Leviticus13:52
Previous VerseTranslation
Therefore, he shall burn the garment … in which is found the mark of the plague, for it has been struck with an embittered visible abnormality. He shall burn it in the fire.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
Therefore, he must burn the garment in which the plague-spot is found, whatever type it might be (and various options are given), for it has been struck by God with a malignant, aggressive, and visible abnormality. He must destroy it with the kind of complete destruction reserved for extreme evil.
Footnotes
1
It is not enough to say he must burn it; the text says he must burn it with fire. This is a form of emphasis. Fire was often seen as God’s direct punishment. But here it is people who are destroying something. I express that emphasis in my paraphrase as He must destroy it with the kind of complete destruction reserved for extreme evil.
Burn it with fire
The burning of this garment with the kind of complete destruction reserved for extreme evil demonstrates the seriousness of the lesson God was trying to teach. Not only should we separate ourselves from anything that separates us from God, we should make sure that it never has a chance to separate us from God in the future. Sometimes it is not possible to destroy something physically, but we must render it powerless in our lives. Think of various temptations that start with an outside influence. We have no control over people around us or over the culture around us. But with God’s help we can render the temptations from things around us powerless (dead) to us, so they no longer draw us to them. The point here is to do all we can to eliminate evil influences from our lives.