Leviticus 14:10 - Meaning and Application

I. To complete the cleansing of a leper, on the eighth day he was to come to the entrance of the tabernacle, after the earlier ceremony done outside the camp. There he was to be presented to the Lord with his offering (Leviticus 14:11). This teaches us several things. God’s mercies should move us to give ourselves to him (Romans 12:1). And when God restores us to the use of his ordinances after sickness, distance, or any other restraint, we should take the first chance to show our love for him and for his house by using that liberty well.

When Christ healed the man who had been unable to walk, he later found him in the temple (John 5:14). When Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I will go up to the house of the Lord?” he was really asking for a sign that he would recover. He meant that if God gave back his health so he could go out again, the house of the Lord would be the first place he would visit. When we come before the Lord, we must also bring our offerings, giving ourselves and all we have to him. And both we and our gifts must be presented before the Lord through the priest who made us clean, that is, through our Lord Jesus. Otherwise neither we nor our offerings can be accepted.

II. The cleansed leper was to bring three lambs, along with a grain offering and a log of oil, which was about half a pint. Most of the special ceremony in this case centered on the trespass offering, and that lamb was offered first (Leviticus 14:12). Besides the usual rites for that offering, some of its blood was to be put on the ear, thumb, and big toe of the man being cleansed (Leviticus 14:14). This was the same ceremony used when the priests were set apart for service (Leviticus 8:23-24). It would have humbled them to see that the same cleansing was needed for a leper as for a priest.

The Jews say the leper stood outside the gate of the tabernacle and the priest inside, and the rite was done through the gate. This showed that he was now being welcomed back among the Israelites to worship in the Lord’s courts, as fully as before. Even if he had once been a leper, and even if that name stayed with him all his life, like Simon the leper (Matthew 26:6), he was still freely received into fellowship with God and with others. After the blood was applied to the ends of the body, showing that the whole person was included, some of the oil he brought was then put on those same places, after it had been waved and sprinkled before the Lord. A learned bishop, Patrick, says the blood seems to show forgiveness, and the oil healing, because God first forgives our sins and then heals our diseases (Psalm 103:3). See also (Isaiah 38:17).

Wherever the blood of Christ is applied for justification, that is, for being counted right with God, the oil of the Spirit is applied for sanctification, that is, for being made holy. These two always go together, and both are needed for acceptance with God. And if our former leprosy has been healed by repentance, it will not keep us from these great blessings. Cleansed lepers are as welcome to the blood and the oil as priests who have been consecrated. “Such were some of you, but you were washed.” When the leper was sprinkled, the water had to have blood in it (Leviticus 14:5). When he was anointed, the oil had to be placed on blood. This showed that every grace and comfort of the Spirit, and every purifying and honoring work of the Spirit, comes through the death of Christ. It is by his blood alone that we are made holy.

Besides this, there had to be a sin offering and a burnt offering, one lamb for each (Leviticus 14:19-20). By both of these offerings, the priests made atonement for him, that is, they covered his guilt and brought him back into favor with God. In this way, first his moral guilt was removed. The sin for which the leprosy had come, along with all the sins he had committed during his time of suffering, was pardoned. It is a double comfort when God removes an outward trouble and at the same time gives us some assurance that our sins are forgiven. If we receive the atonement, we have good reason to rejoice (Romans 5:11).

Second, his ceremonial uncleanness was removed. That uncleanness had kept him from sharing in holy things. This is also called making atonement for him, because our return to the privileges of God’s children, which this ceremony pictured, depends entirely on the great sacrifice of Christ, the propitiation, that is, the sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath. When atonement was made for him, he was clean, both in his own mind and in the sight of his neighbors. He regained both his good name and his comfort, and true repentant sinners are entitled to both, peace and honor, through their share in the atonement.

The burnt offering, besides the atonement it made, was also a thankful response to God’s mercy. The more directly God had been involved in both the sickness and the healing, the more reason the man had to honor him in this way, and, as our Savior said, to offer for his cleansing what Moses commanded as a witness to them (Mark 1:44).