Leviticus 13:2

Summary

Leviticus 13:2 opens the legal procedure for diagnosing skin conditions: if a person develops a swelling, a flaking patch, or a bright spot on the skin that turns into a tzara'at-type disease, that person must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his priestly sons for examination. The verse is structured as a conditional clause followed by a sequential consequence.

Key words

• 'adam ("anyone", H0120G) — the subject of the whole clause, a generic term for a human being, not a proper name.
• ki ("if", H3588A) — a conditional particle opening the protasis; it sets up the "if... then" legal case format typical of priestly instruction.
• se'et ("a swelling", H7613), sapachat ("flaking skin", H5597), vaheret ("a bright spot", H0934) — three feminine singular nouns joined by 'o ("or", H0176A), listing alternative visible symptoms on the skin.
• hayah ("it will become", H1961) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the timeline from the initial condition (yihyeh) to its potential development into disease.
• huva' ("he will be brought", H0935P) — hophal (causative passive) sequential perfect: the person does not come on his own initiative but "is caused to be brought," marking a passive, procedural action.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence begins with 'adam ("anyone") placed before the conditional particle ki, a common casuistic-law pattern that names the subject up front before stating the condition. The verb yihyeh ("it will be", H1961, qal imperfect) introduces the initial appearance of a mark "on the skin of his flesh" (be'or besaro, H5785 + H1320, both nouns in construct form linked to the pronominal suffix -o, "his"). Three possible symptoms are listed disjunctively with 'o ("or"): se'et, sapachat, vaheret.

The narrative vav on vehayah shifts the verb to a qal sequential perfect, indicating a subsequent stage: the mark "becomes" (hayah) a nega' tzara'at — literally "a plague/mark of tzara'at" (H5061 construct + H6883), a construct chain meaning the symptom develops into this specific classified condition. The final verb, huva' (H0935P, hophal sequential perfect), shifts grammatical voice to passive-causative: the afflicted person "is brought" to the priest, rather than "going" himself, emphasizing that the action is imposed by the legal/ritual system rather than chosen by the individual. The double naming of destination — "Aaron the priest" ('el-'Aharon hakohen) "or to one of his sons, the priests" ('o 'el-'achad mibanav hakohanim) — extends the diagnostic authority beyond a single officiant to the priestly line generally.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the sequence of symptoms as oulē sēmasias tēlaugēs ("a scar of a bright indication") followed by haphē lepras ("a touch/attack of leprosy"), collapsing the three Hebrew terms (se'et, sapachat, vaheret) into a single descriptive phrase, differing from the Hebrew's three distinct nouns. The Vulgate similarly compresses the list into "diversus color, sive pustula, aut quasi lucens quippiam" but preserves three items, followed by "id est, plaga lepræ" as an explanatory gloss rather than a separate clause marking a change of state, whereas the Hebrew uses the sequential verb vehayah to show a temporal development from initial symptom to disease classification.