Leviticus 13:59

Summary

This verse closes the section on tzara'at ("serious disease", H6883) affecting textiles and leather, stating that this is the legal procedure (torah, H8451) for such cases. It lists the possible materials — wool, linen, warp, woof, or any leather article — and states the purpose of the procedure: to declare the item pure or impure.

Key words

• zot ("this", H2063) — demonstrative particle opening the verse, pointing back to the entire preceding set of instructions as a completed unit.
• torat ("the legal procedure of...", H8451) — feminine singular construct noun; it does not stand alone but is grammatically bound to nega tzara'at that follows, forming a chain: "the torah of the plague of tzara'at."
• nega ("plague of...", H5061) and tzara'at ("serious disease of...", H6883) — both nouns in construct state, stacked together and then bound further to beged ("clothing of...", H0899B), producing a multi-word construct chain typical of legal/technical Hebrew headings.
• le-tahar-o ("to declare it pure", H2891) — piel infinitive with the preposition le and a 3rd person masculine singular pronominal suffix ("it"); the piel stem here carries a declarative/causative nuance ("to pronounce clean") rather than a simple state.
• le-tame-o ("to declare it unclean", H2930A) — parallel piel infinitive construction to the previous entry, forming a paired purpose clause with o ("or", H0176A) linking the two possible outcomes of the examination.

What the text says

The verse is built as a single sentence with a long construct chain (torat nega tzara'at beged...) that piles up nouns without independent articles until it reaches the list of materials, each of which does carry the definite article ha (H9009): ha-tzemer ("the wool"), ha-pishtim ("the linens"), ha-sheti ("the warp"), ha-'erev ("the woof"). The four material terms and the final phrase kol-keli-'or ("every article of hide") are joined exclusively by the disjunctive o ("or", H0176A), presenting them as separate alternative cases covered by the same procedure rather than as a single combined case.

The final clause uses two parallel infinitives, le-tahar-o and le-tame-o, each carrying the same 3rd masculine singular suffix -o ("it"), referring back to whichever item (garment or leather article) was examined. The piel stem of both verbs indicates a declarative act — the pronouncement of a status — rather than the physical process of becoming clean or unclean.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders nega ("plague", H5061) as ἁφῆς ("touch/contact") rather than a term for "mark" or "affliction," shifting the semantic emphasis from the mark itself to contact with it. The Vulgate joins "wool" and "linen" with et ("and": lanei et linei) where the Hebrew uses the disjunctive o ("or") between ha-tzemer and ha-pishtim, presenting the two materials as a single combined phrase ("woolen and linen garment") rather than as separate alternatives.