(52) He shall therefore burn.--As this distemper could never be eradicated from stuffs, the garments which have once become possessed of leprosy had to be burnt.

13:47-59 The garment suspected to be tainted with leprosy was not to be burned immediately. If, upon search, it was found that there was a leprous spot, it must be burned, or at least that part of it. If it proved to be free, it must be washed, and then might be used. This also sets forth the great evil there is in sin. It not only defiles the sinner's conscience, but it brings a stain upon all he has and all that he does. And those who make their clothes servants to their pride and lust, may see them thereby tainted with leprosy. But the robes of righteousness never fret, nor are moth-eaten.He shall therefore burn that garment,.... That there may be no more use of it, nor profit from it; and this was done without the city, as Ben Gersom asserts:

whether in warp or woof, in woollen or in linen, or anything of skin,

wherein the plague is; all and either of them were to be burnt:

for it is a fretting leprosy; See Gill on Leviticus 13:51,

it shall be burnt in the fire; which may teach both to hate the garment spotted with the flesh, and to put no trust in and have no dependence on a man's own righteousness, which is as filthy rags, and both are such as shall be burnt, and the loss of them suffered, even when a man himself is saved, yet so as by fire, 1 Corinthians 3:15.