Bible in One Year Day 38 (Exodus 19- 20, Leviticus 13, Psalm 74)

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God Giving Ten Commandments to Moses (Icon)

Day 38: The Ten Commandments

Commentary
Understanding the Scripture - The Didache Series
Chapter 7, page 142 - 143
After three months of wandering, Israel reached the Mountain of God in the wilderness of Sinai. The same mountain where God had revealed his sacred name to Moses from the burning bush.  There Moses went up the mountain alone, and God gave him a message for the entire nation of Israel.  
If the people would obey God's voice, then they would be a nation of priests. Meaning that God, who made the whole world, had chosen Israel as the nation to bring his word to the rest of the nations.  God would have a personal relationship with his people.  He would talk to them directly, and he would be their leader and guide.  In turn Israel, as God's first-born, would carry God's message to the rest of the family of nations.  
The people purified themselves for three days, and on the third day they saw a think cloud descend on the mountain.  Moses alone entered the cloud, but the whole people heard the voice of God from the cloud.  They also heard he conditions of God's covenant with them, the Ten Commandments.  
When the people heard the voice of God himself speaking, they were so freighted that they begged Moses not to let it happen again.  They wanted Moses to speak to them, not God.  (Exodus 20: 20)

Moses (Jose Ribera)

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Commentary Exodus 20 - 23
Agape Bible Study 

Themes will frame forty-two covenant judgments in Exodus 21:1-23:12, providing a prologue and an epilog to the forty-two judgments:

Idolatry prohibition and proper forms of worship Ex 20:22-26

42 judgments Ex 21:1-23:12

Idolatry prohibition and proper forms of worship Ex 23:13-19

Forty-two is a number associated with trial and judgment in the Book of Revelation. The forty-two judgments in Exodus 21:1-23:12 are meant to test Israel's obedience and to make Israel sensitive to sin. The judgments are listed in the next three chapters and contain the first body of the Torah legislation known as sefer ha-berit ("Book of the Covenant"). It is a title based on Exodus 24:4-7 which records that Moses put the divine commands into writing and then read the covenant document aloud to the people in the ratification ceremony. 

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Leviticus 13 
Agape Bible Commentary 

Chapter 13: Instructions for Identifying Skin Conditions/Diseases

Question: The priests’ main duty was to preside over the sacrifices in the liturgical worship services, but they also had other duties to perform for the community which are recorded in this part of Leviticus. What are those addition duties outlined in this chapter?
Answer: The priests have duties associated with the health of the community.  They are to examine and make decisions on health issues that have the potential of becoming hazardous to the entire community.

Question: What is the procedure for dealing with conditions that may be contagious?
Answer: The procedure consists of examination and isolation for seven day periods before the priest reaches a final determination. 

Question: Sickness is normally not due to the personal sin of a person, so what is the nature of the sin in the cases of disease?  Is it God’s capricious judgment against a person in inflicting disease?  See Gen 1:4, 10, 13, 18, 21, 25, 31 and Wis 1:13-14.
Answer: No.  Everything God creates is good.  The sin in such cases was the result of the corrupting power of sin in the world that was an affront to the life-giving power of the God of Creation.  Although the person may be an innocent victim, every person’s sin contributes to sin in the world and the consequences of sin in harming all living things: For God did not make Death, he takes no pleasure in destroying the living.  To exist—for this he created all things; the creatures of the world have health in them, in them is no fatal poison … (Wis 1:13-14)

Leviticus 13 
Commentary 
USCCB

[13:1–14:57] These chapters deal with scaly or fungal infections (Hebrew ṣāra‘at). The older translation “leprosy” is misleading because ṣāra‘at refers to not just one but several chronic and enduring skin diseases in human beings. The disease known as “leprosy” (Hansen’s disease) is probably not included among the conditions described in the chapter. Also the term ṣāra‘at refers to fungal growths in fabrics and on the walls of houses. The reason why these conditions, and not other diseases, were considered unclean may be that they were quite visible, associated with death (cf. Nm 12:9–12), and traditionally connected with punishment by the deity (Lv 14:34; Dt 28:27, 35; 2 Sm 3:29; 2 Kgs 5:26–27; 2 Chr 26:16–21).

Rooker saw seven types of infectious skin diseases in Leviticus 13:1-44 : skin eruptions ( Leviticus 13:1-8), chronic skin disease ( Leviticus 13:9-17), boils ( Leviticus 13:18-23), burns ( Leviticus 13:24-28), sores ( Leviticus 13:29-37), rashes ( Leviticus 13:38-39), and baldness ( Leviticus 13:40-44). [Note: Rooker, pp186-92.] Typically in each case we read four things: a preliminary statement of the symptoms, the priestly inspection, the basis of the priest's diagnosis, and the diagnosis itself and the consequences.

Introduction Leviticus 13:1

First set of tests for skin disease Leviticus 13:2-8 (skin eruptions)

[13:3] The symptoms of white hair and depth (perhaps a subcutaneous lesion) do not clearly correlate with known skin diseases or lesions. It may be that the symptoms are a hybrid ideal that do not reflect reality and are the result of priestly systematization. The same judgment applies to the conditions in vv. 10–11, 20, 25; cf. note on vv. 12–17.

[13:4–8] The symptoms here involve a flaky patch of skin that spreads after one week or stays the same after two. This correlates with many skin diseases, such as psoriasis, seborrhoeic dermatitis, certain mycotic infections, patchy eczema, and pityriasis rosea.

[13:4] Quarantine seven days: unless lesions have unmistakable symptoms of scaly infection, time is needed to distinguish disease from a condition which is following the natural course of healing and remission. Cf. vv. 5, 21, 26, 27, 31, 33, 50, 54; 14:38.

[13:6] Wash his garments: even suspected scaly infections create some impurity, not just diagnosed infections (vv. 45–46).

Second set of tests for skin disease Leviticus 13:9-17 (chronic skin disease)

[13:12–17] This is not a paradox, namely where a limited lesion is impure but one that covers the whole body is pure. Rather, a white lesion that lacks ulcerated skin (“raw flesh”) is pure, even if it covers the whole body. This formulation reflects priestly interest in systematization.

Third set of tests for skin disease in scars Leviticus 13:18-23 (boils)

Fourth set of tests for skin disease in burns Leviticus 13:24-28 (burns)

Fifth set of tests for skin disease in scalp or beard Leviticus 13:29-37 (sores)

[13:29–37] The symptoms in this unit may include either favus (a mycotic infection) or a protein deficiency syndrome (Kwashiorkor) where the hair may be fine and copper-red to yellow.

A skin disease that is clean Leviticus 13:38-39 (rashes)

[13:38–39] This may refer to vitiligo, where patches of the skin and hair lose pigmentation.

Baldness and skin disease Leviticus 13:40-44 (baldness)

Treatment of those diagnosed as unclean Leviticus 13:45-46

Diagnosis and treatment of skin disease in clothing Leviticus 13:47-58

Summary Leviticus 13:59

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A Daily Defense
 Day 38 Suffering With No Clear Purpose 

CHALLENGE: “The Christian God can’t exist. Why would a good God allow innocent people to suffer and die with no clear purpose?”

DEFENSE:  God can bring good from evil and he can more than compensate us.

The faculties that allow suffering—such as the pain receptors in our nervous systems—have a purpose, which is to help us avoid danger (see Day 7), but sometimes they are triggered in situations where they don’t help—resulting in apparently purposeless suffering. Fortunately, God can bring good out of every tragedy, and faith tells us he will (Rom. 8:28; CCC 324).

However, there is more that can be said. For a person with an atheistic perspective, death is the ultimate end. If someone has suffered unjustly in this life, that’s it. The person is just out of luck. Nothing can ever make up for the suffering he experienced. But from a Christian perspective, death is not the end. It’s a transition, and we will exist forever. 

That means that no matter what we have suffered in this life or how short our life was, God can make it up to us. Indeed, he can do far more. Paul says: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). Elsewhere he says, “So we do not lose heart. . . . For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16–18). 

This is part of what makes it possible to live with the mystery of evil. I may experience evil in this life. From an earthly perspective, I may suffer, but I can endure that if I know that death is not the end and God will more than compensate for what I have suffered innocently. I don’t have to know all the reasons why this or that evil occurs, as long as I know that God will make everything right in the end.

Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist