Leviticus 13:45

45. His clothes shall be rent This is the first visible sign which the leper was required to hang out as a warning to all not to approach too near to him. The outer garment was usually rent from the neck to the girdle. While it was a warning to others, it was to the leper the symbol of deep self-abhorrence.

His head bare The uncovered head and unkempt hair were an ancient and expressive token of sorrow. See chap. Leviticus 10:6, note. Rabbinical law exempts women from this and the preceding requirement.

A covering upon his upper lip “ He shall cover the beard.” By this act he expressed his unwillingness to speak, on account of shame and vexation.

As the beard was a symbol of dignity, to cover it with the hands indicated self-abasement. Yet he was required to herald his own defilement. Unclean! Unclean! The paraphrase of the Palestine Targum is very expressive, “Keep off, keep off from the unclean!” This humiliating and doleful cry, uttered as a warning to any one seen approaching, was requisite to an unmistakable announcement of his leprosy, since the three visible signs were also ordinary badges of mourning. The ground of this requirement is the fact that the touch of the leper ceremonially defiled every thing. According to the Jewish canons his very entrance into a house renders every thing in it unclean. If he stand under a tree and a clean man passes by he renders him unclean. In the synagogue there must be a separate compartment for him, ten handbreadths high and four cubits square. He must be the first to enter and the last to leave the synagogue. If the pronounced leper overstepped the prescribed boundaries he received forty stripes. We no longer wonder that the Jews abhorred this disease as worse than death, the scourge of Jehovah, ( 2Ki 5:7 ; 2 Chronicles 26:20,) and the most awful imprecation upon their foes. 2 Samuel 3:29; 2 Kings 5:27.