Leprosy and Purification

One of the things we keep reinforcing in class is that the Israelites were very different than us! In our reading this week we are discovering that they did not have modern medical ideas like we do, where death and life are two discrete states of being. For them, life and death existed on a spectrum. To be sick was to move, in a literal sense, closer to death or into the realm of death ("Sheol"). We see this concept frequently in the Psalms when the Psalmist laments going into "Sheol" or the "Pit":

Psalm 88:3-5
For my soul is full of troubles,
    and my life draws near to Sheol.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
    I am like those who have no help,
⁵ like those forsaken among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave

Psalm 30:2-3
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
    and you have healed me.
³ O Lord, you brought up my soul (literally "my life") from Sheol,
    restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. 

To be sick, or as we saw in our reading this week, to be afflicted with skin disease, mold, fungus and the like was (in their eyes) to be touched existentially (or ontologically) by death. To be sick or a "leper" was to be in the power of death and therefore to move into the realm of death. This explains why "lepers" were to behave like people grieving, with disheveled hair and torn clothing (Lev. 13:45); they are grieving because they are touched by death. And because all human death was unclean those who were sick (bleeding, skin disease, etc.) were unclean. Thus, they required priestly restoration, and not just medical help. Their restoration by the priests brought them back into the community, and back into communion with God.

(Furthermore, there is evidence that in ancient Israel sick (contagious) people, along with those who had skin diseases, would be quarantined outside the city or village. Outside the city or village would also be the ancestral burial grounds (i.e. "the Pit"). So this was not just a symbolic way of thinking; "lepers" and some of the sick would literally be moving closer to the place of death.)

Note: While the different skin diseases dealt with in this section were traditionally translated as “leprosy”, they cover a wide variety of conditions which are not leprosy. This is important, because the Israelites certainly had some understanding of contagious diseases like leprosy spreading through touch, but the driven force behind these laws is not health consciousness. The driving force here is the appearance of death and disorder.


Bonus Note: I have not blogged about childbirth, but the mother becomes "unclean" during childbirth for the same reason that a "leper" does, in that she moves closer to death. The amount of blood and fluid lost in the birthing process, and of course the ancient mortality rates would make childbearing potentially fatal and result in ritual impurity.