Leviticus13:11

Translation

it is a languishing scourge

on the skin of his body and the priest shall pronounce him unclean. He shall not shut him up for he is unclean.

Paraphrase

the type of skin disorder on his body (described in the previous verse) is the kind that sticks around and gets worse; therefore, the priest will immediately indicate that everyone should not have contact with him. The priest does not need to carry out an experiment to see if it will spread; the nature of the condition is already obvious, and it is something to watch out for.

Footnotes

1: Scourge

“Scourge” is the short rendering of this Hebrew word; it shows that it is something bad that comes from God. The full rendering that I more commonly use because it is more complete is: “struck by God with a visible abnormality.” Here the short version sounds better in English because it is accompanied by the adjective “languishing.”

Shutting him up was not for the protection of others

Here it is obvious to the priest that the person does indeed have the skin condition, thus there is no need to quarantine him for seven days for he is already obviously unclean.

Thus the quarantining of these persons in this passage was not to protect others from this condition, but rather to run an experiment that would prove the nature of the condition. They needed to make sure they had a controlled setting for their experiment with no outside influences messing up the results and showing signs that were not true of the patient.

Where did the priests put such a person?

Some think it was outside the camp, but I disagree. Before the nature of the condition was confirmed and while the person was being observed, it appears that the priests put them in a special place that the priests controlled. In the temple that was built later, there was a sizeable chamber for lepers (which possibly included smaller chambers) so we can assume that during the tabernacle era there was a tent or set of tents designated for this purpose. In the situation described in this verse, the condition is obvious, so the person is sent away to deal with it themselves by finding a place outside the camp until he repents and is cured.