And the priest shall look on him again the seventh
day,
&c.] On the second seventh day, at the end of a fortnight
from his being first presented to him, and shut up:
and, behold, [if] the plague [be] somewhat
dark;
the spot be not so bright, or so white as it was at first; though
Aben Ezra observes, that indeed many wise men say, that
(hhk) is as (Kvx) , signifying dark, and the
testimony or proof they bring is ( Genesis 27:1
) but according to my opinion, adds he, the word is the reverse
of (hvp) , to spread; and
the sense is, if the plague does not spread itself in another
place; and so some translators render it "contracted", or
"contracts itself" F8: and this seems best to agree with
what follows:
and the plague spread not in the skin;
but is as it was when first viewed, after waiting fourteen days,
and making observations on it:
the priest shall pronounce him clean;
that is, from leprosy, otherwise there was an impure disorder on
him, a scabious one:
it [is] but a scab;
which is the name, Jarchi says, of a clean plague or stroke, that
is, in comparison of the leprosy, otherwise such cannot be said
with any propriety to be clean. Ben Gersom better explains it, it
is a white scab, but not of the kind of leprosy, although it is
found as the whiteness of the bright spot; but there are not seen
in it the signs of leprosy, the hair is not turned white, nor has
the plague increased:
and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean;
for seeing he was obliged to be shut up, as Jarchi observes, he
is called unclean, and stood in need of dipping, that is, his
body and his clothes into water; so the people of God, though
they are justified by the righteousness of Christ, and are
pronounced clean through it, yet since they have their spots and
scabs, they have need to have their conversation garments
continually washed in the blood of the Lamb.
F8 (hhk) "contracta est", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "contraxerit sese", some in Vatablus.