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 eprosy is still a major disease in the year 2005. According to the Hughes Medical Center, there are 200 new cases of leprosy each year in the United States and 700,000 worldwide. India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Brazil have the greatest number of outbreaks of leprosy. Statistically, there are 65 cases every hour. Leprosy is also called Hansen’s disease. It is a chronic, infectious disease that is caused by airborne bacteria. The disease attacks the nerves, resulting in numbness. Most of the people of the world are immune to it; but when the disease finds a home, it moves to the cooler parts of the body such as the skin, the eye, upper respiratory tract, and the genital region. The effects of the disease can be seen in photos published in text books and on the internet. There are two types of leprosy. The mildest form results in scaly and crusty skin. The worst form of the disease results in missing fingers, toes, and hands. It is an ugly disease. The Leper Comes. This study in the Life and Heart of Jesus includes a leper - a man full of leprosy. Leprosy is not just a disease of the past. It is also a disease of the present. The poor man had the worst kind of leprosy as we will soon discover. The records of this event are found in Matt. 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; and Luke 5:12-16.
Before we look at the first verse, we should recall that Jesus had recently called Peter, Andrew, James, and John a third time. We were told in Luke 5:11 that these men left everything and followed Him. When we come to verse 12, time has elapsed. It appears that a lot of time has passed, because we are told that He enters “one of the cities.” We are not told which city, but it appears that Jesus had been traveling from one city to another in the “white space” in our Bible between verse 11 and 12.
While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face . . .” (NASB) Luke 5:12a The Greek word for leper is LEPRAS, and it means “a dread skin disease” or “a scale.” This is a very good description of the disease in its milder form. The gospel of Luke was written by a medical doctor. He tells us that this leper “was covered with leprosy.” He did not have a mild form of leprosy. He was full of leprosy from head to toe and front to back.
Mosaic Law. In the book of Leviticus, God gave the Israelites guidelines for controlling the disease of leprosy. God provided guidelines in Leviticus 13-14 which would help the priests identify leprosy and know how to respond if and when the man or woman was healed.
When leprosy was identified in a man or woman, he or she had to live alone (Lev. 13:46). According to Josephus, Jewish lepers were expelled from the city (Josephus, Flavius. The Wars of the Jews 5.227). Everywhere they went they had to shout out loud, “Unclean, unclean!” (Lev. 13:45). The Talmud required that a leper had to stay six feet (1.8 m) away from other people and 150 ft (45.6 m) when there was wind. According to the Mishnah, anyone who touched a leper, was near a leper, touched anything that a leper had touched, or entered his/her home was ceremonially unclean (Neusner, Jacob. The Mishnah pp. 997-1009). As a result the Jewish rabbis avoided lepers.
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