Leviticus 13:22

Summary

Leviticus 13:22 continues the priestly diagnostic procedure for skin conditions: if a lesion actually spreads on the skin, the priest must declare the person ritually unclean, because it is classified as nega' ("plague/mark", H5061).

Key words

• pa.Soh ("certainly spread", H6581) — infinitive absolute placed before the finite verb, reinforcing the verbal idea of spreading.
• tif.Seh ("it will spread", H6581) — qal imperfect of the same root, referring grammatically to the skin condition (feminine subject, "she").
• ti.Me' ("he will declare unclean", H2930A) — piel sequential perfect; the piel stem denotes a declarative/factitive action, the priest actively pronouncing a status, not merely observing one.
• ko.Hen ("priest", H3548) — masculine singular noun, subject of the declarative verb.
• hi' ("it/she", H1931) — feminine personal pronoun, resuming nega' grammatically as feminine despite the noun's masculine form, matching the feminine subject of tifSeh.

What the text says

The verse opens with the conditional particle 'im ("if", H0518A), introducing a protasis built on the doubled root ṣ-h-h: the infinitive absolute pa.Soh followed by the finite imperfect tif.Seh. This construction — infinitive absolute plus finite verb from the same root — is a common Biblical Hebrew device to intensify or confirm the verbal action; here it underscores that the spreading must be real and observable ("if it indeed spreads"), not merely suspected as in the preceding conditions of the chapter.

The apodosis is introduced by a narrative vav (H9001) attached to ti.Me', a piel sequential perfect. The piel stem gives the verb a declarative-factitive sense: the priest does not "make" the skin unclean physically but formally pronounces the ritual status. The direct object marker 'oto ("him", H0853+H9033) specifies the person examined, not the skin itself, as the object of this declaration.

The final clause, nega' hi' ("it is a plague/mark"), states the classification. The pronoun hi' (feminine) agrees grammatically with the implied feminine referent (the spreading condition, matching tifSeh), even though nega' itself is grammatically masculine — a point of grammatical concord visible only in the Hebrew syntax.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) reads more expansively, adding phrasing about the lesion "flourishing in the ulcer" (ἐν τῷ ἕλκει ἐξήνθησεν) and explicitly naming it ἁφὴ λέπρας ("mark of leprosy"), details not present in the Hebrew clause nega' hi'. The Vulgate condenses the apodosis to adjudicabit eum lepræ ("he will adjudge him to leprosy"), interpreting the priest's declarative act as a judgment tied specifically to lepra, whereas the Hebrew ti.Me' denotes a declaration of uncleanness without naming a specific disease category at this point in the verse.