escaped it, obliged as they were by their very
office to submit the leper to actual handling and closest
examination?... Leprosy was nothing short of a living death, a
corrupting of all the humors, a poisoning of the very springs, of life;
a dissolution, little by little, of the whole body, so that one limb
after another actually decayed and fell away. Aaron exactly describes
the appearance which the leper presented to the eyes of the beholders,
when, pleading for Miriam, he says, 'Let her not be as one dead, of whom
the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb.'
(Numb. 12:12.) The disease, moreover, was incurable by the art and skill
of man; not that the leper might not return to health; for, however
rare, such cases are contemplated in the Levitical law.... The leper,
thus fearfully bearing about the body the outward and visible tokens of
sin in the soul, was treated throughout as a sinner, as one in whom sin
had reached its climax, as one dead in trespasses and sins. He was
himself a dreadful parable of death. He bore about him the emblems of
death (Lev. 13:45); the rent garments, mourning for himself as one dead;
the head bare as they were wont to have it who were defiled by communion
with the dead (Numb. 6:9; Ezek. 24:27); and the lip covered (Ezek.
24:17).... But the leper was as one dead, and as such was shut out of
the camp (Lev. 13:46; Numb. 5:2-4). and the city (2 Kings 7:3), this law
being so strictly enforced that even the sister of Moses might not be
exempted from it (Numb. 12:14, 15); and kings themselves, as Uzziah (2
Chron. 26:21; 2 Kings 15:5) must submit to it; men being by this
exclusion taught that what here took place in a figure, should take
place in the reality with every one who was found in the death of sin."

For the elaborate ceremonies incident to the cleansing of a recovered
leper see Lev. chap. 14.

2. Blasphemy.--The essence of the deep sin of blasphemy lies not, as
many suppose, in profanity alone, but as Dr. Kelso, _Stand. Bible
Dict._, summarizes: "Every improper use of the divine name (Lev. 24:11),
speech derogatory to the Majesty of God (Matt. 26:65), and sins with a
high hand--i.e. premeditated transgressions of the basal principles of
the theocracy (Numb. 9:13; 15:30; Exo. 31:14)--were regarded as
blasphemy; the penalty was death by stoning (Lev. 24:16)." _Smith's
Bible Dict._ states: "Blasphemy, in its technical English sense,
signifies the speaking evil of G