And the priest shall see [him]
Look at him, and closely and narrowly inspect and examine his
case:
and, behold, [if] the rising [be] white in the
skin;
this is another appearance of the leprosy; the preceding were a
bright spot, and the scab of it; but this a rising or white
swelling in the skin, as white as pure wool, as the Targum of
Jonathan:
and it have turned the hair white;
to the whiteness of an egg shell, or the film of it, as the same
Targum; that is, hath turned the hair of another colour, into
white which was before black;
and [there be] quick raw flesh in the rising,
or swelling; or "the quickening" or "quickness of live flesh"
F12 either such as we call proud flesh,
which looks raw and red; or sound flesh, live flesh being opposed
to that which is mortified and putrid; and so Jarchi renders it
by "saniment", a French word for "soundness": and the Septuagint
version, in this and all other places where the word is used,
renders it "sound": this clause may be considered disjunctively,
as by Gersom, "or there be quick raw flesh"; for either the hair
turning white, or quick raw flesh, one or the other, and one
without the other was a sign of leprosy, so Jarchi observes; even
this is a sign of uncleanness, the white hair without the quick
flesh, and the quick flesh without the white hair: this may seem
strange that quick and sound flesh should be a sign of the
leprosy and its uncleanness; though it should be observed, it is
such as is in the rising or swelling: and in things spiritual, it
is a bad sign when men are proud of themselves and have
confidence in the flesh; when in their own opinion they are whole
and sound, and need no physician; when they trust in themselves
that they are righteous, and boast of and have their dependence
on their own works; he appears to be in the best state and frame
that cried out as David did, that there is "no soundness in his
flesh", ( Psalms 38:3 Psalms 38:7 ) .
F12 (yx rvb tyhm) "vivacitas carnis vivae", Montanus, Vatablus