Leviticus 13:29

Summary

Leviticus 13:29 opens a legal case regarding a man or a woman on whose head or beard a skin affliction appears. The verse establishes the conditional scenario using a specific grammatical construction that introduces a subsequent ruling (found in the following verses).

Key words

• 'ish ("man", H0376G) — masculine singular noun, paired with its feminine counterpart to indicate the law applies regardless of sex.
• 'ishah ("a woman", H0802G) — feminine singular noun, joined to 'ish by 'o ("or", H0176A), forming an inclusive subject.
• ki ("if", H3588A) — conditional particle introducing the protasis (the "if" clause) that sets up the case being addressed.
• yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect of the verb "to be," marking future/ongoing possibility; combined with ki it expresses "if there should be."
• naga' ("a plague", H5061) — masculine singular noun denoting the affliction itself, the grammatical subject of yihyeh.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a conditional legal clause typical of the priestly instructions in Leviticus. The subject is introduced first — 'ish ("man", H0376G) 'o ("or", H0176A) 'ishah ("a woman", H0802G) — establishing that the case applies to either a man or a woman without distinction. This is followed by the particle ki ("if", H3588A), which functions here as a conditional marker meaning "if" or "when," introducing the circumstance under consideration.

The verb yihyeh ("it will be", H1961), a qal imperfect form, expresses a hypothetical or potential future situation: "if there will be." Its subject is naga' ("a plague", H5061), preceded by the phrase bo ("on him", H9033 with H9003), a prepositional phrase with pronominal suffix meaning "in him" or "on him," referring back to the man or woman just named. The location of the affliction is then specified: be-rosh ("on the head", H7218A) 'o ("or", H0176A) ve-zaqan ("in the beard", H2206) — two possible sites, joined again by the disjunctive 'o.

The syntax places the subject (man/woman) before the conditional clause, a common pattern in Levitical case law that first identifies who is affected before describing the condition itself. The repeated use of 'o ("or") throughout the verse — for sex and for location — creates a parallel structure covering multiple possible circumstances under a single ruling.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'ish ("man") 'o ("or") 'ishah ("a woman") as Καὶ ἀνδρὶ καὶ γυναικὶ ("and to a man and to a woman"), using καὶ ("and") rather than a disjunctive, where the Hebrew uses 'o ("or", H0176A). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew's disjunctive sense with "Vir, sive mulier" ("a man, or a woman"). Additionally, the LXX specifies ἁφὴ λέπρας ("a touch/mark of leprosy"), adding the term λέπρας not explicitly present as a separate word in the Hebrew naga' ("a plague", H5061) alone.