Can anything captivating come out of Leviticus? Yes! Amidst a litany of sacrifice specifics and priestly protocols, the law of the leper on the day of his cleansing ingeniously choreographs a dance of symbols performing a love story. This two-act play presents heaven’s Prince Charming sacrificing all, interlaced with His bride’s returning home motif! What’s thrilling is that this cleansed leper is you and me! What good news! The Spirit beckons us into the imaginative Jesus-filled world of Leviticus 14.
Act One: a priest, two caged birds in hand, meets expectant leper in the wilderness outside Israel’s camp. Living bird one dies, its blood spilled into living water in a clay pot—Jesus, the God With Us fragile man filled with the Spirit. Living bird two, dipped in that blood and water, flies free, homeward bound. Leper watches, hopeful to go home, too.
This dance of symbols is interpretive. Our play imaginatively recasts Eve as this living bird, a white dove, water washed and blood cleansed, freed to wing away home from the blood and water escaping a new Adam’s spear-pierced side. Freed bird and leper, united by blood and water, are one. Act Two advances what going home truly means to the leper.
Act Two: on Day One leper shaves head, shaves beard, shaves eyebrows. He washes his clothes, washes his body. Come Day Seven he does it all over again. It’s a theatrical rendition of what repentance, life’s u-turn, is. Onlookers see the leper differently, peculiar even, a wonder. Repentance from an unclean life is like that. Life has now a fresh start. On Day One he’s allowed back into the camp! New life with God’s people (Lev 14:8)! He can’t go home, though. Not yet anyway.
Day Eight is coming.
Day Eight—the great day! Priest ushers leper to the door of the tent of meeting (14:11). Before the Lord. New life with God Himself! This blue-purple-scarlet tapestry door is another Jesus symbol, each hue inviting contemplation of who He is and what He’s done. Leper remembers scarlet yarn that bound cedarwood, hinting at God’s future temple home, to hyssop branch that sprinkled scarlet blood on him in Act One. He’s standing now before the door of the home of the Creator of heaven and earth.
The dramatic climax has finally arrived! A priest, olive oil in hand, meets expectant leper at the door. Nobody or nothing had more oil at one time than this cleansed leper. The expected Messiah, of course, profiled by cumulative events (Jacob’s rock pillow, the tabernacle) and personages (king, prophet and priest), certainly had more oil. What does all this oil mean for cleansed lepers like you and me? The curtain opens for the rousing conclusion of Act Two!
And on the eighth day [the priest] shall take two male lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish, and a grain offering of three tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, and one log of oil.
Leviticus 14:10 ESV
The eighth day, first day of a new week, brings home the presence of the Lord to the cleansed leper. Jesus’ resurrection happened on the eighth day. A new creation. Day Eight climaxes with this “log of oil.” A “log” is a liquid measurement, having nothing to do with a wooden log. It’s a transliteration of the Hebrew word and rhymes with rogue. It appears five times, only here in Leviticus 14. Supposedly it’s the smallest measurement of liquids, a half liter or six eggs.
And the priest shall take one of the male lambs and offer it for a guilt offering, along with the log of oil, and wave them for a wave offering before the Lord.
Leviticus 14:12 ESV
What is a wave offering all about? Consulting Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias quickly affirmed its obscurity and mysterious meaning. Oftentimes with the peace offering it was a sacrificial animal eaten by the priest (Lev 7:29-34). It wasn’t just animals, though. Two loaves of bread, baked with leaven, during the feast of Pentecost were waved (Lev 23:17, 20). Even the Levites themselves were a wave offering (Num 8:13)! On the feast of firstfruits, the priest waved a harvest sheaf before the Lord (Lev 23:11), indicating the Lord’s approval of pleasure and delight.
The priest grasped the offering and then waved it back and forth (that might have been tricky with a 200-pound Levite!). The motion—up and down, left and right, in a circle—was not specified. Important was the movement that attracted attention, not how it moved. A wave offering is the visual equivalent of a verbal “Behold!” It publicly proclaimed the Lord’s pleasure in the object waved.
Waved before the Lord were the lamb for the guilt offering and the log of oil. Since oil is prominent, we’ll track that. A high school math teacher of mine used to whimsically say, “Ding! Ding! Ding! Special case.” The waving of the oil is a special case to pay close attention. God who sees all and pays perfect attention to all doesn’t need it. We do. This wave offering clues us in to this oil as paramount to His pleasure. But before oil, first must come the cleansing blood of the lamb.
And he shall kill the lamb in the place where they kill the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the place of the sanctuary…The priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering, and the priest shall put it on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.
Leviticus 14:13-14 ESV
Last time we’d noted that the blood applied to the leper’s ear, thumb, and big toe mirrored the Levite’s consecration to be a priest (Ex 29:19-20; Lev 8:24). This intentional hyperlinking invites meditation of the leper as dedicated to the Lord.
Then the priest shall take some of the log of oil and pour it into the palm of his own left hand and dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand and sprinkle some oil with his finger seven times before the Lord.
Leviticus 14:15-16 ESV
What are we to make of oil being sprinkled seven times before the Lord? Intriguingly, this is unique to this ceremony. Nowhere else in the biblical record does this happen. Yes, there was a seven-fold sprinkling of anointing oil, but it was for consecrating the altar (Lev 8:10-11). The sprinkling of blood seven times happens elsewhere, such as before the mercy seat on the day of atonement. But not oil. Let’s step back and consider oil in the grand scheme of things.
Although I’ve been very familiar with oil as a type of the Holy Spirit, it never occurred to me to ask, “Why oil?” Oil had become as mundane as a too familiar quarter just being 25 cents, oblivious of the words and images stamped upon it. A recent podcast on The Bible Project pried the lid off my ignorance of oil’s selection to symbolize the Spirit. Dr. Tim Mackie presented olive oil as “liquid life,” a dense distillation of the life of the olive. I found that helpful. Yet, as I pressed it further, even that definition falls short of how the Hebrews imagined it. We, like our Greek influencers, perceive an object by what meets our eye—its form, its color, the material its made of, etc. To think olive oil as liquid is to think Greek, emphasizing appearance. I’m about to get linguistically geeky here, but stick with me because it’ll pay off huge faith dividends.
The Hebrews framed the world radically differently than the Greeks. For the Hebrew, they envisioned objects defined by action or activity. They saw the world through verbs, an animated film rather than a still life painting. An exceptionally astute book, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, by Thorleif Boman published in 1960 opened my eyes to this stark contrast. Although an extremely challenging read, it’s well worth the labor. (It’s available for free on archive.org.)
We’re ingrained to conceptualize oil as this golden liquid from olives. It’s what captures our eye. That’s its still life form. Our name “olive oil” betrays our Greek-inspired affinity for physical form. But the Hebrews—catch this—thought in terms of dynamic action. The difference is as stark as night from day.
The Hebrew word for olive oil is šemen (sheh’-men). Its etymology has no line of sight to olive oil at all. The Hebrews, rather, derived its name from its function, its dynamic activity, its action verb. As typical of Hebrew, šemen originates from the verb šāman (shaw-man’), which depicts growing fat or rich through consistent partaking of abundance. To unshackle olive oil from still life appearance, this verse helpfully conceptualizes šāman after the Hebrew mindset.
And they captured fortified cities and a rich [šāmēn] land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat [šāman] and delighted themselves in your great goodness.
Nehemiah 9:25 ESV
The verb šāman only occurs five times, its only positive connotation here. But before we tackle šāman, the word for rich (also translated “fat” or “fertile”) is adjective šāmēn (shaw-mane’), also derived from šāman. The land is adorned with images of richness, fatness, and abundance—vineyards brimming over with grapes, orchards laden with olives, and fruit trees popping with sweet produce.
Transitioning from fatness of land to fatness of people gains further insight. Fatness of people is not tied to physical appearance (like obesity) but healthiness and physical fitness. To demonstrate that, consider this: “Asher’s food [literally “bread”] shall be rich [šāmēn], and he shall yield royal delicacies” (Gen 49:20). It’s not chubby bread! It’s bread in abundance. Put on your Hebrew thinking cap to envision all the activities involved with the fatness of bread. There’s seedtime, then the plodding growth into ripened grain. Then sharp scythes cut and sheaves are bundled. Wind winnows wheat from chaff, millstones grind grain into flour, and at long last the making and baking of bread. And taken altogether across the whole tribe, the finished product of bread in abundance! See what I mean by animated film? This šāmēn is a dynamic adjective conveying all these progressively linked actions. Conversely, we picture “rich” or “fat” more as a still life painting.
Considering the opposite of šāmēn also fine tunes its rich meaning. When Moses sent out twelve men to spy out Canaan, his checklist included “whether the land is rich [šāmēn] or poor [rāzê]” (Num 13:20). Rāzê (raw-zeh’) is the antonym of šāmēn. In this context rāzê means barrenness. Its verb stem is rāzâ (raw-zaw’), to grow lean or make thin. Applied to the body rāzê depicts emaciation. “And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean [rāzâ]” (Isa 17:4). Emaciation, thinness, and barrenness, then, are opposites of šāmēn.
God’s day-by-day faithfulness over time culminated in His goodness of abundant harvests, from which the people ate of, were filled, and grew fat (šāman). Now that we have this dynamic action sense for šāman as a foundation, let’s see how šemen that we translate “olive oil” is built on it. It should be clear now that šemen is not tethered to appearance of material (olives), color (amber), or form (liquid). Rather, it connotes unceasing activities progressing ever onward towards fullness. So the Hebrews were not locked into tagging olive oil as šemen. Any of Canaan’s produce associated with abundant prosperity—grapevines, figs, pomegranates, milk or honey—could have been called šemen. Olive oil rose above all these best representing God’s fullness and fatness of the whole land. So they called it šemen. Its popularity is evidenced in two hundred appearances, always olive oil except once (oil of myrrh in Esther).
So we English speakers are at a disadvantage at the get-go when we read olive oil rather than šemen, for we’re detached from its original conceptualization. Although English does derive words from activity (e.g., automobile, earthquake), the Hebrews did it routinely. Every time they read or heard šemen, its verbal connotation of šāman immediately resonated with them. Their šemen came front loaded with animation, a delighting one’s self in God’s faithfulness and abundant goodness! Unfortunately, we lose that beauty in translation. So going forward, I will use šemen (sheh’-men) instead of olive oil to try to recenter our imaginations after the Hebrew manner.
Now that we understand what šemen meant to the original audience, let’s revisit its application to the leper. It’s mind-blowing! Such good news!
Then the priest shall take some of the log of oil and pour it into the palm of his own left hand and dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand and sprinkle some oil with his finger seven times before the Lord.
Leviticus 14:15-16 ESV
The sprinkled šemen before the Lord was the place where the leper stood. “And the priest who cleanses him shall set the man who is to be cleansed and these things,” verse 11 had stated, “before the Lord, at the entrance of the tent of meeting.”
This šemen is a glorious ray of hope that would one day break forth in reality as the noonday sun. The Spirit of God is now for us the fullness and fatness in Jesus that Canaan foreshadowed! Sprinking šemen seven times denotes completeness, the seventh day of creation marking all things accomplished. So this seven-fold šemen sprinkling in which the leper stood looked forward to the full-scale fullness and fatness of the Spirit in which you and I stand.
Recall that before the šemen could be sprinkled, the priest first had to wave it and a male lamb for a guilt offering. This wave offering spotlighted the Lord’s satisfied delight in those two things. As all Emmaus roads through Scripture lead to Jesus, let’s see this fulfillment play out in Him. At the Jordan River, Jesus, the innocent One, swapped places with guilty spiritual lepers under those baptismal waters of death. John trumpeted Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The lamb for a guilt offering! This blood is what purified the leper’s right ear, right thumb, and right big toe.
As Jesus arose out of that watery grave—resurrection!—the Spirit from heaven descended as a dove and remained upon Him. The Father announced from heaven, “This is My Son, whom I love, in Him I am well pleased.” The Father’s public approval and pleasure in His Son by giving the Spirit is what waving of the šemen foreshadowed! God the Son as the firstborn paved the way for many sons of God to follow (Heb 2:10). Jesus, God’s ultimate priest, sprinkles not šemen seven times but the fullness of His Spirit in which we live and move and have our being! The good news proclaimed by the seven-fold sprinkling of šemen is being “filled with the Spirit,” into which Ephesians 5 invites us.
And some of the oil that remains in his hand the priest shall put on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, on top of the blood of the guilt offering.
Leviticus 14:17 ESV
Now, this šemen was not for cleansing but for serving. In Act Two the leper has blood and šemen put upon his ear, thumb, and toe. Like a priest being prepped serve in the tabernacle. Day One: blood and water. Day Eight: blood and šemen. The šemen is an advance on water! On Day One the Spirit, the living water, purifies and cleanses us. It’s the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing (Jn 6:63). How astonishing it is to be cleansed from sin and worldly defilements by the blood. But after atonement comes anointing. Act Two takes purification of the Spirit to the next level. It’s way better!
Now, catch the wonder of this. Although the priests received blood on their ear, thumb, and toe, not a drop of šemen was introduced! Only the cleansed leper had it! Neither the priests nor even the high priest had šemen sprinkled before the Lord seven times. Just the cleansed leper! The cleansed leper, anticipating God’s ultimate purpose, went above and beyond even the priests in intimacy with the Lord. The invitation before the Lord’s door is to come on in as a priest again. This ceremonial play expresses God’s original intent. His priests are not through tribal identity but through union with Christ and His finished work! The Lord desired every citizen of His holy nation to be a priest, not just one tribe. On the holy mount at Sinai, He said to all Israel, “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex 19:6).
As earthly tabernacle copied the heavenly one, so the Levitical priests were copies of heaven’s bride. Whereas Levites could minister as priests according to the flesh (i.e., genealogy), the cleansed leper was of the Spirit, like Isaac, born by the supernatural power of God. “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha,” Jesus preached, “and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian” (Lk 4:27). A cleansed leper was unusual, a supernatural sign.
Having washed away our uncleanness, the Spirit enables us as priests. The šemen sprinkled seven times depicts what’s foundational for all priestly ministry: the fullness of Holy Spirit. We are enveloped in the Spirit’s presence to minister to the Lord! This šemen is for ministering first to Jesus, not first to men. The bride has intimacy with her Bridegroom. The sprinkling of šemen before the Lord is as close to Jesus as we get in Leviticus!
The šemen upon ear, thumb, and toe denote specific activities within this sphere of the seven-fold sprinkling of Spirit-filled living. Why just the ear? Recall that metonymy is where one part signifies the whole. “Wheels” means the whole car. The Lord’s “hand” means His power. The šemen itself is a metonymy. It’s a token representing all the fatness and fullness of the land of Canaan, a revived garden of Eden. The ear, then, represents hearing. In the auditory world of the Hebrews, the ear also translated to an imaginative seeing of what’s spoken in the ear.
So why šemen on the lobe of the right ear? The order, though, is important: first blood, then šemen. The šemen is “on top of the blood.” Our ears must first be cleansed from the world’s cacophony of voices. An ear not cleansed by blood is an uncircumcised ear, unwilling to listen to God. The blood cancels our subscription to the world’s alluring channels.
This šemen on the ear is a nuanced aspect of living by the Spirit. It preps us for the most abundant, satisfying, delightful experience of hearing God’s voice! “He who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” The šemen on our ear is our inheritance as the bride! Act Two opens our eyes to see ourselves as God sees us. What we need now is faith to lean into this reality so we can fully enjoy it. The šemen is a prophecy of what we’re to become. It marks us for the destiny God has planned. It’s His pledge to be faithful to abundantly satisfy our ear with hearing His voice! Let’s illustrate this with an example.
In Isaiah 55 the Lord invites all to come to the waters and hear His voice for a rich feast. This is a wonderful invitation! Yet as amazing as this is, šemen speaks an even better word. It looks backward upon each invitation, repeated again and again, accumulating such that our ear has “grown fat.” In other words, šemen on our ear heightens our expectation of Isaiah 55 as a regular occurrence, not just for special occasions. God is faithful to routinely satiate us. “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.”
What about the thumb of his right hand? The thumb is a metonymy for the hand, that part of us which does work. What about the big toe of his right foot? “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). These I will develop in the next installment, as we see a real life example who epitomizes these beautiful Spirit-filled expressions in ministering to the Lord Jesus.
And the rest of the oil that is in the priest’s hand he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed.
Leviticus 14:18 ESV
Now here is a very intriguing detail. Search the ritual and you’ll find that unlike the ear, thumb, and toe, no blood was applied to the head, only the šemen. Why was the head anointed with šemen but not blood? Now, the common priest had no šemen applied to his head, but the high priest did (Exod 29:7, Lev 8:12). The Lord hasn’t given me light on this yet, but I pose it for your own pondering and meditation.
In closing, I have discovered this imagery of šemen on me such a solace and comfort. Recently I’ve had the privilege to lead a men’s Bible study through the Song of Songs. I so yearn for my brothers to encounter Jesus as their bridegroom in this wonderful book! But I felt that because it’s me who’s teaching, they won’t be as blessed as if it had been somebody else. This realization that it’s all about His šemen, His Spirit, has been so liberating! It’s not about my abilities or lack thereof, but about His fullness and fatness gifted to me that makes all the difference. He’s put šemen on me. It’s His anointing that is both a pledge of His faithfulness and His power to make fat those who hear. I’m resting more in God’s fullness and all-sufficiency!
This law of the leper was way too precious to Jesus to strand it as mere words. He had to put it on public display for all to see! Just as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, His bride, as depicted by this cleansed leper, also became a living word! Next time, we’ll dive into Mark’s Gospel and see how he masterfully integrated this gospel play of Leviticus into the good news of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Mark—along with Matthew, Luke, and John—take and run with the šemen anointed ear, thumb, and toe all rolled up into one person. Can you guess who that is? We’ll see in this one person (not Jesus!) the combined “superpowers” in the cleansed leper—blood on the ear, thumb, and toe like the priest, long hair like the Nazarite, and šemen on the head like the high priest. There’s one person singled out in the Gospels who epitomizes the cleansed leper who chose to dwell in the Lord’s tent. Our series comes to the grand finale where Mark takes the blueprint of this šemen-anointed leper and constructs in striking literary beauty the kind of bride that captivates the heart of Jesus!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 