Leviticus 13:33

Summary

The verse describes a procedure for a person with a netek ("scall", H5424) skin condition: the person shaves themselves, but the affected area is left unshaven, and the priest then isolates them for a second period of seven days.

Key words

• Hit.ga.Lach ("he will shave himself", H1548) — hithpael (reflexive) verb, sequential perfect. The reflexive form indicates the subject shaves himself, distinguishing this action from the priest's later act of isolation.
• Ne.tek ("scall", H5424) — masculine singular noun, repeated twice (positions 6 and 15), marking both what must NOT be shaved and what the priest re-examines.
• ye.ga.Le.ach ("he will shave", H1548) — piel (intensive) imperfect, negated by lo' ("not", H3808). The same root as Hit.ga.Lach but in piel rather than hithpael, and negated, creating a contrast between general shaving (reflexive, allowed) and shaving the specific affected spot (piel, forbidden).
• his.Gir ("he will shut up", H5462) — hiphil (causative) verb, sequential perfect. The hiphil marks the priest as causing the isolation of the person, not merely observing.
• she.Nit ("a second", H8145) — feminine singular ordinal number, indicating this is a repeated seven-day period, following an earlier isolation mentioned in the preceding verses.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chains three main verbal actions using sequential perfects joined by the narrative vav (H9001/H9002): the person shaves (Hit.ga.Lach), the netek is explicitly excluded from shaving through a separate negated clause, and the priest isolates (his.Gir) for seven days a second time. The grammatical distinction between the hithpael form Hit.ga.Lach (reflexive, "he shaves himself") and the piel form ye.ga.Le.ach (intensive, "he shaves") applied to the same root H1548 creates a clear separation: general body hair may be shaved, but the specific patch identified as Ne.tek (H5424) must remain untouched, appearing here in both position 6 and 15 to bracket the instruction.

The construct phrase shiv.'At yamim ("seven of days", H7651 + H3117G) functions as a time unit, and the ordinal she.Nit ("a second", H8145) at the end marks this isolation period as a repetition of an earlier seven-day period referenced elsewhere in the chapter's sequence.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Ne.tek not with a direct equivalent term but as θραῦσμα ("fracture/break"), and where the Hebrew has ha. Ne.tek ("the scall") as the object not to be shaved, the LXX phrases it as τὸ δὲ θραῦσμα οὐ ξυρηθήσεται — the θραῦσμα itself "will not be shaved," using a passive construction rather than the Hebrew's active piel verb with a distinct subject. The Vulgate's loco maculæ ("the place of the mark") describes the Ne.tek as a location rather than naming the skin condition directly, differing from the noun-based repetition in the Hebrew text.