(We are going to turn our attention this "Holy Week" to posts related to the death and resurrection of Christ. We will, Lord willing, return to complete our studies in John's Gospel on April 2.)
When was the last time you did some reading in Lev. 13? It’s one of those parts of Scripture where, if you are reading through the entire Bible, and don’t want to skip anything, you might, nevertheless, read as fast as possible. You might ask, if “all Scripture is inspired of God and is profitable …”, how is this profitable to me? You might understand how it benefited Israel in the OT but wonder about it now.
As I read this recently, I gave this some thought. First, I have heard some pretty good sermons that used leprosy as an illustration of sin. There are some pretty good comparisons. Maybe that’s why it's still profitable today. But then, in connection with that, I noticed that indications of leprosy that the priest looked for were reddish color, whether the sore was getting deeper or spreading. As I was thinking about this, my brain pulled up Isa. 1:18: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. This raised another question: why are sins described as “red?” I am familiar with the black and white idea. That is the sharpest contrast in colors it seems, and makes sense. But why red?
Well, I went to work, starting with a check of several OT words for “red” and associated colors like scarlet and crimson. Consider the following.
· The word for “red” that you should know, if you are an English reader and don’t read Hebrew (like me) is Edom. “Esau” means hairy (Gen. 25:25) but “Harry” was also called Edom or “Red” after he sold the birthright for some of Jacob’s red (adom) stew (Gen. 25:30). His descendants were the nation of Edom.
· Here’s something interesting. “Adam” means “red.” Now wait, you might say. “Adam” means something like father of mankind doesn’t it? The first use of the name is in Gen. 2:15, where the NKJV says “the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden.” Then, in 2:19 God brought the animals “to Adam to see what he would call them.” When used as a masculine noun, this word appears over 550 times in the OT and is most often translated “man/men.” As the Heb. scholar Gesenius said, “perhaps so called from the idea of redness.” It is used as a proper name around a dozen times. I’ll mention one passage in Job (31:33) where Job is defending himself and says, If I have covered my transgressions as Adam (or, a man), by hiding my iniquity in my bosom … Job is using the man/Adam as an illustration of the wrong way to deal with sin.
· Here’s another interesting thing. In Lev. 13-14, the term “reddish” (used 6 times and nowhere else in the OT) is literally, adamdam. Gesenius calls it a “reduplicated” form.
We will conclude this subject in the next post.
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