John Gill Bible Commentary

And the priest shall see him,.... Look at him, and closely and narrowly inspect and examine his case: and, behold, if the rising be white in the skin; this is another appearance of the leprosy; the preceding were a bright spot, and the scab of it; but this a rising or white swelling in the skin, as white as pure wool, as the Targum of Jonathan: and it have turned the hair white; to the whiteness of an egg shell, or the film of it, as the same Targum; that is, hath turned the hair of another colour, into white which was before black: and there be quick raw flesh in the rising, or swelling; or "the quickening" or "quickness of live flesh" (l) either such as we call proud flesh, which looks raw and red; or sound flesh, live flesh being opposed to that which is mortified and putrid; and so Jarchi renders it by "saniment", a French word for "soundness": and the Septuagint version, in this and all other places where the word is used, renders it "sound": this clause may be considered disjunctively, as by Gersom, "or there be quick raw flesh"; for either the hair turning white, or quick raw flesh, one or the other, and one without the other was a sign of leprosy, so Jarchi observes; even this is a sign of uncleanness, the white hair without the quick flesh, and the quick flesh without the white hair: this may seem strange that quick and sound flesh should be a sign of the leprosy and its uncleanness; though it should be observed, it is such as is in the rising or swelling: and in things spiritual, it is a bad sign when men are proud of themselves and have confidence in the flesh; when in their own opinion they are whole and sound, and need no physician; when they trust in themselves that they are righteous, and boast of and have their dependence on their own works; he appears to be in the best state and frame that cried out as David did, that there is "no soundness in his flesh", Psa 38:3. (l) "vivacitas carnis vivae", Montanus, Vatablus.