Metzora מְּצֹרָע - Infected One
Leviticus 14:1-15:33
Reading #1 - Leviticus 14:1–12
My Thoughts:
This is the most interesting reading on the cleansing of a leper. After doing some brief studying it seems like you could think about the symbolism this way. When the bird is killed it may represent the “death” that the leprosy could have caused or the death/extinction of the leprosy. When the living bird is dipped into the blood of the dead bird, you could look at that as a “cleansing” from the leprosy. And when the bird is let go to fly away, you could think of that as the healed person now is experiencing freedom and new life! These are some interesting things to think about.
Challenge:
Do you need to be cleansed and set free from something you are enslaved to? You could go to Hashem and ask Him to “wash” or immerse you in forgiveness. And you could pray that He would set you free from the unsettling issue. It is sometimes surprising that when you talk to Hashem, that He will direct your path toward freedom.
Reading #1 - Leviticus 14:1–12
14:1 Hashem spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest, 3 and the priest shall go out of the camp. The priest shall examine him. Behold, if the plague of leprosy is healed in the leper, 4 then the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. 5 The priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water. 6 As for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. 7 He shall sprinkle on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird go into the open field.
8 “He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water; and he shall be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, but shall dwell outside his tent seven days. 9 It shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair. He shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his body in water. Then he shall be clean.
10 “On the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without defect, one ewe lamb a year old without defect, three tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a meal offering, mixed with oil, and one log of oil. 11 The priest who cleanses him shall set the man who is to be cleansed, and those things, before Hashem, at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
12 “The priest shall take one of the male lambs, and offer him for a trespass offering, with the log of oil, and wave them for a wave offering before Hashem.
