In yesterday's passage a ceremony was performed by a priest when the healed leper came to him. Today we look at what the leper must do after the priest has done his duties in verses 1-7.
"The person to be cleansed must wash their clothes, shave off all their hair and bathe with water; then they will be ceremonially clean. After this they may come into the camp, but they must stay outside their tent for seven days. On the seventh day they must shave off all their hair; their beard, their eyebrows and the rest of their hair. They must wash their clothes and bathe themselves with water, and they will be clean." (Leviticus 14:8-9) Before reentering the camp, the person washes their clothes, shaves off all their hair, and bathes with water. Then they can come into the camp but must remain outside their tent for seven days, at which point the washing of clothes, the shaving, and the bathing are repeated. Then they can rejoin their family inside the tent.
On the next day the person must bring offerings to the tabernacle. "On the eighth day they must bring two male lambs and one ewe lamb a year old, each without defect, along with three-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with olive oil for a grain offering, and one log of oil. The priest who pronounces them clean shall present both the one to be cleansed and their offerings before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting." (Leviticus 14:10-11) A "log" of oil is believed to have been a container holding about 1/3 of a quart.
"Then the priest is to take one of the male lambs and offer it as a guilt offering, along with the log of oil; he shall wave them before the Lord as a wave offering. He is to slaughter the lamb in the sanctuary area where the sin offering and the burnt offerings are slaughtered. Like the sin offering, the guilt offering belongs to the priest; it is most holy." (Leviticus 14:12-13) Aside from the special portions offered to the Lord, the priest is allowed to keep the remainder of this sacrifice as payment for his work.
The healed leper had likely not been up to the tabernacle for some time and had not been able to make any offerings to the Lord. The first offering he makes is the guilt offering (sometimes referred to as the trespass offering). This doesn't indicate that the person had been stricken with leprosy for some specific sin he'd committed, although there will be times in the Bible when contracting leprosy is a clear judgment of God. The guilt offering acknowledges the person's inability to live a completely holy life and to perfectly keep all the laws and commandments of God. Every human being on the face of the earth is guilty of not living a completely holy life and of not perfectly keeping the laws and commandments of God.
After this guilt offering is made, some of the blood is applied to the cleansed leper. "The priest is to take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of their right hand and on the big toe of their right foot." (Leviticus 14:14)
We previously saw the priests, on the day of their ordination, being anointed with blood in this manner. A person anointed in this way by the blood of a guilt offering is acknowledging his faults and failures before Almighty God but at the same time he's indicating his willingness to be cleansed by God and then used by God: to have his ears open to the voice of God and to use his hands and feet in the service of God. We are living in an age where blood is applied not to our outward bodies but directly upon our hearts, as the words of that old hymn "Down At The Cross" declare: "There to my heart was the blood applied. Glory to His name." The cleansed leper of Leviticus is living in an era before the advent of Christ and before His death and burial and resurrection. He can only have sacrificial blood applied to him from the outside while he pledges to do his best to obey God's word. But the blood of Christ cleanses us and changes us from the inside out; it starts at the heart and works its way outward, which is a far more effective method of turning us into people whose lives glorify the One who redeemed us.
"The priest shall then take some of the log of oil, pour it in the palm of his own left hand, dip his right forefinger into the oil in his palm, and with his finger sprinkle some of it before the Lord seven times. The priest is to put some of the oil remaining in his palm on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of their right hand and on the big toe of their right foot, on top of the blood of the guilt offering. The rest of the oil in his palm the priest shall put on the head of the one to be cleansed and make atonement for them before the Lord." (Leviticus 14:15-18) The priest sprinkles the oil seven times before the Lord before applying it to the person standing in front of him. The number seven has a great deal of significance in the Bible. It symbolizes perfection or completion. For example, the Lord rested from His creation work on the seventh day because the work was complete. Nothing needed to be added to it. Nothing needed to be taken away from it. It was exactly as the Lord wanted it to be.
Oil in the Bible is typically considered to be symbolic of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer---the "anointing" of the Holy Spirit, in other words. The cleansed leper is first anointed with blood, just as the new believer in Christ has the blood of Christ's sacrifice applied to his heart and life. Then the leper is anointed with oil, just as the new believer in Christ begins immediately to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit who will guide and instruct him for the rest of his life.
The oil is applied over the blood because the blood must be applied first. Only after a person's guilt has been atoned for can he be filled with the Holy Spirit. The priest anoints the cleansed leper's ear and right thumb and right toe to indicate the person's invitation to the Holy Spirit to open his ears to the Lord's words and to guide his hands and his feet. Anointing the head with oil may represent the person devoting his thoughts to the Lord and an invitation to the Holy Spirit to guard and instruct his mind.
We all need the anointing of the Holy Spirit and that is why, after we accept Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence with us. We need Him daily making us receptive to the voice of God and helping us to understand what God is saying to us. We need Him daily guiding our hands and our feet as we make our way through this wicked fallen world where it often seems as if we're met with a trial or temptation at every turn. We need Him directing our thoughts toward the good things of God and away from the worldly things that strive to take our focus off the One who loves us and wants the best for us. Sin doesn't usually start in the hands or feet; sin begins in the mind and travels outward from there once we allow it to take up space in our heads. If we're able to quickly dismiss a sinful thought, we will probably avoid acting upon it. But if we mull that thought over and over in our minds and allow it to take up room in our heads that ought to be reserved for thinking about our Lord and about how we can honor Him, the likelihood that we'll take action grows and grows. This is why the Holy Spirit must be invited into every nook and cranny of our minds so He can clean the cobwebs out of every corner and remove everything unwholesome from behind every closed door.
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