Leviticus 13:19

Summary

The verse describes what happens after a boil (shechin, H7822) heals: if in its place a white swelling or a reddish-white bright spot appears, the affected person must present himself to the priest for examination.

Key words

• ve.ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in the prior verse; it introduces the conditional circumstance ("and it will happen that...").
• me.Kom ("place of", H4725) — masculine singular construct, linking directly to ha.shechin ("the boil") to specify location: "in the place of the boil."
• se.'Et ("a swelling", H7613) — feminine singular noun, one of the two possible skin conditions being described, paired with the adjective levanah ("white", H3836).
• va.He.ret ("a bright spot", H0934) — feminine singular noun, the second possible condition, further qualified by two adjectives in sequence.
• nir.'Ah ("he will present himself", H7200G) — niphal (passive/reflexive) sequential perfect; the subject is not stated directly in this clause but is the person with the skin condition, who must be seen by or show himself to the priest.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional chain using two sequential perfect verbs (ve.ha.Yah and ve.nir.'Ah), a construction typical of legal/ritual instruction in this chapter. The first verb sets up the circumstance ("and it will be, in the place of the boil..."), and the second gives the required action ("and he will present himself to the priest"). Between these two verbs sits the descriptive core: two possible skin conditions, se.'Et ("swelling") and va.He.ret ("bright spot"), each modified by adjectives. The se.'Et is qualified only by levanah ("white", H3836), while the va.He.ret carries two adjectives in sequence — levanah ("white") and 'adamdamet ("reddish", H0125) — describing a spot that is white with reddish coloring rather than two separate colors.

The niphal form of ra'ah ("to see", root behind H7200G) is significant: rather than an active verb meaning "the priest will see him," the text uses a passive/reflexive construction, "he will be seen" or "he will show himself," placing the grammatical focus on the affected person's action of presenting himself rather than on the priest's act of examining.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders se.'Et ("swelling") as oulē ("scar/cicatrix") rather than as a swelling, and translates va.He.ret 'adamdamet using two adjectival participles (tēlaugēs leukainousa ē pyrrizousa — "translucent, whitening or reddening") rather than a single compound description. The Vulgate similarly renders the first noun as cicatrix ("scar") and uses sive subrufa ("or somewhat red") for the second condition, and it makes explicit the subject with homo ("the man"), which is only implied in the Hebrew niphal verb nir.'Ah.