And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
The leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent ... 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. х paaruwa` (H6544), signifies bare, naked, also 'free;' and hence, some render it, as the Arabic version does, 'forbore to cut or shave his hair,' (Parkhurst, on paara` (H6544), No. 8:)]
As to 'the putting a covering upon the upper lip,' that means either wearing a moustache, as the Hebrews used to shave the upper lip (Calmet), or simply keeping a hand over it, or veiling the mouth [Septuagint, peri to stoma autou peribalesthoo, covered around the mouth] (cf. Ezekiel 24:17; Ezekiel 24:22; Micah 3:7, where, though our version has lips, the Hebrew reads lip). The Hebrew word occurs 2 Samuel 19:24 (25), and is rendered by our translators 'beard' [Septuagint, mustax, properly moustache, but here 'beard'], which being held in high estimation, to hide or cover it was a sign of great sorrow or shame.
This Hebrew custom of covering the lip or lips in the season of calamity may receive illustration from the practice of the modern Jews in Barbary, whose mourning rites are thus described by Dean Addison (p. 218): 'They return from the grave to the house of the deceased, where one who is chief mourner receives them, with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth. Thus muffled the mourner goes for seven days.' The rite used by the leper-namely, covering his lip or mouth when pronounced by the priest unclean-`was probably similar to the mourning usage of the Barbary Jews.' All these external marks of grief were intended to proclaim, in addition to his own exclamation, "Unclean!" that the person was a leper, whose company everyone must shun.