Leviticus · chapter 14 of 27
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Leviticus 14 describes how someone healed of a skin disease is restored: the priest goes out of the camp, performs a rite with two birds, and on the eighth day presents the guilt offering, sin offering and burnt offering, with blood and oil on the ear, thumb and toe. The chapter ends with rules for mildew in houses.
Chapter 13 left the diseased person outside the camp. Leviticus 14 answers how he returns: not with a law of exclusion but with a rite of restoration. Here the priest goes out to meet the one who has been healed, and the way back to the community and to worship opens with offerings accompanied by joy.
When a person is healed of his skin disease, he is brought to the priest, who goes out of the camp to examine him. Two live clean birds are taken, with cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. One bird is killed over fresh water, and the priest dips the other, with the cedar, the yarn and the hyssop, in the blood and sprinkles the healed person seven times. Then he lets the live bird go into the open field.
The one being cleansed washes his clothes, shaves off all his hair and bathes, and may come into the camp, but he stays outside his tent seven days. On the seventh day he shaves again and bathes. On the eighth day he brings two male lambs, a ewe lamb and flour with oil; the priest offers one as a guilt offering and puts blood on the right ear, right thumb and right big toe of the healed person, and oil on the same places. The sin offering, the burnt offering and the grain offering follow. If he is poor, he offers one lamb and two birds.
The second part deals with mildew in a house. The owner tells the priest, who orders the house emptied before the examination. If the stain persists, the affected stones are removed and the house is scraped; if it returns, the house is torn down. If it does not spread, the house is cleansed with a rite similar to the one with the birds.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The priest goes out of the camp to examine the one who has been healed. It is the priest who comes to the sick person, not the other way around. God does not leave the excluded without a way back and takes the initiative to restore them.
The priest sprinkles the one being cleansed seven times with the blood of the bird and pronounces him clean, then lets the live bird go into the field. The image of the bird flying free pictures the healed person's return to a life in freedom, with his cleanness declared.
The priest puts the remaining oil on the head of the one being cleansed to make atonement for him. The anointing with oil marks the full restoration: he is no longer an outcast but someone consecrated again to his place among the people.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Outside the camp. — Leviticus 14:3
Answer: Cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. — Leviticus 14:4
Answer: He let it go alive into the open field. — Leviticus 14:7
Answer: Wash his clothes, shave off all his hair and bathe in water. — Leviticus 14:8
Answer: On the right ear, the right thumb and the right big toe. — Leviticus 14:14-17
Answer: He had the house emptied so that nothing in it would be declared unclean. — Leviticus 14:36
Leviticus 14 shows God's heart toward the excluded: there is a way back, and the priest goes out to meet them. In a Sunday school class you can ask whom the church has left outside the camp and what it would mean to go out to meet them with respect and hope.
The rite also points to Christ, who went out to touch lepers and sent them to show themselves to the priest. The blood and oil anticipate a full restoration through another's sacrifice. And the provision for the poor with a smaller offering reminds us that no one is left outside grace for lack of means.
Leviticus 14 shows the healed person restored, washed and anointed, back in the community. Leviticus 15 deals with other bodily uncleannesses, such as discharges, and how to keep them from defiling the tabernacle, where God dwells with his people.
The text gives no explicit interpretation. One bird dies and the other goes free after being dipped in its blood. Many see in this a picture of death and life, or of release, but the Bible only describes the rite. Its function is to declare and celebrate cleanness.
Because under this law only the priest could declare a person clean and allow him to return to the community. Jesus heals, but he respects that process so the healed person is also restored socially and his cure serves as a testimony.