Leviticus 14:35

Summary

Leviticus 14:35 describes the procedure when a mark suspected of being a nega ("plague", H5061) appears on a house wall. The owner of the house is instructed to come to the priest and report what he has seen, using indirect speech that frames the report as an observation rather than a diagnosis.

Key words

• Va' ("he will come", H0935G) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain from the previous verse, marking the owner's action as the next step in the procedure.
• 'aSher-lo ("whom [it belongs] to him", H0834A + preposition) — relative clause construction meaning "the one to whom [the house belongs]," i.e., the house's legal owner, expressed without a dedicated noun for "owner."
• hiGid ("he will tell", H5046) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem conveys "to cause to be told/reported," giving the act of speaking to the priest an official, declarative force.
• Nega' ("a plague", H5061) — masculine singular noun; a general term for a mark or affliction, used here without further qualification in the Hebrew.
• nir'Ah ("it has appeared", H7200G) — niphal (passive) perfect; the passive form presents the mark as something that "was seen" or "showed itself," rather than something the owner actively diagnosed.

What the text says

The verse opens with two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative vav: u-Va' ("and he will come") and ve-hiGid ("and he will tell"), both continuing a chain of legal instructions. The subject of these verbs is identified through a relative clause, 'aSher-lo ha-Bayit — literally "who, to him [belongs] the house" — a common Biblical Hebrew way of expressing possession without a specific word for "owner." This construction places emphasis on the relationship to the house rather than on a title or role.

The report itself is introduced by le-Mor ("saying"), an infinitive construct that opens direct speech. Within that speech, the niphal verb nir'Ah ("it has appeared") places the mark, nega', in a passive construction — the mark "was seen" or "showed itself" to the speaker, rather than the speaker actively identifying it as a nega'. The preposition ki ("like") in ke-Nega' softens the claim: the owner reports something "like a plague," not a confirmed nega', leaving the formal identification to the priest.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'aSher-lo ha-Bayit as τίνος αὐτοῦ ἡ οἰκία ("whose house it is"), matching the relative-possessive structure of the Hebrew. The Vulgate's cujus est domus similarly preserves this construction. However, the Vulgate expands nega' ("plague") into "plaga leprae" ("a plague of leprosy"), adding a specification not present in the Hebrew noun itself. The LXX instead uses ἁφή ("touch, mark"), a more neutral rendering closer to the Hebrew's generality. Modern translations such as BSB ("owner of the house") and SBLIBRE ("el dueño de la casa") supply an explicit noun for "owner" where the Hebrew uses only the relative-possessive clause.