He was an outcast. None
must be permitted to approach him. They must be warned off by the
despairing cry "unclean, unclean." Nothing can be conceived more
desolate or more hopeless than the condition of the leper, unless it
be, indeed, the sinner who is an "alien from the commonwealth of
Israel, a stranger to the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world."
But to the leper, in many instances, came the glad "day of cleansing."
He might not come into the camp, until the priest went forth to him.
The priest and no one else could pronounce him clean. And none but
Christ has any authority to tell the sinner that he is converted, or
the believer that he is sanctified. A clean bird must be slain over
living water, another bird dipped into this water flies away toward
heaven with bloody wing; the leper is sprinkled seven times, to denote
the completeness or perfection of his cleansing, with blood by means of
hyssop and scarlet wool bound to a stick of cedar; he must wash his
clothes; he must pass a razor over his whole body, and bathe the whole
body likewise in water.
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