Leviticus 13:47

Summary

The verse opens the section on garments affected by a condition called tzara'at ("a serious disease", H6883). It states the conditional case: when a nega' ("a plague of", H5061) of this disease appears in a garment, specifying two possible materials — wool or linen.

Key words

• ha.Beged ("clothing", H0899B) — noun with definite article, introducing the general topic ("the garment") before the conditional clause narrows the case.
• ki ("if", H3588A) — conditional particle introducing a hypothetical/legal case, common in casuistic legal formulations.
• yih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect of the verb "to be," expressing a future or potential state ("if it comes to be / if there is").
• Ne.ga' ("a plague of", H5061) — masculine singular construct, grammatically bound to tzara'at that follows, forming the phrase "a plague of tzara'at."
• tza.Ra.'at ("a serious disease", H6883) — feminine singular noun naming the specific condition being described; it stands in construct relation with nega'.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a casuistic (case) law: it begins by naming the subject, ha.Beged ("the clothing", H0899B), then introduces the condition with ki ("if", H3588A) followed by yih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961), an imperfect verb form that expresses a hypothetical or potential future situation — "if it comes to be." The verb takes the prepositional phrase bo ("in it", combining H9003 and H9033) as its locative complement, meaning the disease is located "in it" (the garment).

The core diagnostic phrase is nega' tzara'at ("a plague of a serious disease"), where nega' (H5061) stands in construct form governing tzara'at (H6883), producing a fixed technical expression rather than two separate nouns. This construct chain functions as a single conceptual unit describing the specific type of affliction under discussion.

The final part of the verse specifies the material of the garment through two parallel construct phrases: beged tzemer ("clothing of wool", H0899B + H6785) and beged pishtim ("clothing of linen", H0899B + H6593), joined by 'o ("or", H0176A). Each beged is in construct form, meaning "garment-of," directly linking the fabric type to the noun for clothing. The repetition of the construct noun beged with each material creates a structured, list-like legal enumeration rather than a single compound phrase covering both materials at once.