While
studying Leviticus today, I read the following:
This is the law of the plague of leprosy in a
garment of woollen or linen, either in the warp, or woof, or any thing of
skins, to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean. (Lev 13:59)
The 1985 JPS
Tanakh renders the verse thusly:
Such is the procedure for eruptive affections
of cloth, woolen or linen, in warp or in woof, or of any article of skin, for
pronouncing it clean or unclean.
What is
interesting is that the declaration of being “clean” or “unclean” is based on,
not a mere imputation or “labelling” of being ritually clean or unclean: they
are declared such as they are truly (ritually) clean or unclean.
This should
caution us against the common abuse of texts such as Deut 25:1 and Lev 17:3-4
(see here), informed by the false (and blasphemous) doctrine of imputed
righteousness (see my essay here in response to a recent attempt to defend this doctrine).