Leviticus 13:58

Summary

This verse describes the outcome when a garment, warp, woof, or leather article that had been affected by a plague (mold/mildew) is washed and the affected mark departs. The text specifies that the item must then be washed a second time, after which it is declared pure.

Key words

• Beged ("garment", H899B) — masculine singular noun naming the first category of item that may bear the affliction.
• Sar ("it will depart", H5493H) — qal sequential perfect, third person masculine; expresses the pivotal condition that the nega ("plague", H5061) departs from the items, triggering the subsequent process.
• Kubbas ("it will be washed", H3526H) — pual (passive intensive) sequential perfect; the same verbal root as tekhabbes ("you will wash") in position 16, but here passive, marking the second washing as something done to the item rather than an action performed by a person.
• Shenit ("a second [time]", H8145) — ordinal number, feminine singular, quantifying how many times the washing occurs after the mark departs.
• Taher ("it will be pure", H2891) — qal sequential perfect; the final verb in the chain, stating the resulting state of the item.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of four coordinated nouns — beged ("garment", H899B), sheti ("warp", H8359), 'erev ("woof", H6154B), and kol-keli ha'or ("every article of hide", H3627/H5785) — joined by the disjunctive 'ov ("or", H176A), all functioning as the subject of a relative clause introduced by 'asher ("which", H834A). This clause states that "you will wash" (tekhabbes, H3526H, piel imperfect, second person masculine) these items. The main narrative then proceeds through three sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative vav (H9001): sar ("it will depart", H5493H), kubbas ("it will be washed", H3526H, pual), and taher ("it will be pure", H2891). This verb chain presents a sequence of events rather than isolated statements: first the mark departs from the items (mehem, "from them", H9038, referring back to the plural set of named items), then a second washing occurs, then purity results.

The switch from the active piel tekhabbes (second person, "you wash") to the passive pual kubbas ("it will be washed") shifts the grammatical focus from the person performing the action to the item undergoing it, without a stated agent for the second washing. The ordinal shenit ("a second [time]", H8145) explicitly marks this washing as numerically distinct from the initial one referenced in the relative clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shenit ("a second [time]", H8145) with τὸ δεύτερον, matching the ordinal sense. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) phrases the passage differently, beginning with "Si cessaverit" ("if it has ceased") and referring to washing "ea, quae pura sunt" ("those things which are pure") "secundo" ("a second time"), which frames the condition and washing in a somewhat distinct syntactic order compared to the Hebrew's sequential perfect chain of sar–kubbas–taher.