Leviticus 14:33

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When ye are come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; then he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, There seemeth to me to be as it were a plague in the house. And the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest goeth in to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house: and he shall look on the plague; and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, and the appearance thereof be lower than the wall; then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days. And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look; and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house; then the priest shall command that they take out the stones in which the plague is, and cast them into an unclean place without the city: and he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the mortar, that they scrape off, without the city into an unclean place: and they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and shall plaster the house."

The legislation here is prospective, looking forward to the time when the children of Israel would dwell in Canaan. Note the mention of "without the city" in Leviticus 14:41,42, as contrasted with "without the camp" (Leviticus 14:3). It is fanciful and imaginative to take this prospective legislation as indicating a later date for this part of the law. Any supposition that God would not have given Israel special instructions relative to their eventual entry to Canaan, prior to that entry, is founded. The flat and unequivocal declaration that God indeed did just that should be accepted as truth!

What was this leprosy of houses? Significantly, God here declared that he would "put the plague of leprosy" in certain houses in Canaan, and the fact that we do not know exactly what that was does not alter the facts. God performed many wonders for his people in the land of promise. It is generally supposed that this leprosy was "a fungus, or some discoloration,"[20] "a dry rot,"[21] "a species of mold,"[22] or something else. We simply do not know.

Most commentators believe that some natural deterioration of houses is meant here, and that may very well be true. The fact that God mentioned his "putting" the leprosy in certain houses is in line with the ancient Semitic manner of attributing all things that God allowed to God as the doer of them.

Whatever may have been the affliction of those ancient houses, one thing is sure: where people live is a vital part of their environment; and God is surely concerned with the environment in which men live and try to serve him. In a spiritual sense, there are indeed many houses even today that need cleansing!