Leviticus 13:28

Summary

The verse describes the follow-up diagnostic case for a burn-related skin condition: if the bright spot has stayed in place, has not spread on the skin, and has become dull/faded, it is identified as swelling from the burn scar, and the priest is to declare the person clean.

Key words

• ta'amod ("it will stay", H5975G) — qal imperfect, describing the spot's continuing/future condition of remaining stationary, contrasted with active spreading.
• fasetah ("it has spread", H6581) — qal perfect, a completed-action negation ("has not spread"), marking the diagnostic contrast with the earlier stage of the disease where spreading indicated impurity.
• khehah ("dull", H3544) — feminine singular adjective describing the visual quality of the spot as faded, a key sensory criterion for the priest's judgment.
• tihar ("he will declare pure", H2891) — piel sequential perfect, an intensive verb form indicating the priest's formal declarative act, continuing the narrative sequence of the ongoing case.
• tzarevet ("the scar of", H6867B) — feminine singular construct noun, linking directly to mikhvah ("burn", H4348) to specify the technical designation "scar of the burn" as the final classification.

What the text says

The verse opens with the conditional particle 'im ("if", H0518A) governing a chain of clauses describing the physical state of the baheret ("bright spot", H0934). The verb ta'amod ("it will stay", H5975G) is imperfect, suggesting an ongoing or continuing condition — the spot remaining "in place" (tachtei-, H8478I, construct with pronominal suffix "its"). This is followed by a shift to perfect aspect with fasetah lo' ("it has not spread", H6581 + H3808), marking a completed negative action — the spreading did not happen, as opposed to a hypothetical ongoing process.

The clause vehi' khehah ("and it is dull", H1931 + H3544) uses the independent pronoun hi' ("it/she") twice in the verse (also in v.28c and 28d) to emphatically identify the subject at each diagnostic checkpoint — a stylistic feature of Hebrew legal/diagnostic prose repeating the pronoun to anchor each predicate nominal clause (se'et hamikhvah hi', "it is a swelling of the burn"; tzarevet hamikhvah hi', "it is a scar of the burn").

The narrative vav on vetihar ("and he will declare pure", H2891) marks a sequential perfect, showing this act as the narrative consequence following the diagnostic description — the priest's declaration follows logically from the observed lack of spreading and the dullness of the spot. The construct chains se'et hamikhvah and tzarevet hamikhvah both link a symptom-noun to mikhvah ("burn", H4348), producing the technical phrases "swelling of the burn" and "scar of the burn" as parallel diagnostic classifications.