Luke 17:11 Commentary and Bible Study

(Synoptics: Luke 17:11-19)The Lord Jesus Christ is on the way to Jerusalem. He is about to enter into the last phase of his work. Shortly he will be crucified, and he will suffer and die on Calvary's cross to bear away the punishment of sin for all who come to him. Just as he approaches the village, these ten men call out to him. Although they believe he is a miracle worker, it is evident that they didn't believe, or at least they didn't all believe he was actually the Son of God, that he was actually divine, but they did believe he could heal them. Their voices were feeble, because the kind of leprosy we are thinking about, which is described in the Bible, gave rise to a terrible drying out of the body everywhere. It dried out the voice, and the leper was hoarse and his voice was feeble. You can almost imagine the sad and pathetic sound of these hopeless cases crying out to the Lord Jesus Christ for help and for mercy. Now we shouldn’t think in terms of what we nowadays call leprosy. The term leprosy is applied today to a condition which is quite different from that described in the Bible. It is in many ways not even similar, so leprosy is a word which has undergone a change in its usage. In fact, the Hebrew doesn't put a precise name onto leprosy. In Hebrew, the word simply means a scourge, a thrashing, a caning, if you like, a terrible suffering, and it covers quite a range of illnesses, and the various different problems that are described in the Old Testament as leprosy are rather different from each other, but the main problem which meant that a person had to be ostracised and excluded from the community is something which is quite well described. However, it's called a scourge, as though it was a terrible punishment or affliction. That is not to suggest that the punishment was a direct result of a sin, but it was like a punishment. It was as though somebody had been hurled down from their position in society and terribly humbled and punished in some way. In the Greek of the New Testament, leprosy, a word is used to describe it which simply means dry or scaly, so it showed itself in a terrible deterioration and disease of the skin. We know about it from the Old Testament because back in Leviticus chapter 13 the people are instructed how to diagnose it and deal with it. The priests were told in great detail how they can recognise true leprosy or a different form which is curable, but it was something which virtually spelled a living death to the sufferer. Some people got over it gradually; it could burn itself out, evidently and then you would be free from it, but the evidence is that that was rare and most people could only look forward to a life of isolation from the community and misery. It is well known that they had to wear their hair lank and long, and to wear robes that they pulled right up above the upper lip so that all you could see was the nose and the eyes. And they had to call out to people that they were unclean so that nobody would come near them, because, to some degree, this illness could be communicated from one person to another. It seems it could not be communicated too readily because you could have this disease and you could remain in the community for a quarantine period until it was decided you really did have it, but if so you were not allowed to stay. You could be about to get married and if it was found you had leprosy, you were not put out immediately, but pretty soon you had to be. So you see, it wasn't the kind of thing you could catch, as it were, by a two-minute contact, but it was something that would spread, and so the people had to be isolated completely. That was living misery for them. It was unsightly; it was transmitted from person to person; it was painful. Of course, modern leprosy has painful aspects, but it is also very numbing and takes away pain sensations. Not so the leprosy of the Old Testament. It was very painful, and it could lead to ulceration and raw flesh and all the pain and soreness that that would involve, perhaps, all over the body. Apart from being outcasts, you had no future unless you were among those very rare cases of people who would just get better. What was particularly harrowing about leprosy was this, too: everybody thought – whether they were right or not is another matter – it was a direct punishment for pride. So you bore that stigma, too. Perhaps you had just succumbed to leprosy, but far from getting any sympathy, the people, the common people, thought it was your pride, and God had judged you. So you had the double misery of the suffering and the loss of all your reputation. And of course, you couldn't mix with the people, and you couldn't join in worship, and you couldn't get involved in any gathering of people wherever they were.