Leviticus 13:27

Summary

The verse describes a priest re-examining a skin condition on the seventh day. If the condition has spread on the skin, the priest declares the person unclean, identifying it as a nega' ("plague/infection", H5061) of tzara'at ("serious skin disease", H6883).

Key words

• ra.'A ("he will see", H7200G) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain of actions the priest performs, here meaning "he will examine/reexamine."
• pa.Soh ("certainly [to] spread", H6581) — qal infinitive absolute, paired with the following finite verb to intensify the certainty or emphasis of the spreading.
• tif.Seh ("it will spread", H6581) — qal imperfect, same root as the infinitive absolute; the imperfect marks ongoing or future action, describing the condition's progression.
• ti.Me' ("he will declare unclean", H2930A) — piel sequential perfect; the piel (intensive) stem marks a declarative/causative sense — the priest actively pronounces the ritual-legal status, not merely observes it.
• Ne.ga' ("plague of", H5061) — construct noun, meaning it must be joined to the following noun tzara'at, forming the phrase "a plague of tzara'at."

What the text says

The verse opens with a sequential perfect verb, ra.'A ("he will see/examine", H7200G), continuing a chain of priestly actions from the preceding narrative. The suffix hu ("it/him", H9033) marks the object being examined. The time marker ba.Yom ha.She.vi.'i ("on the seventh day") sets the temporal condition for this second examination.

The conditional clause is introduced by 'im ("if", H0518A) and features a grammatical construction combining an infinitive absolute, pa.Soh (H6581), with a finite imperfect verb of the same root, tif.Seh (H6581). This doubling of the root — infinitive absolute plus imperfect — is a construction that intensifies or emphasizes the verbal action; here it underscores the certainty or clarity of the spreading, rendered in the gloss as "certainly spread."

The apodosis follows with another sequential perfect, ti.Me' (H2930A), in the piel stem. The piel stem in this verb carries a declarative-causative nuance: the priest is not merely observing uncleanness but performing the act of declaring it. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) with suffix o ("him", H9033) marks the person as the object of this declaration. The final clause, Ne.ga' tzara'at hi' ("it is a plague of tzara'at"), uses the construct noun Ne.ga' (H5061) bound to tzara'at (H6883), closing with the feminine pronoun hi' ("it/she", H1931) as a copula identifying the condition.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the infinitive absolute + imperfect construction (pa.Soh tif.Seh) as διαχύσει διαχέηται ("by spreading, it spreads"), preserving the doubling pattern seen in the Hebrew. The LXX also adds a phrase not present in the Hebrew of this verse, ἐν τῷ ἕλκει ἐξήνθησεν ("it broke out in the sore"), an addition without a corresponding Hebrew element in this word list. The Vulgate condenses the verse considerably, omitting explicit mention of the priest's declarative act as a separate clause and rendering contaminabit eum ("he will contaminate/defile him") without the construct phrase "plague of tzara'at" found in the Hebrew.