Furthermore YHVH said to him, “Now put your hand inside your coat.” He put his hand in his coat; and when he took it out his hand was leprous, as white as snow. Then God said, “Now put your hand back in your coat.”-Exodus 4:6
In order to overcome Moses’ fears and doubts about the mission at hand, YHVH continues to demonstrate his miracle-working ability.
For the second sign, God commands Moses to insert his hand into his cloak and then pull it out.
When Moses does, the hand comes out grotesquely diseased.
Again, God commands him to insert and pull his hand out of his cloak.
This time, his hand comes out perfectly normal.
Most English translations will say his hand became “leprous”.
This is a mistake and here we have a perfect opportunity to address a common mistranslation.
The original Hebrew for what is generally translated as “leprosy” in the Bible is TZARA’AT.
TZARA’AT is NOT leprosy and does not refer to any one disease in particular.
Rather it is a general term for a whole range of skin diseases and abnormalities.
The truth is real leprosy, which is commonly called “Hansen’s disease” in medical circles was very rare.
After investigating ancient Egyptian public records and digging up thousands upon thousands of skeletons and mummies, there is practically zero evidence that leprosy reared its ugly head in Egypt until late into the 5th century.
There is some evidence that it existed in Canaan, but nothing to the extent that we are led to believe in movies and TV programs.
Overly dramatic scenes of large leper colonies who have been exiled from society are pure fiction.
So how did we come to translate TZARA’AT into leprosy anyway?
The error came about from a misunderstanding of the New Testament Greek word “LEPRA” which was used to translate the Hebrew word TZARA’AT.
In the Greek, LEPRA is a correct translation.
It is indeed a general term referring to a variety of contagious diseases.
However, what happened was the word LEPRA was English-ized into the word LEPROSY.
And as we all know, “leprosy” rather than referring to a variety of skin ailments, refers to a specific disease which is dramatically grotesque in appearance and fatal in outcome.
Think of the “elephant man” and you’ll get an idea of what real leprosy looks like.
Actually the proper Greek word for “leprosy” is “ELEPHANTIASIS”.
And this word is nowhere to be found in the New Testament because that’s not what it was.
Which means that those parts of the Bible that say Yeshua healed leprosy are flat-out wrong.
Now the spiritual takeaway of what God did with Moses’ hand is awesome.
It signifies that He is both the bringer of disease and a healer.
God can take the most unclean or defiled persons and purify them.
Still. denials, denials of the obvious. Very sad!!
I agree.
If Moses’ hand had turned black or even just dark, Europeans (and others) would be interpreting this passage literally and point it out as proof that Moses was not black.
Translation studies in this area are of no concequence to the repeated lesson a disease men could not cure that slowly ate away the flesh till death is a mirror image of sin that slowly eats away the spirit till eternal death and there is only one cure Jesus this lesson is repeated time and time again in the Word the dignosis of the exact disease has no bearing
Based on your comments of Moses hand, one would also come to believe that Miriam, and Gahazi, was wrongly misinterpreted. So it seems that in your own opinion, the bible has quite a few flaws. Based on your reasoning.
White as snow not diseased as snow. Moses was black
no he wasn’t partner. stop your hate. according to your doctrine Hamites were enslaved not the Israelites. stop worshiping gods that you have never known. you are from Ireland. stop getting lost in babble. i am a descendant of the black nobility of Ireland and wales. i am doing what i can to mend the sticks. but i will cut off all who practice hate in there hearts.
Sure, Moses was almost certainly black. I don’t see why some people have a problem with this. Maybe such people think that in view of supposed black inferiority and worthlessness, nothing of consequence can ever be associated with black people.
The gentiles and their myths. To be white is to be cursed!!! Think about it. You gentiles are not even in the old Testament. You don’t come in the bible until Acts 10.
Yes…very sad
Please excuse an ignorant question about this very issue. I was trying to find the meaning of thus very thing. I looked up the meaning, using Google translate, and dud so by putting the Hebrew text into the search box and it came back as “tread.” I next went to a concordance and several other Hebrew lexicon to look up this word. What follows is from Strong’s concordance, but virtually all of the other Hebrew lexicon had the same meaning:
H6879
Original: צרע
Transliteration: tsâra‛
Phonetic: tsaw-rah’
BDB Definition:
to be diseased of skin, be leprous
(Qal) to be a leper
(Pual) to have leprosy
Leprosy did NOT exist in Bible times.
It did…NUMBER 12:10 it was punishment is God took the color from you.it was a sin. You people don’t get it…Blacks Mexican and Indians are the southern tribe of the Israelites….white people are EUSA You are in the BIBLE and important..GOD hates you ROMAN 9:13you been lied to…there is 42 signs of and Israelite….in DEUTERONOMY 28:65 our ancestors were on slave ship….GOD sad we be sold to our enemy….OBADIAH 1:18 tells you will be no more….we will go back to life without ESUA BEING HERE….GOD SAID SO……WE CAN’T WAIT TO LIVE OR LIFE without dying you have got to go….our GOD said so
Sadly a Strongs concordance is not a be all or end all for Hebrew. The very first word is the actual meaning of the Hebrew word. After that most concordances then just offer every English word it has been translated into, thereby confusing the issue.
Moses experienced Vitiligo, a skin condition in which melanocytes that are responsible for pigmentation do not work. It would have been a startling site for a black African man like Moses to have his hand turn white as snow.
Lies, People were exiled , happened right here in the United Snakes which is really Turtle Island. Leprosy WAS HERE .