The garment This leprosy in garments appears so strange to us, that it has induced some, with B. Patrick, to consider it as an extraordinary punishment inflicted by God upon the Israelites, as a sign of his high displeasure; while others consider the leprosy in clothes (and also houses) as having no relation to the leprosy in man. When Michaelis was considering the subject, he was told by a dealer in wool, the wool of sheep which die of a disease, if it has not been shorn from the animal while living, is unfit to manufacture cloth, and liable to something like what Moses here describes, and which he imagines to be the plague of leprosy in garments. The whole account, however, as Dr. A. Clarke observes, seems to intimate that the garment was {fretted} by the contagion of the real leprosy; which it is probable was occasioned by a species of {animacula, or vermin} burrowing in the skin, which we know to be the cause of the {itch}; these, by breeding in the garments, must necessarily multiply their kind, and fret the garments, i.e. corrode a portion of the finer parts, after the manner of {moths}, for their nourishment. The infection of garments has frequently been known to cause the worst species of scarlet fever, and even the plague; and those infected with {psora}, or itch animal, had communicated the disease even in six or seven years after the infection.

Isaiah 3:16-24 Moreover the LORD said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes...

Isaiah 59:6 Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity...

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities...

Ezekiel 16:16 And of your garments you did take, and decked your high places with divers colors, and played the harlot thereupon...

Romans 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

Ephesians 4:22 That you put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

Colossians 3:3 For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Jude 1:23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.