Leviticus 13:40

Summary

The verse addresses the case of a man whose head becomes bald through natural hair loss, declaring that this condition, by itself, is ritually pure. It forms part of the priestly regulations distinguishing ordinary baldness from skin conditions requiring examination.

Key words

• 'Ish ("anyone", H0376I) — masculine singular noun introducing the case, "a man" or "anyone" as the subject of the conditional clause.
• ki ("if", H3588A) — conditional particle marking the protasis, "if/when it happens that..."
• yimaret ("it will become bare", H4803) — niphal imperfect verb, expressing a passive/reflexive process ("it becomes bare") rather than an action the man performs; the imperfect aspect frames it as an ongoing or future occurrence.
• keреach ("[is] bald", H7142) — adjective describing the resulting state, distinct from the verb describing the process.
• tahor ("[is] pure", H2889) — adjective declaring the ritual status, the legal conclusion of the verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two parts. The first is a conditional clause introduced by 'Ish ki ("a man, if..."), followed by the niphal imperfect verb yimaret ("it will become bare"), with ro'sh ("head", H7218A) in construct with the suffix -o ("his"), giving "his head." The niphal form indicates that baldness happens to the head passively — no agent causes it — reinforcing that this is a natural process, not a disease being described as an action performed by someone.

The second part consists of two short nominal (verbless) clauses: kereach hu' ("bald he [is]") and tahor hu' ("pure he [is]"). Hebrew often omits the verb "to be" in present-tense statements, so both clauses rely on the pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) to link subject and predicate. This construction gives a declarative, almost formulaic rhythm — first stating the physical fact (baldness), then the legal/ritual verdict (purity) — each anchored by its own hu'. The repetition of hu' twice in the verse creates a parallel structure emphasizing that the state of being bald and the state of being pure are directly and simply equated, without need for further examination.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint uses φαλακρός ("bald") and καθαρός ("clean/pure") as predicate adjectives with the verb ἐστιν ("is"), rendering the two Hebrew nominal clauses with explicit verbs, consistent with Greek's requirement for a copula where Hebrew has none. The Vulgate similarly supplies "et...est" ("and...is") to join "calvus" ("bald") and "mundus" ("clean") into one clause, slightly compressing the two parallel Hebrew statements into a single coordinated sentence.