Leviticus 14:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Two birds alive and clean— The Vulgate renders this, two sparrows; and so it is rendered in the margin of our English Bibles: but the original is general, and expresses two small birds of any kind; as, indeed, the designation of clean evidently shews, since, if sparrows had been meant, it would have been superfluous to have added clean, supposing the whole species to have been so; and it would have been very absurd to have required a clean sparrow if the whole species had been esteemed unclean. As the leper was to be sprinkled, an aspergillum, or instrument for sprinkling, is ordered to be made of a stick of cedar-wood, upon which a bunch of hyssop was to be bound with a scarlet thread; many reasons for which have been assigned, some natural, some moral. Naturalists assert, that the juice or resin of cedar, together with hyssop, were esteemed good for cutaneous disorders; that the former, in particular, was of service to cure the elephantiasis; and that hyssop was of virtue to dissolve spots, and recover the colour of the skin: and though it is not conceivable, that the bare sprinkling at the time of purification could be of any consequence in respect to the cure; yet, possibly, these things might have been previously made use of in the cure, and be now used, with propriety, as remembrancers of it. Hyssop is spoken of as a purifier, both in a natural and moral sense: purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Psalms 51:7. Accordingly Abarbanel says, that the living bird denoted that the dead flesh of the leper was restored to life: the cedar-wood, which is not easily corrupted, that he was cured of his putrefaction; the scarlet wool, that he was restored to his good complexion; and the hyssop, which is purgative and odoriferous, that his disease, and every thing disagreeable to the smell, was purged off. Others, however, and with more reason, apply these things to the purification of the soul by the sacrifice of the blood of Christ. See the note on Exodus 12:22.