A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’
We have here, I. Provisos that neither a freckled skin nor a bald head should be mistaken for a leprosy, Lev 13:38-41. Every deformity must not forthwith be made a ceremonial defilement. Elisha was jeered for his bald head (Kg2 2:23); but it was the children of Bethel, that knew not the judgments of their God, who turned it to his reproach. II.
Commenting on Leviticus 13:38-46
The garments also, that the plague of leprosy is in,.... Whether this sort of leprosy proceeded from natural causes, or was extraordinary and miraculous, and came immediately from the hand of God, and was peculiar to the Jews, and unknown to other nations, is a matter of question; the latter is generally asserted by the Hebrew writers, as Maimonides (e), Abraham Seba (f), and others...
the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, &c.--The person who was declared affected with the leprosy forthwith exhibited all the tokens of suffering from a heavy calamity. Rending garments and uncovering the head were common signs of mourning.