A LEPER — and the ancient category is wider than the modern disease. Greek lepros and the Hebrew tsara'at behind it (see the fuller entry, tzaraat) cover a range of scaling, flaking skin conditions (and, in Leviticus, mould in cloth and walls too); Hansen's disease is only one candidate. ⚠ What made it devastating was less the pathology than the STATUS: Leviticus 13:45-46 (now on these pages) puts the affected person outside the camp with torn clothes, calling out 'unclean', and contact transmits the uncleanness to whoever touches him (Leviticus 5:3). So when Matthew 8:3 says Jesus 'stretched out his hand and touched him', the sentence is deliberately shocking, and Matthew reports no defilement travelling the usual direction. The cleansed man is still sent to the priest with the offering of Leviticus 14 (now on these pages) — certified by the ordinary machinery of the Law, not exempted from it. → first discussed at Matt 8:2