Sunday Sermonette: Fashion Disaster

The literal and inerrant word of God keeps getting weirder and more errant, at least to anyone with common sense. Whatever may have inspired the preceding obsession with pimples or boils or carbuncles or whatever exactly was going on, at least those afflictions exist. People do get various dermatological lesions, although modern physicians do not prescribe rending your garments, covering your upper lip, moving out into the desert and crying "Unclean! Unclean!"

What we are about to read, however, defies explanation. I have not been able to find even speculation about what phenomenon in reality may have inspired this. It's just completely nuts. I mean sure, there could be mold or mildew on a garment, although that seems unlikely in an arid climate, but why not just wash it?

⁴⁷ “When there is a leprous disease in a garment, whether a woolen or a linen garment, ⁴⁸ in warp or woof of linen or wool, or in a skin or in anything made of skin, ⁴⁹ if the disease shows greenish or reddish in the garment, whether in warp or woof or in skin or in anything made of skin, it is a leprous disease and shall be shown to the priest. ⁵⁰ And the priest shall examine the disease, and shut up that which has the disease for seven days; ⁵¹ then he shall examine the disease on the seventh day. If the disease has spread in the garment, in warp or woof, or in the skin, whatever be the use of the skin, the disease is a malignant leprosy; it is unclean. ⁵² And he shall burn the garment, whether diseased in warp or woof, woolen or linen, or anything of skin, for it is a malignant leprosy; it shall be burned in the fire.
⁵³ “And if the priest examines, and the disease has not spread in the garment in warp or woof or in anything of skin, ⁵⁴ then the priest shall command that they wash the thing in which is the disease, and he shall shut it up seven days more; ⁵⁵ and the priest shall examine the diseased thing after it has been washed. And if the diseased spot has not changed color, though the disease has not spread, it is unclean; you shall burn it in the fire, whether the leprous spot is on the back or on the front.
⁵⁶ “But if the priest examines, and the disease is dim after it is washed, he shall tear the spot out of the garment or the skin or the warp or woof; ⁵⁷ then if it appears again in the garment, in warp or woof, or in anything of skin, it is spreading; you shall burn with fire that in which is the disease. ⁵⁸ But the garment, warp or woof, or anything of skin from which the disease departs when you have washed it, shall then be washed a second time, and be clean.”
⁵⁹ This is the law for a leprous disease in a garment of wool or linen, either in warp or woof, or in anything of skin, to decide whether it is clean or unclean.