The Great Physician XIX: Lesions, Boils and Infestations

Boils

Although I will discuss these at length as they are heavy references in the Bible as skin lesions I should mention them here. They are dwelled on at length in the Old Testament. Skin lesions or ;צרעת often referred to as leprosy. This is sort of a misnomer in the Bible. In modern times we have individual names for some of the lesions described in Scripture and it is not only the leprosy we know today to be Hansen’s Disease that causes loss of body parts. Biblically speaking, the Hebraic root tsara or tsaraath (צָרַע, tsaw-rah'—to be struck with leprosy, to be leprous) and the Greek (λεπρός—lepros), are of broader classification of a whole host of skin disorders not just the dreaded infection that causes lost of eyelids, ears and appendages like fingers and toes. Due to this disfiguring type of leprosy it is no surprise the ancients would pay exceptionally close attention to dermatological conditions.

There are very few references to conditions that appear to be something other than the dreaded form of Hanson’s Disease and are painful without being visible to add shame to the sufferer’s misery. We have the famous verse from Deuteronomy (the curses for disobedience) which is thought to describe interalia or the infamous hemorrhoids.

The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. Deuteronomy 28:27 

This verse, besides being painfully descriptive, raises questions that are not easily answered. The term shechin / שחין is widely used to mean an inflamed spot or eruption from the skin. It occurs in Leviticus 13 in reference to צרעת but here it is being used quite differently to refer specifically to to the ‘boil of Egypt’ which was almost certainly acute cutaneous leishmaniasis. This disease was common and it can be disfiguring but is temporary not chronic. It usually resolves itself on its own in under a year once a person’s immunity can get ahead of it.

Within this verse it says ‘cannot be heal’. It has long been assumed therefore was fatal but that it cannot be cured does not necessarily imply this. This word is not used for fatality anywhere else in the Bible so may have referred to an enduring or recurrent dermatological condition such as

scabies or psoriasis. Bottom line...this condition was likely not fatal and I have it boiled down to either hemorrhoids, scabies or the unsightly but harmless psoriasis.

Infestations

Infestations would have been common in ancient Israel and everywhere else in the ancient world (or today). Food hygiene would have been rudimentary particularly in respect of the water used for food preparation and for washing. Many infestations are caused by worms that have a stage of their life-cycle in either stagnant or running water.

Guinea worm and several other intestinal worms, flatworms and round worms, are today still very common in the Middle East and third-world countries. It has been suggested that the avoidance of the pork in the Bible was because of tapeworm (Taenia solium) common in pork. It is likely this was the reason for which the Israelites were forbidden from eating it.