The Law of Leprosy
We shall now consider the instructions given in the Law concerning the leprosy that is found in a house. Firstly, Leviticus 14:34-36, "When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house: Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house".
There are several items worthy of note in the above quotation that relate to our considerations:
That Yahweh would put the plague of leprosy in a house;
That the owner on noticing it was to report it to the priest;
That before the priest came to examine the house that it's contents were to be removed; and,
Subsequently the priest was to go in to see the house and the plague.
Apart from the sequence of events that were to occur the first point that needs to be considered is the initial one, why should Yahweh put the plague of leprosy in a house? For the same reason that Yahweh does anything in regard to the life of his servants, to test them and in so doing to strengthen their faith; for it is only by the things that we suffer that we shall develop our characters after that of the one who is the "captain of our salvation" who himself was made "perfect through sufferings" (Hebrews 2:10Hebrews 2:10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.). Since we are far from perfect then we must also follow this same process of perfecting our characters. So the house owner was to be tested in his response and submission to the law of Yahweh. Interestingly it is the owner of the house that was to report the problem to the priest; the one responsible had to act.
Let us now consider the actions that the priest was to take under the Law of Moses, v. 37 "And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall: Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days: And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look: and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house;If… the problem was subsequently found to persist then the remedy was the destruction of the house Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is , and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city: And he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place: And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other morter, and shall plaister the house".
These actions are easily understood. The priest was to diagnose the problem and if indicated, ensure that the remedy was thoroughly carried out. The intended result being the removal of the problem from the house, and the house repaired with new materials.
If the house was treated as described but the problem was subsequently found to persist then the remedy was the destruction of the house as described in Lev 14:43-45Lev 14:43-45 43 And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plaistered; 44 Then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is unclean. 45 And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place. ; it was to be demolished and all the materials removed to an "unclean place", which is likely to be where all the refuse from the city was disposed of.