An infectious skin disease (13:2). A more accurate rendering is “a scaly affection” (NJPS).116 Here the issue regarding scaly (with lesions) skin disease is not infection/contagion in the sense that it makes other people physically sick. Rather, the concern is with protection of the sphere of holiness, centered at the sanctuary, from defilement by ritual impurity, which is a conceptual category associated with mortality (cf. Num. 5:3; 12:10–12).
The maladies lumped in Leviticus 13–14 under the heading of scale disease cannot be simply equated with modern “leprosy” (i.e., Hansen’s disease). The Hebrew term applies to a complex of conditions, including some that resemble psoriasis and vitiligo, just as Hippocrates used Greek lepra for several skin diseases.117 In Leviticus, scale disease is not even restricted to human beings, but could also affect a house (see comment on 14:34). In some instances, white discoloration of skin or hair could be a factor among others that was symptomatic of the impure affliction. For a similar dim view of white discolorations, compare Mesopotamian omens.118
The Lord can smite people with scale disease as punishment, especially for sacrilege (Num. 12; 2 Kings 5:20–27; 2 Chron. 26:16–21; cf. Deut. 28:27).119 The idea that skin disease could be severe divine punishment, signifying rejection by one’s deity, has been known elsewhere in the ancient Near East, especially in Mesopotamian curses, but also among the Greeks, Persians, and the Nuer people of Africa.120
He must live outside the camp (13:46). Some Mesopotamian curses also speak of ostracizing persons afflicted with scale disease.121 Compare the rule where Babylonian cultic functionaries who became ritually impure by purging the Ezida cella of the god Nabû on the fifth day of the Babylonian New Year Festival of Spring were required to remain outside the city of Babylon for the duration of the festival.122