I'm around halfway through Philip Eveson's commentary on Leviticus now. this paragraph on p 175 let in some shafts of light.
If the skin condition has covered the whole body and left the
skin white all over, then the priest can pronounce the person clean (13:12-13). This has caused headaches to many people because they have understood ‘white’ to signify a leprous condition. The confusion has been caused by translators adding ‘white as’ when the word ‘snow’ is used of leprosy in Numbers 12:12 and 2 Kings 5:27. But the colour ‘white’ is not found in the original text of these verses. Sufferers from bad dandruff, when they comb their hair, find particles of dry skin on their clothes like flakes of snow. That is the point of the comparison. Both Miriam and Gehazi were leprous ‘like snow’, not in the sense that their skin became ‘white like snow’, but that it became ‘flaky like snow’. One of the two miraculous signs that God gave Moses was that his hand became leprous ‘like snow’, in the sense of ‘flaky like snow’, and then was restored again like the rest of his skin (Exod. 4:6-7).
The whiteness of the skin in the present passage is therefore not a sign of leprosy but of clean skin after a leprous skin disorder. It is like new white skin after scabs have peeled off.
skin white all over, then the priest can pronounce the person clean (13:12-13). This has caused headaches to many people because they have understood ‘white’ to signify a leprous condition. The confusion has been caused by translators adding ‘white as’ when the word ‘snow’ is used of leprosy in Numbers 12:12 and 2 Kings 5:27. But the colour ‘white’ is not found in the original text of these verses. Sufferers from bad dandruff, when they comb their hair, find particles of dry skin on their clothes like flakes of snow. That is the point of the comparison. Both Miriam and Gehazi were leprous ‘like snow’, not in the sense that their skin became ‘white like snow’, but that it became ‘flaky like snow’. One of the two miraculous signs that God gave Moses was that his hand became leprous ‘like snow’, in the sense of ‘flaky like snow’, and then was restored again like the rest of his skin (Exod. 4:6-7).The whiteness of the skin in the present passage is therefore not a sign of leprosy but of clean skin after a leprous skin disorder. It is like new white skin after scabs have peeled off.
2 comments:
Egyptians were and still are of a dark race and Moses and Joseph who were both Israelites could pass off as Egyptian. The birth of Moses occurred at a time when Pharaoh had commanded that all male children born to Hebrew captives be killed. The Pharaoh didn't kill Moses when his sister brought him to him because there was no way to discern whether he was Egyptian or not. My point is that Miriam was Dark as she was a Israelite. Scripture isnot for you to make it and fix it to what you want it to be. In the original Hebrew lexicon number 7950; to be snow-white (with the linen clothing of the slain):--be as snow.
7950 sheleg sheh'-leg from 7949; snow (probably from its whiteness):--snow(-y). Has nothing to do with snow flakes or flakiness this was in reference to the color she became leprous (white). If she was white already then there would have been no point in saying she turned white. Israelites were scattered across the four corners of the earth not the Jews in Israel who fought there way to Israel in 1948. The real Israelites are Israelites by blood. Thank You! and Shalom!
In Leviticus 13:10, the term is s'eth lvanah that means 'white leprosity'. and in the coming verses, the term 'lavan' is not doubtful. The verse 17 says that 'the disease becomes white', not that the white flakes fall on other parts of the body.
The verse 19 talks of a 'white disease' or a 'reddish white canker'.
The Mishnah explains that the leprosity is not a body disease but an impurity: the way it comes or it disapears is not a disease's way. The attempt to compare the impurity with the disease is misunderstanding the Holy Scriptures.
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