Matthew Poole and continuators on Leviticus 13:2

2 When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or▪ bright spot , and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy , then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest , or unto one of his sons the priests.

For there was the seat of the Leprosy.

Shining like the s[illegible: 1+ letters]ale of [illegible: 1+ letters] fish, as it is in the beginning of a Leprosy.

A distemper most frequent in Egypt, and Syria, &c. known also among the Greeks, who note that it was not so properly a disease a[illegible: 1+ letters] a defilement or distemper in the skin, whence Christ is not said to heal, but to clearse the Lepers that came to him. And this distemper is here provided against, not because it was worse than others, but because it was externally and visibly filthy, and because of its infectious nature, that hereby we might be instructed to avoid converse with such vitious persons who were likely to infect us.

Not to the Physitian, because, as was now said, it needed not so much healing, as cleansing, and was rather a ceremonial pollution than a disease, and because it belonged to the Priest to cleanse him, and therefore to search and discover whether he was defiled and needed cleansing. The Priest also was [illegible: 1+ letters]o admit to, or exclude from, the Sanctuary, and therefore to examine who were to be excluded. And the discovery of this distemper was not so difficult that it required the Physitians art, but the Priest by experience and the observation of those rules might easily make it.

Marginal references: Or, swilling.; Deut. 17. 8. and 24. 8.