A sore botch; an incurable leprosy, affecting not merely the joints and extremities, but the whole body. Such an affliction would exclude a man from all fellowship and from all covenant privileges of the nation. So Israel, rendered unclean by their sin, should be cut off from covenant union with God.
As a consequence, God would bring them under subjection to a foreign power, and they should be made to serve other gods, wood and stone (Deuteronomy 4:28), and would become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among the nations (cf. 1 Kings 9:7; Jeremiah 24:9).