Tzaraʿat Purification: A Vestige of Demonic Exorcism

For a discussion of what disease the term might be referring to, see Yitzhaq Feder, “Tzaraat in Light of Its Mesopotamian Parallels,” TheTorah (2017). For another suggestion, see Chaim Trachtman, “Tzaraat as Cancer,” TheTorah (2016).

Material in this essay is taken from my “Rites of Replenishment: Observations on Priestly Purification,” M.A. thesis (Bar-Ilan University, 2022).

See Noga Ayali-Darshan, “The Scapegoat Ritual and Its Ancient Near Eastern Parallels,” TheTorah (2020).

For this term, see David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987). The slaughtered bird also has a clear parallel to the Yom Kippur rite, since the slaughtered goat’s blood is sprinkled in the inner sanctum of the Tabernacle to cleanse it from the impurities of Israel (Lev 16:19). Nearly identical language is used for the two blood-sprinkling rites. Compare:

^{ויקרא יד:ז} וְהִזָּה עַל הַמִּטַּהֵר מִן הַצָּרַעַת שֶׁבַע פְּעָמִים וְטִהֲרוֹ...

^{Lev 14:7} He shall sprinkle it on the one to be purified of the eruption, seven times, and purify him…

^{ויקרא טז:יט} וְהִזָּה עָלָיו מִן הַדָּם בְּאֶצְבָּעוֹ שֶׁבַע פְּעָמִים וְטִהֲרוֹ וְקִדְּשׁוֹ...

^{Lev 16:19} He shall sprinkle the rest of the blood on it with his finger, seven times, and purify and consecrate it…

See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 833. The term חַי meaning “wild” is used to describe undomesticated animals (e.g., וְהִשְׁלַחְתִּי בָכֶם אֶת חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה, “I will loose wild beasts against you,” Lev 26:22) as well as Hebrew women giving birth on their own, without midwives (Exod 1:19).

For more on this city and its importance to biblical and ANE studies, especially when it comes to ritual, see Yoram Cohen, The Scribes and Scholars of the City of Emar in the Late Bronze Age, Harvard Semitic Studies 59 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009); Brian C. Babcock, Sacred Ritual A Study of the West Semitic Ritual Calendars in Leviticus 23 and the Akkadian Text Emar 446, Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement 9 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009); Matthew Rutz, Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Diviners of Late Bronze Age Emar and Their Tablet Collection, Ancient Magic and Divination 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2013); John Tracy Thames, Jr., The Politics of Change: The Zukru Festival in the Political History of Late Bronze Age Emar (Leiden: Brill, 2020).

See Yitzhaq Feder, “Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic: Leviticus 14 and Its Extra-Biblical Parallels,” JHS 15 (2015), 6; idem, “Tzaraat in Light of Its Mesopotamian Parallels.”

See discussion in Marion Broida, “Moses’ Apotropaic Intercession,” TheTorah (2017).

Cited by Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 834.

Ulippi 4.38–40; see David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 36.

Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), vol. E (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1956).

See Richard S. Heiss, “Leviticus,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Genesis–Leviticus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 702.

The funerary function is noted in the works of Herotodus (The Histories, Book II) and was more recently discovered through a chemical analysis of unused embalming material; see Johann Koller, et al., “Analysis of a pharaonic embalming tar,” Nature 425 (2003), 784.

See Irene Jacob and Walter Jacob, “Flora,” ABD, vol. 2 (New York: Yale University Press, 1992); Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 870–871. For more on house tzaraʿat and how it was understood by the rabbis, see Martha Himmelfarb, “Priests & Rabbis Determine Ritual Reality,” TheTorah (2021).

See Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 835. Both cedar and tamarisk are added to water to make magical substances. For example, “white cedar (resin), cedar oil, sesame oil, virgin oil, oil of nikiptu, white honey, that are imported into this country (to be put into the holy water basin).”CAD, vol E, s.v. “erēnu,” p. 277.

See Noga Ayali-Darshan, “The Background of the Cedar Forest Tradition in the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers in the Light of West-Asian Literature,” Ägypten und Levante / Egypt and the Levant 27 (2017), 186–187.

For instance, “[Gilgamesh and Enkidu] were gazing at the Cedar Land, the dwelling of the gods, the throne of the goddesses”; see Ayali-Darshan, “Cedar Forest Tradition,” 187–188.

It is thought to be the kermes insect (Kermes ilicis) that infests oak trees; see Edwin Firmage, “Zoology,” ABD, vol. 6.

See Roseanne Liebermann, “The Protective Red Thread,” TheTorah (2022).

See Noga Ayali-Darshan, “Scapegoat: The Origins of the Crimson Thread,” TheTorah (2020).

See James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET), Third Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 277.

See Giulia Sorlini, “The Megalithic Temples of Malta,” Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean: Papers Presented at the First International Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean (University of Malta, 1985), 145.

See Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 272. Milgrom cites a similar rite by the African Ndembu tribe, where a person reddens the river with the blood of a fowl and also adds powdered red clay and gum.

This is the most common identification of biblical אֵזוֹב, and is the preferred translation in Lytton John Musselman, Solomon Described Plants: A Botanical Guide to Plant Life in the Bible (Cascade Books, 2022), s.v. “Hyssop,” pp. 155–160 [285–287 in the Kindle edition]. Joseph Weinstein (“Red Heifer: A Soap Ritual,” TheTorah [2022]) suggests the caper plant (Capparis sicula or Capparis spinosa), Sorghum vulgare (a.k.a. Sorghum bicolor, a grass cultivated for its grain) or Arundo donax (a tall reed or cane) as other options.

See Jacob and Jacob, “Flora.”

See Robert Hawley, “Hyssop in the Ugaritic Incantation RS 92.2014,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, vol. 4 (Brill, 2004), 63.

Additionally, the New Testament depicts Moses as using hyssop to sprinkle blood on the people in the covenant ceremony of Exodus 24 (Heb 9:19).

See Jacob and Jacob, “Flora”; also Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 836.

Utukki Limnûti, Tablet V; see Reginald Campbell Thompson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia (London: Luzac, 1903), 79. Here and elsewhere, the English style of the translation has been modernized.

See Henrike Frey-Anthes, “Concepts of ‘Demons’ in Ancient Israel,” Die Welt des Orients 38 (2008), 41–42; Joanne K. Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons,” ABD, vol. 2.

From “The Legend of the Possessed Princess,” ANET3, 30, n 13.

The underworld or realm of the dead is thought to be the birthplace of demons; see Wright, Disposal of Impurity, 250, n. 48.

See Frey-Anthes, “Concepts of ‘Demons’ in Ancient Israel,” 38–43; Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons.”

Utukki Limnûti, Tablet III; see Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 11.

On demonic possession in childbirth, see Samuel R. Driver, Book of Leviticus: A New English Translation (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1898) 75; in menstruation, see Jacob Milgrom, “The Rationale for Biblical Impurity,” JANES 22 (1993), 107; in sex/semen, see Karl Elliger, Leviticus, HAT 4 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1966), 197; in tzara’at, see Alfred Bertholet, Leviticus, KHC 3 (Leipzig: Mohr, 1901), 43; in human corpses, see Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 55. The Azazel goat (Lev 16) is possibly an explicit reference to a demon. See Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons”; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 1020–1021. Similarly, blood rites in the sanctuary may be designed to counteract demonic forces. See Baruch A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 77–80.

See Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, 63–67.

Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, 103.

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 316; see also 42–44, 259. For Milgrom, impurity is potent with respect to the sancta but poses no harm to people (see ibid., 43, 316).

Impurity can also have a dangerous rebound-effect on people when they come into contact with the sacred domain. An impure individual—or impurity on the collective—in proximity to the divine presence is capable of unleashing lethal force:

^{ויקרא טו:לא} וְהִזַּרְתֶּם אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִטֻּמְאָתָם וְלֹא יָמֻתוּ בְּטֻמְאָתָם בְּטַמְּאָם אֶת מִשְׁכָּנִי אֲשֶׁר בְּתוֹכָם.

^{Lev 15:31} You shall put the Israelites on guard against their impurity, lest they die through their impurity by defiling my Tabernacle which is among them.

Similarly, the Priests serving in the Tabernacle itself are warned to wash their hands and feet, lest they die:

^{שמות ל:כא} וְרָחֲצוּ יְדֵיהֶם וְרַגְלֵיהֶם וְלֹא יָמֻתוּ...

^{Exod 30:21} They shall wash their hands and feet, that they may not die…

Washing is a common purification method for impurity cases in the Priestly text, and neglecting ritual purification can have fatal consequences, especially for the Priests who work in the hazardous divine epicenter.

This explanation has been advanced by Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed 3.48) and Nahmanides (on Lev 11:9). For ancient peoples, these phenomena and the harm they threatened were the work of unseen forces: witchcraft, curses, punishment, or demonic attack. See Yitzhaq Feder, “Tum’ah: Ritual Impurity or Fear of Contagious Disease?” TheTorah (2019).

For instance, “(the demons) have compressed my chest, weakened my inside, bound my arms”; see CAD, vol. E, s.v. enēšu, 167.

Belief in impurity connected to otherworldly forces is evidenced in Second Temple thought. For instance, the Yaḥad sectarians from the Qumran community discuss demons and exorcism (see e.g., 4Q560) and have a law prohibiting men impure due to genital flux from going off to war due to the presence of angels among the army (4Q496 7):

וכול איש אשר לוא יהיה טהור ממקורו ביום המלחמה לוא ירד אתם כיא מלאכי קודש עם צבאותם יחד.

And every man who has not cleansed himself of his ‘spring’ on the day of battle will not go down with them, for the holy angels are together with their armies.

(Translation from Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition [Leiden: Brill, 1999], 125.) The New Testament depicts Jesus exorcising demons (e.g., Matt 8, Mark 5, Luke 8). The rabbis clearly held a belief in demons and evil spirits (e.g.,מַזִּיקִין and שֵׁדִים), as evidenced by frequent mentions in Talmud and Midrash. The belief in demons thus persisted throughout antiquity among Israel and clearly was not rooted out by the Priestly legislators. The Priests themselves may have taken as a given that such dark, impure forces exist, while at the same time muting such talk in order to focus people on the commands of YHWH and prevent them from taking demon-pacification into their own hands.

See e.g., Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), 191–192.

Similarly, Deuteronomy describes reshef רֶשֶׁף and ketev קֶטֶב (Deut 32:24); reshef is the name of a Canaanite and Syrian god, but the biblical text cites it as a form of devastation. See Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, 63–65.

See Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 275.

See Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 832.

This more embodied view of ritual is explicit in the Priestly rite of sotah, wherein a magical potion is utilized not to “symbolically” curse the suspected adulteress—rather, if she was unfaithful:

^{במדבר ה:כז} ...וּבָאוּ בָהּ הַמַּיִם הַמְאָרְרִים לְמָרִים וְצָבְתָה בִטְנָהּ וְנָפְלָה יְרֵכָהּ...

^{Num 5:27} …the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag…

Yet, though the potion has inherent potency, it is YHWH who controls its effects:

^{במדבר ה:כא} ...יִתֵּן יְ־הֹוָה אוֹתָךְ לְאָלָה...

^{Num 5:21} …YHWH shall make you a curse…

The same can be said for the two-bird rite and other Priestly purification rites.