Leviticus 14:34

Summary

The verse opens the section on tzara'at affecting houses, set in the future context of Israel's entry into Canaan. It establishes a conditional structure: when the people enter the land God is giving them, God himself may put this affliction in a house within that land.

Key words

• ta.Vo.'u ("you will go", H0935G) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural: marks the entering of the land as a future/ongoing event, part of the conditional clause introduced by ki.
• no.Ten ("giving", H5414G) — qal participle: describes God's giving of the land not as a completed past act but as an action in progress, "the one giving."
• na.ta.Ti ("I will put", H5414H) — qal sequential perfect: continues the narrative sequence begun by the imperfect ta.Vo.'u, marking a shift from the entry-condition to the consequence God introduces.
• nega' ("plague of", H5061) construct + tzara'at ("serious disease", H6883) — a construct chain naming the specific affliction, structurally identical to the phrase used elsewhere for the disease affecting skin.
• 'achuzzah / 'achuzzat-khem ("a possession" / "your possession", H0272) — repeated noun, first indefinite then with 2nd person plural suffix, marking the land as both a gift and something now belonging specifically to the people.

What the text says

The verse is built around two grammatical hinges: the conditional particle ki ("that/if") governing the imperfect ta.Vo.'u, and the sequential perfect na.ta.Ti that picks up the narrative thread once the entry into the land is stated. This construction (imperfect after ki, followed by sequential perfect) is a common Hebrew way of expressing "when X happens, then Y will happen," linking Israel's entry into the land with God's own action of placing the nega' tzara'at there.

The participle no.Ten ("the one giving") describes God's giving of the land as an ongoing disposition rather than a single finished act, distinguishing it grammatically from the completed-action sense that a perfect verb would carry. The double use of 'achuzzah — once general ("a possession") and once with the suffix "-khem" ("your possession") — frames the land first as a category of gift, then specifically as the addressees' own holding, within which the disease may appear.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew tzara'at (H6883) is rendered as λέπρας ("leprosy") in the LXX and lepræ in the Vulgate, both using the same term applied elsewhere to skin afflictions. The English BSB and Spanish SBLIBRE instead render it as "contamination of mildew" and "moho" ("mold"), reflecting a translation choice suited to the context of a house rather than a human body, though the Hebrew word itself is unchanged from its use in the skin-disease passages.