Leviticus 14:57

Summary

The verse closes a legal section by stating its purpose: to give instruction (teaching) about distinguishing the day when something is unclean from the day when it is pure. It then labels the entire preceding material as "the torah of the tzara'at."

Key words

• ho.Rot ("to teach", H3384B) — Hiphil infinitive construct with prefixed le. ("to", H9005), indicating causative action ("to cause to know/teach") and expressing purpose or result of the preceding regulations.
• Yom ("day of", H3117G) — masculine singular construct, appearing twice, each time governing a following adjective to form a bound phrase ("day of the unclean," "day of the pure").
• ta.Me' ("unclean [thing]", H2931) — masculine singular adjective with the definite article ha. (H9009), functioning here as a substantive ("the unclean [state/thing]").
• ta.Hor ("pure [thing]", H2889) — masculine singular adjective with the definite article, paired antithetically with ta.Me', forming the contrast "unclean/pure."
• to.Rat ("[the] legal [procedure] of", H8451) — feminine singular construct noun, introduced by the demonstrative zot ("this", H2063), forming the closing formula "this is the torah of...".

What the text says

The verse is built on two paired constructs: be.Yom ha.ta.Me' ("on the day of the unclean") and u.ve.Yom ha.ta.Hor ("and on the day of the pure"). Each phrase uses the construct noun Yom followed by a substantivized adjective bearing the definite article, so the adjectives ta.Me' and ta.Hor function grammatically as nouns denoting states rather than describing a person or object directly. This construction creates a temporal contrast: the text speaks of distinguishing between two "days" — one associated with the unclean state, one with the pure state — rather than simply listing clean/unclean items.

The purpose clause is carried by le.ho.Rot, a Hiphil infinitive with the causative sense of "teaching" or "instructing," connected to the preceding material by the preposition le. ("to/for"). This frames everything before it as existing for the purpose of instruction regarding these two conditions.

The closing formula zot to.Rat ha.tza.Ra.'at ("this is the torah of the tzara'at") uses the demonstrative zot to point back at the entire unit, and to.Rat in construct with ha.tza.Ra.'at names the preceding regulations as a single body of instruction concerning this skin condition.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the purpose clause with ἐξηγήσασθαι ("to explain/interpret"), a broader term than the Hiphil ho.Rot ("to teach/instruct"), and shifts the second temporal phrase to a future passive, "the day it shall be cleansed" (καθαρισθήσεται), rather than the Hebrew's parallel construct phrase "day of the pure" (Yom ha.ta.Hor). The Vulgate condenses both temporal constructs into a single indirect question, "at what time a thing is clean or unclean," without preserving the "day of unclean / day of pure" structure found in the Hebrew. The BSB expands tza.Ra.'at (H6883) as "skin diseases and mildew," broadening the single Hebrew noun into two English categories not distinguished lexically in this verse.