Tazria (bears seed) Leviticus 12:1-13:59, Metzora (infected one) Leviticus 14:1-15:33
Weekly Torah Studies for 2025/26 ( 5786).
On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.
18th April 2026 (1 Iyyar)
Tazria (bears seed) Leviticus 12:1-13:59, Metzora (infected one) Leviticus 14:1-15:33
As we study this week’s Torah portions, let’s remember the place from which mankind is being redeemed:
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3:17)
He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)
If it were not for the Fall and the banishing of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, there would have been no need for a way back to God. But there is such a need.
God’s beginning the means of redemption of a covenant family, promised to Abraham, was through the Nation of Israel; it is a glorious and gracious thing. Yet the reality of the Fall must still be faced. Sickness and disease were still realistically a part of the lives of the Children of Israel, and to this day in the entire earth.
The description of the uncleanness that separated those afflicted from the presence of God, follows on from the requirement of holiness in our earlier study. There is no compromise. Israel was to learn from the consequence of physical uncleanness what it was like to be excluded from God’s presence in the Tabernacle. The wonderful invitation to fellowship with God in the beauty of His holiness and the grandeur of the Tabernacle is to be contrasted with the darkness of exclusion from His presence through seemingly incurable disease.
One of our portions deals with the identification of disease and consequent exclusion for the Children of Israel. The other portion brings a hint of the possibility of redemption:
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest. And the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him; and indeed, if the leprosy is healed in the leper… (Leviticus 14:1-3)
Imagine the joy for the cleansed leper! One morning, a seemingly incurable disease, causing him to forever be outside the camp of Israel, seemed to be disappearing before his eyes. A message was sent to the Priests. He was inspected and found to be healed. Following the cleansing specified through Moses, he was fully restored to his family, his community and to God!
In the midst of the darkness that can so easily descend, whether through unresolved sin, or exclusion through physical uncleanness, a glimmer of the Gospel message began to glow.
The curse of Eden has fallen on the entire earth for all people and the reality of that curse, bringing separation from God, is experienced in every generation. But God, in His mercy, showed that there is hope. Israel became the prophetic people for that hope, as they lived before God as the chosen people.
Within Israel, that hope did not wane. Rabbinic sources draw from the Scriptures in looking for the time when God, through His Messiah, would bring healing to His people.
The Messiah Apocalypse of 100-80 BCE includes:
He frees the captives, makes the blind see, and makes the bent over stand straight…for he will heal the sick, revive the dead, and give good news to the humble and the poor he will satisfy, the abandoned he will lead, and the hungry he will make rich.
These expectations come from the biblical Prophets:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert. (Isaiah 35:5-6)
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound. (Isaiah 61:1)
Signs were also given by miraculous healings of God at the hands of His Prophets. 32 miracles are recorded, for example, in Elisha’s ministry, including the cleansing of a leper. As such, Elisha’s ministry was a shadow of the coming Messiah.
When Yeshua walked the earth, healing of the sick was a significant part of His ministry. In our portion this week, we read of the circumstances that befell a woman who was constantly unclean because of a flow of blood that would not cease. It is no chance coincidence that through faith such a woman was healed by Yeshua:
Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. (Luke 8:43-44)
A marvellous thing happened, even more than the miraculous healing. In the Law of Moses, if an clean thing touches something that is unclean, it becomes unclean. That is why the unclean person must be excluded from the community – uncleanness multiplies.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Now, ask the priests concerning the law, saying, “If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it become holy?” ’
Then the priests answered and said, “No.”
……. “If one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean?”
So the priests answered and said, “It shall be unclean.” (Haggai 2:11-13)
God, in Yeshua, reversed this curse on the woman, making what was unclean, clean, without compromising His own holiness. Only God can do this.
Likewise, Yeshua had the power to heal lepers:
Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. (Luke 17:10-14)
This was exactly according to the teaching of Moses as to how a cleansed leper should report to the Priests when God had healed him.
Yeshua showed His great compassion for the poor in bringing such healings, whilst also fulfilling His Messianic ministry. Twice, in Scripture it is described that He wept. He wept over Jerusalem, in sorrow for their missing the moment of their visitation and invitation to redemption:
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19:41-42)
Was this not God the Father, through Yeshua, weeping with compassion for His people?
When Yeshua’s close friend Lazarus died and after He was compelled to wait for two extra days before going to see him, now dead in his tomb. He was filled with compassion:
Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?”
They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” (John 11:33-35)
The Son of Man, with the compassion of the Father, wept for His friend, and with the same compassion raised him from the dead.
Yet, these healings, impossible to ordinary men, were also signs of who Yeshua was. When John the Baptist sent messengers to check on whether Yeshua was indeed Messiah, Yeshua answered by reference to the messianic signs foreseen by the Prophets and found in some rabbinic writings, as above:
And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”
When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ” And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” (Luke 7:19-23)
God, through Moses, and through the Chosen People, the Nation of Israel, prepared the way for the coming of the Great Redeemer. A glimmer of the Gospel message came at the time of Moses, with the ritual for cleansing lepers who were healed. But the full curse from Eden lived with mankind until Yeshua came, the One who now sits on the Throne of His Kingdom, through whom the door was opened to eternal life for all who will believe.
Eternity is shown us in vision through the Revelation given to John. He was shown the New Heaven and the New Earth:
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. (Revelation 21:1-6)
If a leper who was healed at the time of Moses could find new joy, how much more those who enter the Heavenly Kingdom, completely healed, forever.
Dr Clifford Denton
Founder and Director
Tishrei Bible School
