Why didn't God strike Herod with Leprosy before he could to any harm to the newborns? He could prevent the death of many newborns and Joseph wouldn't have been forced to run to Egypt with Mary and baby Jesus. Matthew 2:16: >When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. In Matthew 2:18 it says that this needs to happen to fulfill the prophecy of Jeremiah: >A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. But why?

I was at a conference today and got to hear the pretty awesome Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers. He was explaining something I'd never heard before, and I'm probably butchering it, that holiness makes you unclean according to the Jewish understanding. He said something to the effect that it was out of reverence, more or less, for the fact that women bleed and do not die, that the period for holiness (a time to leave women to be with God) was necessary and that touching something holy was what made one unclean. This is why when Jesus said "Drink my blood" it was a big deal and also why He had to say eat My Body and drink My Blood. Because this would be life reconstituted (a mini sign of the resurrection). Leviticus 17 forbid the eating of blood and Jesus didn't come to destroy the Law, but to complete it, which is why we - Consume the Blood of Christ - Are washed clean in the Blood of Christ. And I think his whole argument made sense with respect to women, who Chesterton in the Everlasting Man argues suffer more at the hands of historians than they ever did at the hands of their husbands. But could that idea apply to leprosy as well? Basically, what the deacon said sounded great when applied to femininity, but entirely didn't make sense if applied to leprosy - as I understand the disease, it involves a lot of bleeding, not a lot of pain, and eventual death, maybe this is the distinction? Am I comparing apples with oranges here? Or is there something hidden in Leviticus that saw a holiness in leprosy? Looking for Catholic exegesis, but anything scholarly will do.

Anyone with leprosy should stay outside the city until he is clean. > **Leviticus 13:46** He is to live by himself in a home outside the encampment. With reference with below verses, we see Jesus travelling through Galilee preaching and driving out demons. > **Mark 1:38-39** Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” > So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and > driving out demons. Suddenly, man with leprosy came to Jesus for healing. > **Mark 1:40** A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” How did the man with leprosy get into city? He was not supposed to come into the city, right? I assume many people was following Jesus to see his miracles but if so how did his person with leprosy come to Jesus through all these people? Or Jesus outside the city?

> Some Jews seemed to think that lepersy was a punishment for sin, > rather than a sin itself. This is most probably going to sound like a stupid question either because there is a specific verse or because there really seems to be no other explanation, but where in the Bible is such indicated? That is what my teachers and priests have told me, but I can't seem to find it in the Bible. I found this webpage , but it gives me only one verse which doesn't really answer my question: > Incurable by man, many believed God inflicted the curse of leprosy > upon people for the sins they committed. In fact, those with leprosy > were so despised and loathed that they were not allowed to live in any > community with their own people (Numbers 5:2). Among the sixty-one > defilements of ancient Jewish laws, leprosy was second only to a dead > body in seriousness. A leper wasn’t allowed to come within six feet of > any other human, including his own family. The disease was considered > so revolting that the leper wasn’t permitted to come within 150 feet > of anyone when the wind was blowing. Lepers lived in a community with > other lepers until they either got better or died. This was the only > way the people knew to contain the spread of the contagious forms of > leprosy. Num 5:2 says > Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. There's a comment in the question that points out 2 Ki 15:5 and another verse Num 12:10 (whose relevance I don't understand). Num 12:9-11 (NASB): >9 So the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed. 10 But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. 11 Then Aaron said to Moses, "Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. 2 Ki 15:4-6 (NASB): >4 Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. 5 The LORD struck the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death. And he lived in a separate house, while Jotham the king's son was over the household, judging the people of the land. 6 Now the rest of the acts of Azariah and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? --- Some context: I am trying to clarify the claim I make in this Cognitive Sciences stackexchange question about mental illness : > In ancient times (or Jesus's time), uninformed people believed people > who had leprosy had leprosy because they committed a grave sin or sins

In relation to these two questions: [What evidence is there that the Jews thought leprosy was due to sin?](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/42947/21576) [What does it mean to say that mental illness is a modern-day leprosy?](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/10958) Obviously, Jesus didn't go into details about biology and psychology. Those things barely work with some people in modern society. So what did He do? Did He actually correct some people? What did Jesus say to convince them? As far as I am able to recall, Jesus showed sympathy to the diseased by interacting or dining with them, which implies "So what **if** disease or their diseases are caused by sin? We still shouldn't refuse to interact with them." That's a great lesson really, but did He also correct people? I kind of feel that He probably didn't because that wasn't really His point of being on Earth (left that to the scientists centuries later). On the other hand, I kind of feel that such lesson or even a nudge towards things like that would have been largely helpful. I don't see any practical value in Jesus talking about calculus or gravity those don't have much to do with morality and religion, but I think some lessons or nudges about very simple biology such as some of the causes of diseases, which might eventually lead those people to think that, more often than not, diseases are caused more by physical evils than moral evils.