Leviticus 13:9

Summary

The verse opens a new case regulation concerning skin disease: it states the conditional circumstance ("if a tzara'at affliction occurs on a person") and the resulting legal action (that person must be brought to the priest).

Key words

• Ne.ga' ("a plague of", H5061) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be joined to the following word; it sets up the technical legal term for an "affliction of X."
• tza.Ra.'at ("a serious skin disease", H6883) — feminine singular noun completing the construct chain; together with nega' it names the specific condition regulated in this chapter.
• ki ("if", H3588A) — a conditional particle introducing the case ("if/when this occurs"), typical of casuistic legal formulation in this section of Leviticus.
• tih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person feminine (agreeing with tzara'at), expressing a future/possible occurrence: the condition that may arise.
• hu.Va' ("he will be brought", H0935P) — hophal (causative passive) sequential perfect; the passive form shows the subject does not act himself but is brought by another party, and the sequential form links this action as the direct legal consequence of the preceding condition.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows the casuistic ("if... then...") pattern common in Levitical law. It begins with the construct phrase nega' tzara'at, literally "a plague/affliction of tzara'at," naming the condition before any verb appears — this construct placement front-loads the technical term as the subject of the case. The conditional particle ki then introduces the circumstance, followed by the qal imperfect tihyeh ("it will be/occur"), agreeing in gender with the feminine noun tzara'at. This imperfect verb marks the condition as a possible future event rather than a completed fact.

The consequence clause begins with the narrative vav prefixed to huva', a hophal (passive causative) sequential perfect. The hophal stem is significant: the grammatical subject (the person with the affliction) does not perform the action of bringing but undergoes it — someone else brings him. The sequential perfect construction ties this passive action directly to the preceding condition, producing the sense "and-so he will be brought," marking it as the required outcome once the condition in the ki clause is met. The verse ends with the prepositional phrase 'el hakohen ("to the priest"), naming the recipient of this legal action without further elaboration.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening construct phrase as ἁφὴ λέπρας ("a touch/mark of leprosy"), using ἁφή where the Hebrew has nega' ("plague/affliction"); this reflects a different semantic emphasis (contact/mark vs. affliction) but names the same condition. The Vulgate's plaga lepræ ("wound/plague of leprosy") stays closer to the Hebrew construct sense. The LXX also renders the passive hophal huva' with the active future ἥξει ("he will come"), shifting the grammatical voice from passive (someone brings him) to active (he comes) — a divergence not reflected in the Hebrew's causative passive construction.