That Leper

That Leper; Bit of History

© 2025 by Amber Wright

Date: AD 30

Place: Jerusalem

I was that leper.

The one who was so empty and so broken—broken in both body and spirit.

I was that spotted leper who had no choice but to die—sink to the earth—and fade away into silence with the countless others.

But now I have reason to sing.

Hope.

Smile.

My mourning has turned into dancing! Why? Because the Healer has touched me.

Here is my story…

It all started one day when I began noticing big red spots on my arms.

I was at the market when a Roman soldier happened to be standing beside me—close enough to look at my arms. I silently shuddered, seeing him glance down at me and my red spots.

“What have we here?” he barked.

I didn’t answer.

My heartbeat pounded inside my ears. What would happen to me? I tried to hide my arms with my basket but the soldier only pushed it aside to take a closer look. I cringed as he drew back in horror.

“Leprosy!” the Roman nudged me with the blunt edge of his spear.

I froze, terrified.

“Away with the girl!” the Roman barked an order to a younger soldier who was standing nearby.

The young soldier saluted to the older Roman and motioned for me to follow him. I clutched my basket in confusion and pain, following him.

The crowd stepped back for the two of us—for the Roman and for me.

The leper.

“Leper, leper, leper!” the word rang in my ears from multiple voices, stinging my mind.

Then I understood the feeling...of being a leper. Leper, the unclean one.

Unwanted.

Outcast.

The forgotten one.

I knew where we were going even before he told me. We were going to the Valley of Lepers right outside of Jerusalem where the other lepers lived and were fed.

“The place,” the young soldier said as he narrowed his dark eyes in the bright sunlight, “is the Valley of Lepers. That’s where you’ll live. I wish you luck and hope to your future.”

I nodded, feeling like the most wretched living human being on the whole earth.

I was a leper.

My home was to be the Valley.

My first real home I have ever had.

I had lived in the streets, on doorsteps, on the shop floor...just anywhere I could lay my head. But my first real home was to be the Valley.

We walked along down the dusty road that narrowed into a footpath the closer we neared the Valley. My eyes were to the ground yet my heart soared far away. Far away into brighter, happier times. Little did I know how bright those little moments were before...before this nightmare.

I looked into the dust from which I came—a moment I shall never forget.

I was being transposed.

From a child to an adult.

From a human to a leper.

From health to death.

From a name to the nameless.

And I was being led to the Valley.

We stopped at a fork in the path on a high bluff.

“There it is,” the soldier pointed down the hill where cave-like earthen dwellings stood like open tombs.

Ready to welcome me, I gulped. I was now entering the arms of death. Could there be no choice now but to submit to its clutches? No! I almost choked. But I took a deep breath. I would not let this Roman see me weak and afraid. Not to my conqueror.

“There,” the soldier said briskly. “The Valley of Lepers.”

I faked a smile to the Roman.

No need to be told. I had passed the Valley many times in my short lifetime.

“Follow that trail,” he pointed to a winding narrow footpath that hugged the rocks. “Be careful on the rocks.”

I nodded and gave him a confused look. Why was this Roman telling me to be careful? Did he want me to die slowly?

“Farewell,” he bowed slightly and smiled for the first time, but with a look of pain.

I simply nodded, biting on my lip to keep it from shaking.

I started on the footpath to the Valley of the Lepers. Farewell, indeed! Farewell life, I said to myself grimly. Farewell humans, I won’t be seeing you again...besides from my cave below here. My leper race will be my companions now—in this Valley—in our living tombs.

I paused on my trek down and looked up. The soldier was still standing above me on that bluff, watching me. I smiled up at him and waved, trying to look cheerful.

I tried to be cheerful as I stepped into my living tomb. I could never get well now for I was in the place of contamination.

I had entered into the Tombs.

Nobody who went into the caves of the Valley of Lepers ever came out again. I took a deep breath, and kept walking.

The Roman waved back at me and stepped backwards...until he was gone.

I looked around at my darkest Valley and cried until I could cry no more.

• • •

Months passed.

I did little and slept less.

Pain kept me occupied through my waking hours and haunted me far into the night. A leper's sort of pain.

I was walking along one day, thinking about life. We took the food that was let down in the mornings and the evenings. Usually bread and some sort of vegetable. We drank water from the brook that ran into the Valley. Our homes were wherever we could find a dry, empty space.

By this time, I realized my bare feet had stepped into human waste. Too many were too sick to care for themselves so they lay where they fell—until they died.

After they'd died, someone would throw them deeper into the cave for a burial—if the vultures had not eaten them already. It was pitiful, I thought. We were still humans and yet...we were not. It was all too strange for me.

My cramped quarters was even stranger than all my earlier days in the streets. It was all very strange and difficult. I used to be known as Keturah and now I was simply known as Leper.

Leper was my name.

Leper was my title.

Leper—one of the many, that was all.

I was nothing. A title. A name. A fear to the citizen. A haunt to the city. A part of the Valley. I was a leper who was spotted indeed. And as each day passed I could tell I was getting worse. How could I get better here?

Every time a person died within my quarters, I helped drag them further into the cave for a burial. I couldn’t let the vultures get them. My eyes could not stand the sight of those fowls digging into the flesh of my fellow leper. I would help them...even if it meant me getting worse.

One day, after I had helped “bury” someone, I looked up at the blue sky from a seat of stone outside the cave, where my living quarters were. The woman we had just buried was so rotten in the flesh and smelled so foul I had to get out into the fresh air outside.

But even this fresh air reeked with the odor from the open tombs.

That death smell.

I looked up into the clear blue sky overhead and questioned silently, God of our fathers, how long will I be delivered?

I am so sore and so broken.

My flesh is rotting as each day passes.

My name stings my ears—when I remember it.

A silent blue sky stared down at me, listening, waiting to hear what I would say.

Oh Adonai, where is the joy of life? Have I any reason to live another day—in this place of the dead?

The silent sky listened on.

I am unclean.

A leper.

I make my bed with the despised, the unwanted, the outcasts of this earth.

I spoke on to the sky above.

I did not want to become a leper but I had no choice.

I became one.

I don’t understand why I am…

Total silence.

My God, I only want to know if You are up there listening!

Not a cloud passed.

I don't have to know all the reasons why. I don't have to know! I only know what my mother taught me about You before she died—before she became a leper and died in this same Valley.

A breeze began to stir.

I took a deep breath, longing for the air to fill my weak lungs. To make my red spots go away. To make my skin to be smooth again. To make my polluted blood to be clean again.

Please give me the strength to die.

A tree on a distant hill began to sway and sunlight shone through its branches.

Adonai, let Your light strengthen me in my darkest valley. Help me if You will...if You care...and if You don’t, I’ll understand. Amen.

When I focused my eyes again, I saw a bright color on the bluff above me. It was next to the trail where I had come down the first day here.

It was a soldier's red cloak.

The Roman was waving, trying to catch my attention.

I waved back, feeling a little better now that some human was acknowledging me in this world again.

The Roman motioned for me to come over to him. So I walked over to the bluff where he was perched, holding something.

I was shocked to see it was the same soldier who had escorted me to the Valley of the Lepers so many months ago.

“Are you the soldier who escorted me here?” I asked him, and it hurt to crane my neck back to look up at him.

The Roman was kneeling on the sandy Judean ground, his upper body leaning forward over the bluff so he could speak to me without shouting.

“The very same,” he answered and leaned forward even more. In his hands was what I thought was a pretty blue sack.

“Be careful!” I warned him. “You might fall.”

The Roman shrugged. “No loss. I would be better off.”

I stared at him. Better off dead than be a Roman, a conqueror? My ears must be playing tricks on me.

“What brings you here to...to this place?” I wanted to know.

“Nothing,” he stared down at his fists that held the sack.

“Have you a pleasant view up there?” I ventured another question.

His dark eyes snapped moodily, I noticed even from my distance below. He clenched his jaws and looked above me. Finally, he looked down again...at me and the Valley.

The Valley where people walked around wrapped closely in veils to conceal their deteriorating bodies where the flesh was rotting away.

At that thought, I crossed my arms and tried to hide my spots. But not before the Roman had looked at my swollen red arms and gulped with a pained expression.

My face, I could feel, was the only flesh on my body where it was not red and swollen. My face only had a few spots on it, thankfully.

I tried to smile cheerfully but a sigh escaped my lips before I could stop it.

“Why do you sigh?” the Roman half barked, half groaned.

“Because I see you,” I shrugged, “and it reminds me how I used to kneel on that same bluff when my mother came here—when I was well.”

I stopped then. Had I said too much?

The Roman was staring moodily at his fists again and clenching his jaws.

“Did I say something...?” I looked up at him, fearfully.

“No!” the Roman snapped and aimed to throw his sack at me.

I stepped back, startled.

“Catch it!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “It’s for you.”

He threw the bundle and I caught it with a wondering mind. As it tumbled softly into my hands, I realized it wasn’t a sack. The blue wad soon unfolded and I found a beautiful new robe and veil in my hands.

I looked down at my red swollen arms and breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Those will be covered, I thought joyfully. I looked back up at the Roman to thank him.

But the kind Roman was gone.

I hugged my new robe and veil. It felt so lovely and cool against my face. Ah! I thought, walking back to my quarters. Maybe there’s hope for this leper yet.

Just maybe, I may be human yet.

Only God knows.

I smiled...for the first time since I had come down here into this Valley of Lepers.

I felt the spots on my heart start to heal.

It would take a miracle to do the rest.

But I would wait for my transformation however long it would take.

I was beginning to have hope for my future, a thing I thought impossible just minutes before.

I put on my new robe and veil, and they fit me wonderfully. I felt like a new person!

For the first time in this Valley, I danced for joy in a nestle of large stones where nobody could see me.

I heard the birds sing for the first time.

I saw the beautiful flowers and the berry trees for the first time.

And for the first time, I did not smell the stink of death in the Valley.

I felt happy...and almost clean again.

• • •

But I still wasn’t clean.

Soon my happiness wore off when pain regained its power over my body...and over my spirit.

How I longed for health to come...but it never came.

How I longed for death...but it never came either.

I spent long weeks in the same routine. Eating, trying to stay cool in the blistering heat, and sleeping. Things never changed. My sores only grew bigger and redder.

My flesh kept rotting.

My only hope was when the Roman, my friend, came to the bluff and talked to me.

Sometimes he would lower baskets of fruit or vegetables or bread or a new veil to me, and this lifted my spirits.

Now I had someone to share my pain with, someone who tried to understand my situation. He was a good listener, that Roman boy, even if he hadn’t much to say.

How could he say much though when I was a leper and so unlike the human? I lived a different sort of life—like any day I could be saying my last goodbye. I think he must have understood this because each time he left his goodbyes were getting longer.

A year had passed since the day I had come here when the Roman asked me, “How old are you now?”

I had to stop and think before I answered him. Time seemed to blend into one big awful day in the Valley. I had been 12 years old when I had went to the market that day when I came here.

“I must be 13,” I replied uncertainly. “Has it been a full year yet?”

The Roman nodded grimly.

“A year.” I gulped at him. “And it seems only—like yesterday.”

I didn’t have to crane my neck so high when I talked to him because he had moved down to a lower rock to sit on. He was still a safe ten feet above me though.

“A year,” I repeated, “and I don’t even know your name yet.”

“Eutychus,” he volunteered, then looked up at the cloudless blue sky above. “But not so fortunate as my name means. And,” he looked back down from his perch, “your name?”

“Keturah,” my own name startled me for I had not heard it spoken in so long. “My name is Keturah but I doubt I’m much of an incense. I am not beautiful in the least.”

“I can’t see you too well from here.” Eutychus looked at me, squinting his eyes.

“It’s just as well.” I told him practically.

He didn’t seem to hear me for he added, “But you don’t have to be beautiful to be an incense.”

“I know.” I lowered my head.

My vanity was getting the best of me. I knew I was anything but beautiful now.

My flesh was rotting.

My bones were twisted.

My hair was turning white, strand by strand.

I was getting paler and paler...every day I could see my arms losing more and more of their healthy color. My blood was slowly mixing with the disease itself. I recollected myself, taking a deep breath.

Strangely, for the first time, I felt a wave of weakness overcome me. I lost my balance and fell to the ground, grazing my right cheek as I did. From my wobbly vision I could see Eutychus spring to his feet. I held up a detaining hand, “I’m fine. Don’t come.”

The dust clogged my nose and stung my eyes, but I was alright...so I thought.

I got up on all fours, the pain shooting up my legs from my deteriorating bones. And I stood up on wobbly legs and took deep breaths to steady the pain I felt.

I reached my hand up to my cheek to feel a silent stream of my own blood. I pressed my veil against it to stop the bleeding. I had too little blood already. I certainly had none to lose.

“Are you alright?” Eutychus’ voice held a faint groan.

I nodded, opening my dust blurred eyes, and smiled painfully.

“I'm alright.” I said slowly. “But I fear I must go now—I may be going—away.” My words shook and I could see Eutychus wore a confused look.

“Going?” the Roman asked quickly. “Where might that be? You don’t want to be stoned,” he added quietly, his dark eyes were large and scared.

“I may be going,” I paused to take another deep breath, “to my mother.”

“Where’s your mother?” Eutychus looked around, startled, reseating himself on the rock he had been sitting on.

“In Paradise.” I spoke quietly.

“Where’s that at?”

“Heaven.” I spoke plainly. “I may die soon.”

I saw Eutychus’ face pale and he suddenly squinted. “No,” his voice was hoarse and choked. “You can’t.”

“Only a miracle can save me, Eutychus.” I told him quietly, lowering my eyes to look at the dusty ground where I had picked myself up. “Only a miracle.”

I heard a choking noise and looked up to find Eutychus climbing up the hill.

“Wait,” I called after him.

Eutychus paused in his climb, his back still towards me.

“Thank you, Eutychus.” I thanked him. “For everything. I have appreciated it more than I can say.”

My voice suddenly grew unsteady with weakness so I added faintly, “Shalom, my friend. God be with you.”

I watched Eutychus nod before he climbed up the hill briskly. I watched him go with grateful eyes. He had been my only friend while I was in the Valley. I would miss him, truly, when I would go.

He had brought me many gifts. Food, clothes, joy, comforting words. Only life he could not give. That would have to come from the Creator, from Adonai.

I made my way back to my corner of the cave on painful legs which were bruised and bloody from the fall. I still held my veil to the cut on my cheek, walking slowly, moving one foot at a time.

I finally made it to my quarters where I flopped down on the dusty floor of the cave and fell fast asleep.

• • •

Days passed for me like that way.

I barely had the strength to crawl to the basket of food and sip some water from somebody’s leftover water gourd. And then, I would go back to sleep again.

Weeks had passed since I last saw Eutychus when suddenly he appeared beside me in the cave.

Only I didn’t see him at first. I had been lying still for almost a whole day with no strength to eat or even drink when I heard my name being called.

For a moment I thought I had died and I was being called by an angel who was giving me entrance into Paradise.

“Keturah,” the voice called again, a human’s voice.

I opened my eyes and was startled to see Eutychus kneeling beside me, holding a water skein.

Seeing my eyes open, Eutychus moved the water skein to my cracked lips. “Drink,” he said, simply.

I worked my cracked mouth open and drank the water. It cooled me somewhat and soothed my dry scratchy throat; then, I closed my mouth with an effort. It took my strength just drinking, tipping my head slightly forward.

I swallowed the last of the water in my mouth and faintly whispered, “Thank you.”

My head flopped back onto the hard ground and I breathed deeply, exhausted. I was tired...so tired...so sorely tired.

“I have heard Him,” Eutychus’ voice seemed so far away to me, “this Man Who has touched the lepers and they are made well.”

Made well? My eyes snapped open and I felt a new wave of hope surge through my body...my leprous body.

“Who?” I asked in a coarse, faint voice.

“Jesus of Nazareth!” Eutychus’ voice was filled with excitement and his eyes were ablaze with light. “I have seen Him myself. He has opened blinded eyes, cripples stand and the dead live again. He is God!”

God? I sat upright, a thing in which I hadn’t done in weeks.

“God?” I stared in disbelief.

“Many Jews believe Him to be the Messiah,” Eutychus sounded excited. “And I, a Roman, look to Him as God. They say He is the Christ, the Son of David!”

My hope is not dead! I screamed to myself, sudden joy spilling into my soul—and into my heart.

“Will you take me to Him?” I looked up at him, tears making their way to my eyes. “That I might be made well.”

“I will.” Eutychus was wearing citizen clothes today, a blue robe and white sash. “He is on His way to Jerusalem. We must hurry.”

I nodded and bit my lip to keep from bursting into a happy sob.

I took his hand and slowly rose to my feet, although the pain shot through me. It did not matter now. I was going to be made well today...and I must reach Him, the Healer.

Each step I took hurt my twisted bones but it was going to be worth it. I would finally see Him, the long awaited Messiah!

I could be touched by the Master.

My cramped feet carried me onward as I held onto Eutychus’ arm for support.

We climbed the hill on a side path to avoid being seen by the public. A leper like me was a fearful sight to any citizen and they would stone me, on sight.

We had walked quite a ways towards Jerusalem when a happy ringing noise met my ears. I strained my cave accustomed eyes to see what was coming.

A glad cry arose from people on the road from Jerusalem, followed by loud shouting and singing.

“What is it?” I wanted to know, clutching Eutychus’ arm. “Who is coming?”

“It is Jesus,” Eutychus pulled me closer to the road now beginning to fill with people. “Let’s get closer to Him.”

I followed close beside Eutychus, my eyes filling with a new shower of tears. My day of deliverance had come. Jesus of Nazareth was here! And then I saw Him, the greatest of all Man.

I saw Him touch a cripple and the cripple's bent leg immediately straightened.

I stumbled through the crowd, blinded by tears, and heard the others calling to Him for mercy.

“Jesus, Master!” I called out with my weak voice. “Have mercy on me!”

I edged closer to Him, calling louder and hoarsely, “Jesus, Son of David, mercy!”

I was still quite a ways from Him, people crowding in between me and Him.

That was when a few people noticed me and shouted, “Leper, a leper!”

People hurled stones at me, hitting my legs. I cried out in pain, weak boned from my affliction, and toppled over onto the ground. Adonai, have mercy on me!

I must have fainted from the pain.

The next thing I knew, I felt a hand touch my shoulder and I looked up.

His kind eyes met mine. There He stood above me. Jesus, my Healer and Master.

“Please have mercy on me, Master.” Tears dripped down my eyes.

“Daughter, what would you have Me to do?”

“That I might be clean and well,” I sobbed brokenly.

My legs screamed with pain as I tried to sit up. But the pain soon passed as I felt Him stand close beside me and hold my hand to raise me off the dust from which I came.

I felt so little and insignificant, so unholy and unclean. But when I heard Him speak, His voice stilled my entire being.

From that moment, I knew it was all over. My littleness—my insignificance—and my uncleanness were all gone.

“Be clean, My daughter.” He held my hand as He spoke. “Arise and be made whole for your faith has healed you. Go your way in peace and be cleansed.”

Then it all started, my transformation.

My miracle.

The pain in my legs drifted away.

My ugly scales of leprosy dropped off.

My color returned.

New blood poured into my veins. I could feel it.

My scraggly, colorless hair around my shoulders suddenly changed into a beautiful mane of light brown curls, my original hair, only prettier than before.

My arms became healthy and youthful again instead of being swollen and twisted.

As I saw this transformation taking place in me, I fell down at His feet. Jesus’ feet, the Son of David.

“Master,” I kissed the hem of His robe. “Thank You, Master!”

Strength had returned.

My flesh had returned.

My life had returned.

Peace filled my body and spirit for I had been made clean and well.

I heard Jesus speaking again so I looked up. Eutychus was standing beside us, looking from me to Jesus with wonder.

I saw the Master lay a hand on Eutychus’ shoulder. “Son, great is your reward for you have led My poor sick child to Me. Peace be with you, My children.”

I rose to my feet, watching Him go...my Healer, my Messiah.

“He is the Christ,” I told Eutychus with firm belief. “He is the Messiah.”

“He is God.” Eutychus stated with his eyes fixed on the Master Who was deep in the crowd now, closer to the Holy City.

Suddenly my empty, broken heart filled with the light of His goodness. The Master’s touch of mercy had marked upon me. Jesus’ love and His compassion...it filled my soul.

“Eutychus,” I excitedly clutched his arm as the thought came into my mind. “We are clean. Clean! The Hand of the Messiah has touched us! Doesn’t it amaze you to think of this?”

“Yes,” Eutychus’ face was filled with awe. “It amazes me. And I am convinced that a man only needs one touch from Jesus the Christ to be made clean. For His touch has cleansed my heart and set me free.”

“And I am convinced,” I looked down at my clean hands, “that the same touch that set my body free is the same touch that set my spirit free. For I now know that with Christ nothing is impossible!”

I looked up at Eutychus and saw his transformation.

His wild stare was no longer there. Instead, his face was calm and bright.

He no longer stared moodily as he had done before in times past. His face seemed to glow with a new sense of purpose...and his dark searching eyes looked ready to see to the needy. It was a change indeed.

To see like a dead man come to life again. So this happened to my friend and to me.

So much has changed since that day at the market so many months ago.

For I was as dead but now I live.

I was unclean but now I am clean.

I was empty but now I am filled.

I was broken but now I am whole.

I was a leper—that spotted vile leper—but now I am healed.

I was that mourner of affliction but now I have reason to sing. Because the Master, my Master, has touched me and made me whole.

I was that one who groaned in my bed of affliction. I was that leper. But now I sing. Now I praise Him. Now I give God the glory for ever. I was the one who begged for His mercy when I was that forgotten one. That Leper.