HEBREW WORD STUDY – SUPERNATURAL PLAGUE – NEGA’ TSARA’AT

נגע צרעת Nun Gimmel Ayin Sade Resh Ayin Taw

Leviticus 13:9: “When the plague of leprosy is in a man, then he shall be brought unto the priest;”

On April 25, 2020 I will be conducting my weekly live class on our All Access( HebrewWordStudy.com) Word Study for the Weekly Torah Portion Discussion. Coincidentally, it is the first day of Iyar on the Jewish Calendar. Iyar in Hebrew means to blossom. It occurs between April and May on the Gregorian Calendar which is the calendar that we follow in the Western world. This means that the month of Iyar falls in the spring of the year. It is the eighth month of the civil Jewish year and the second month of the Jewish religious year.

Traditionally, the month of Iyar signifies a month of rebirth as is the picture of spring when plants and flows bloom or are reborn after winter. Israel was proclaimed a State in the 5^th of Iyar (1948). The rebuilt walls of Jerusalem were dedicated on the 7^th of Iyar (498 BC), The Israeli Army defeated the advancing Syrian Army at the Battle of Degania on the 11^th of Iyar (1948) which was Israel’s first victory in their war of Independence, Adolf Eichmann the Nazi war criminal who instituted the final solution for Hitler was captured on the 14^th of Iyar (1960), the concentration camp Dachau was liberated by the U.S. Army on the 15^th of Iyar (1945), the Jews defeated the Roman garrison in Jerusalem on the 17^th of Iyar (66 CE), Hitler died on the 17^th of Iyar (1945) and Jerusalem was captured by the Jews during the Six-Day war on the 28^th of Iyar (1967).

There is much more that occurred in the month of Iyar (admittedly not all was good). Significantly, a plague in 120 AD that killed 24,000 Jews ceased on the 18^th of Iyar. Iyar has been considered the month of Divine Healing.

Right now the world is in a pause because of a plague called the Coronavirus. Coincidentally, half of the Torah Portion Study on Saturday, April 25, the first day of Iyar is on the nega tsara’at or the plague of leprosy. To Orthodox Jews, the word tsara’at is mistranslated as leprosy. Actually, modern-day leprosy or Hanson’s disease is really not the same as tsara’at. For one thing, the Bible says that one afflicted with tsara’at turned white as snow. This is not typical of Hanson’s Disease. There are other differences as well that I will not go into. To the Orthodox Jew tsara’at is a reference to a disease that has a supernatural origin. Clearly, the Bible shows that Miriam, Elijah’s servant, and others were afflicted with tsara’at by a supernatural origin.

For the sake of this study, I will give the simplest understanding which may not be totally accurate to Jewish Orthodox thinking but I believe is close. The body has a natural rhythm like your heartbeat. I recently had a pacemaker put in my heart. The way my doctor explained it to me is that the heart generates an electrical impulse that creates the contraction and expansion of the heart allowing it to pump blood throughout your body in a perfect rhythmic pattern. As we age these electrical impulses weaken so that eventually the contraction and expansion of our heart fall out of its rhythmic pattern which could eventually lead to a heart attack. To correct these doctors insert a pacemaker which sends out a strong enough electrical impulse to put the heart back into its natural rhythmic pattern. So too, our spirit has a rhythm called ratso(escape) and shov (settle). When our spirit is in the ratso state it is in prayer, Bible Study, worship, and praise of God. It is like an escape from the physical world. Then in perfect rhythm, it will go to shov, where we will again settle into this world to perform our purpose for being in this world.

We live our Christian life following this rhythmic pattern, worshipping God, praying and studying Scriptures to living and working in this world in a perfect rhythm. Like a pendulum swinging back and forth. But when that pendulum fails to swing back to ratso from shov, the rhythm breaks it leaves behind a spiritual vacuum in which all sorts of undesirable elements take roots like weeds in an abandoned garden to use a rabbis illustration.

Like a heart that is out of rhythm that can continue to pump blood throughout one’s body, eventually, it will go into cardiac arrest, that is when God will allow ratso and shov to crossover from the Spiritual realm into the physical realm bringing about a nega tsara’at a supernatural plague. The purpose of nega tsara’at, a supernatural plague is like installing a pacemaker. It was not a pleasant experience having the pacemaker installed and it will take ten weeks for the pacemaker wires to settle properly in my heart but after ten weeks I will be able to resume normal activity with no restrictions and in fact live a more energic and healthier life.

I suppose we can argue back and forth whether this coronavirus is sent by God or giving God just using it as an opportunity to reconnect with us and we will likely not come to any definite conclusion. For this reason, I do not render nega tsara’at as a Divine Plague but as a supernatural plague. The enemy is working in full force to keep us from reconnecting with God. This is really spiritual warfare at its peak. I personally believe there is a supernatural origin to this plague and it is up to us as believers who will determine the outcome.

Believers have fallen out of rhythm with God and so He has put everything on hold to insert a pacemaker. The enemy is working overtime to mess up the surgery and recover so we do not get back in rhythm with God.

Perhaps, I am not a prophet, it is no coincidence that the month of Iyar, the month of Divine Healing is coming just as we are beginning to see the curve of the virus flatten out. Perhaps, during the month of Divine Healing, we will begin to see a return to a normal life.

Not all that happened to the Jewish people during the month of Iyar was good, there was a lot of bad things that also happened. But maybe, just maybe we believers will reconnect with God, the Divine Pacemaker will restore our rhythm with God and a great revival will break out. I personally believe that if we restore our rhythm with God and after the nega tsara’at passes and a vaccine is found in the next 18 months, we will find that a billion people in this world will have connected with God ushering in the greatest revival since the Great Awakening.