The leper was to carry about with him the usual signs of mourning for the dead. Compare Leviticus 10:6 and margin reference.
The leper was a living parable in the world of the sin of which death was the wages; not the less so because his suffering might have been in no degree due to his own personal deserts: he bore about with him at once the deadly fruit and the symbol of the sin of his race. Exodus 20:5. As his body slowly perished, first the skin, then the flesh, then the bone, fell to pieces while yet the animal life survived; he was a terrible picture of the gradual corruption of the spirit worked by sin.
His head bare - Rather, “his head neglected.” See Leviticus 10:6 note.
Unclean, unclean - Compare the margin reference.