Leviticus 13:52

Summary

The verse commands the burning of a garment, warp, or woof — whether made of wool, linen, or any leather article — in which the plague (mark of disease) is found, because it is a tzara'at mam'eret ("malignant disease/leprosy", H6883/H3992). The affected item must be destroyed ba'esh ("with fire", H0784).

Key words

• sa.Raf ("he will burn", H8313) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative sequence of instructions; the subject "he" is grammatically unspecified in this word alone.
• tza.Ra.'at ("[is] a serious disease", H6883) — feminine singular noun, the technical term used throughout the chapter for the diagnosed skin/fabric condition.
• mam.'E.ret ("malignant", H3992) — hiphil participle, feminine singular, functioning as a causative descriptor ("the one causing harm/corruption"), modifying tzara'at.
• hi' ("it", H1931) — feminine personal pronoun, resuming and emphasizing the subject tzara'at before the final clause.
• ti.sa.Ref ("it will be burned", H8313) — niphal imperfect, passive form of the same root as sa.Raf in word 2, marking the item as the one acted upon rather than the actor.

What the text says

The verse is built as a list of objects connected by 'o ("or", H0176A), each preceded by the direct object marker 'et (H0853): ha.Beged ("the garment", H0899B), ha.sheTi ("the warp", H8359), ha.'Erev ("the woof", H6154B), and kol-keli ha-'or ("every article of the hide", H3605/H3627/H5785), specifying the possible materials as tzemer ("wool", H6785) or pishtim ("linens", H6593). This list is governed by the initial verb sa.Raf (H8313), a qal sequential perfect that continues the legal narrative from the preceding verses.

The relative clause 'asher-yihyeh vo ha-naga' ("which the plague will be in it", H0834A/H1961/H5061) identifies which of these items is subject to burning — specifically the one where the nega' ("plague", H5061) is found. The causal clause introduced by ki ("for/because", H3588A) explains the reason: tzara'at mam'eret hi' — literally "a malignant disease it [is]," using the resumptive pronoun hi' (H1931) to underscore the identity of the condition before the final command.

The verse closes with ba'esh tisharef ("with fire it will be burned", H0784/H8313), where the niphal imperfect tisharef mirrors the root of the opening verb saraf but shifts to passive voice, framing the item itself as the grammatical subject undergoing destruction rather than the agent performing it.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew and LXX both list the materials (wool, linen, leather) and the causal clause about the disease before commanding burning. The Vulgate, as given, is abbreviated: et idcirco comburetur flammis ("and therefore it will be burned by flames"), omitting explicit mention of the materials and the tzara'at mam'eret clause found in the Hebrew and LXX. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation adds "the priest" as the explicit subject of "shall burn," a specification not present in the Hebrew verb form itself, which only marks "he" through the verb morphology.