let the growth of the seed of Messiah in us to be hung up by thorns and thistles, the cares of life. We have a garden to tend to, cultivating and watering the faith that comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Let’s take care to keep the seeds of the garden of the heart free to grow and free to bear fruit.
Let’s not be hung by the tongue or by the things of this world, but let’s keep our hearts and minds pure and our hands clean. Then we can stand together in His holy place of worship. Then we can build each other up in the holy faith and in the love of God.
From a grateful heart for all Yeshua has done and is doing in us,
David Klug