Leviticus 14:33-42

Lev 14:33 Yahveh spoke to Moses and Aaron, and this is what he said,
Lev 14:34 “When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession,
Lev 14:35 then he who owns the house will come and tell the priest, and this is what he should say, ‘There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.’
Lev 14:36 Then the priest will command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, or else all that is in the house be declared contaminated. And afterward the priest will go in to see the house.
Lev 14:37 And he will examine the disease. And if he notices that the disease is in the walls of the house with greenish or reddish spots, and if it appears to be lower than the wall,
Lev 14:38 then the priest will go out of the house to the door of the house and shut up the house seven days.
Lev 14:39 And the priest will come again on the seventh day, and look. If he notices that the disease has spread in the walls of the house,
Lev 14:40 then the priest will command that they take out the stones in which is the disease and throw them into a contaminated place outside the city.
Lev 14:41 And he will have the inside of the house scraped all around, and the plaster that they scrape off they will pour out in an contaminated place outside the city.
Lev 14:42 Then they will take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and he will take other plaster and plaster the house.

domestic renewal

This instruction had to do with houses, which were not yet a reality for the Israelites, because they lived in tents in the wilderness. But the LORD wanted the Israelites to be protected after they settled, because infestation would still be a problem then.

It is interesting to me that the LORD has no problem taking the credit for the infestations (34). Some seem to recoil at the idea that God could be personally responsible for bringing any negative thing into their lives. While it is true that God desires our happiness, he has eternity in mind, so he is willing to inflict us with temporary harm if it will affect the mature love that will make us happy with him forever.

The lesson in this text is that houses (and households and families) need to be purged of their contamination. God loves us in our state of brokenness, but refuses to allow us to wallow in it. He demands change, and that change is difficult and uncomfortable for us, but it is necessary. To simply defend our own failures by saying that God made us that way is to disobey his will.

LORD, give us the courage to decontaminate and renew and reconstruct.