Leviticus 13:30

Summary

The priest examines a skin affliction and observes that its appearance is deeper than the surrounding skin, with thin yellow hair growing in it. Based on these signs, the priest pronounces the person unclean, identifying the condition as a netek ("scall", H5424), a skin disease affecting the head or the beard.

Key words

• mar'Ehu ("its appearance", H4758) — construct noun with 3ms suffix ("his/its"), meaning "the appearance of it," describing the visual depth of the affliction relative to the skin.
• 'aMok ("deep", H6013) — masculine singular adjective describing the mar'eh ("appearance"); syntactically it functions as the predicate of a nominal clause introduced by hiNeh ("there!", H2009).
• tzaHov ("yellow", H6669) and Dak ("thin", H1851) — two adjectives in sequence, both modifying se'Ar ("hair", H8181), stacking descriptive detail without a conjunction between them.
• tiMe' ("he will declare unclean", H2930A) — piel stem, sequential perfect, expressing the priest's formal declarative act (not merely observing but ritually pronouncing).
• Netek ("scall", H5424) — the technical noun naming the condition, placed in apposition to the pronoun hu' ("it", H1931), which serves as a copula-like marker ("it is a netek").

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfect verbs (ra'Ah — "he will see," H7200G; tiMe' — "he will declare unclean," H2930A), typical of legal/procedural Hebrew narrative: first the priest observes, then he acts. The clause introduced by hiNeh ("there!", H2009) functions as a vivid presentative, framing the diagnostic evidence — the depth of appearance (mar'Ehu 'aMok min-ha'Or, "its appearance deep from the skin") and the hair condition (se'Ar tzaHov Dak, "hair yellow, thin") — as directly perceived facts rather than inference.

The naming formula at the end — Netek hu', tzaRa'at haRosh 'o hazZakan hu' — uses the pronoun hu' ("it", H1931) twice as a linking device, first identifying the general category (netek) and then specifying its location-based subtype (tzara'at of the Rosh, "head", H7218A, or the zaKan, "beard", H2206). The construct form tzaRa'at haRosh ("tzara'at of the head") ties the disease term directly to its anatomical site, a structure the English versions render as "an infectious disease of the head" (BSB) or "lepra en la cabeza" (SBLIBRE).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Netek as θραῦσμα ("a breaking/scaly outbreak") and tzaRa'at as λέπρα, using the same Greek term λέπρα for both "head" and "beard" occurrences, whereas the Hebrew uses one technical noun (netek) for the general condition and tzara'at specifically in the construct phrases naming the subtypes. The Vulgate condenses the two-part naming clause (netek... tzara'at ha-rosh 'o ha-zaqan) into a single causal statement, "quia lepra capitis ac barbae est" ("because it is lepra of the head and beard"), omitting the intermediate term corresponding to netek.