Leviticus 14:9
וְהָיָה בַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יְגַלַּח אֶת־כָּל־שְׂעָרוֹ אֶת־רֹאשׁוֹ וְאֶת־זְקָנוֹ וְאֵת גַּבֹּת עֵינָיו וְאֶת־כָּל־שְׂעָרוֹ יְגַלֵּחַ וְכִבֶּס אֶת־בְּגָדָיו וְרָחַץ אֶת־בְּשָׂרוֹ בַּמַּיִם וְטָהֵֽר׃
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְהָיָה֩ בַיּ֨וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י יְגַלַּ֣ח אֶת־כָּל־שְׂעָר֗וֹ אֶת־רֹאשׁ֤וֹ וְאֶת־זְקָנוֹ֙ וְאֵת֙ גַּבֹּ֣ת עֵינָ֔יו וְאֶת־כָּל־שְׂעָר֖וֹ יְגַלֵּ֑חַ וְכִבֶּ֣ס אֶת־בְּגָדָ֗יו וְרָחַ֧ץ אֶת־בְּשָׂר֛וֹ בַּמַּ֖יִם וְטָהֵֽר׃
καὶ ἔσται τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ ξυρηθήσεται πᾶσαν τῆ αὐτοῦ, τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ τόν πώγωνα καὶ τὰς ὀφρύας καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν τρίχα αὐτοῦ ξυρηθήσεται· καὶ πλυνεῖ τὰ ἱμάτια κα λούσεται τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ὕδατι, καὶ καθαρὸς ἔσται.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et die septimo radet capillos capitis, barbamque et supercilia, ac totius corporis pilos. Et lotis rursum vestibus et corpore,
Al séptimo día volverá a rasurarse todo el pelo: la cabeza, la barba, las cejas y cualquier otro pelo que tenga. Lavará su ropa y se bañará, y entonces quedará pura.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y será, que al séptimo día raerá todos sus pelos, su cabeza, y su barba, y las cejas de sus ojos; finalmente, raerá todo su pelo, y lavará sus vestidos, y lavará su carne en aguas, y será limpio.
On the seventh day he must shave off all his hair — his head, his beard, his eyebrows, and the rest of his hair. He must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water, and he will be clean.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Leviticus 14:9 describes the seventh-day purification rite for a person cleansed from a skin affliction: he must shave off all his body hair — head, beard, eyebrows, and remaining hair — then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, after which he becomes pure.
Key words
- yegallach ("he will shave", H1548) — piel imperfect, repeated twice in the verse, framing an intensive, deliberate shaving action rather than casual hair removal.
- se'aro ("his hair", H8181 + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, appearing twice (kol-se'aro, "all his hair") as an inclusio bracketing the specific body parts listed.
- gabbot 'einav ("eyebrows of his eyes", H1354 + H5869A) — feminine dual construct chain, literally "the ridges of his eyes," the Hebrew idiom for eyebrows.
- kibbes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel sequential perfect, marking the next step in the ritual sequence after shaving.
- tahar ("he will be pure", H2891) — qal sequential perfect, the final verb in the chain, stating the resulting state rather than an action.
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfect verbs (vehayah, kibbes, rachatz, tahar), a common narrative-legal structure in Hebrew that expresses a fixed sequence of events: "and it will be... and he will wash... and he will bathe... and he will be pure." Each verb picks up the temporal thread from the previous one, producing a procedural list rather than a simple narrative.
The shaving instruction itself has an unusual structure: kol-se'aro ("all his hair") is stated first, then specified through three body parts — ro'sho ("his head", H7218A), zekano ("his beard", H2206), and gabbot 'einav ("eyebrows of his eyes") — and then the phrase kol-se'aro ("all his hair") is repeated before the verb yegallach ("he will shave") appears a second time. This repetition creates a bracket structure: the general instruction (all hair) is stated, specific areas are named, and the general instruction is restated to close the unit, reinforced by shaving occurring twice grammatically in the sentence.
The final washing sequence uses two different verbs for cleaning: kibbes ("he will wash", H3526H) applies to begadav ("his garments", H0899B), while rachatz ("he will wash", H7364) applies to besaro ("his body", H1320). The Hebrew distinguishes garment-washing from body-washing with separate verbs, both converging into the final state expressed by tahar ("he will be pure").
Differences between versions
The LXX groups the body parts differently, listing κεφαλήν ("head"), πώγωνα ("beard"), and ὀφρύας ("eyebrows") in sequence without the Hebrew's bracketing repetition of "all his hair" around the list. The Vulgate follows a similar flat listing (capillos capitis, barbamque et supercilia, ac totius corporis pilos), rendering the structure as a single enumerative clause rather than preserving the Hebrew's double occurrence of yegallach ("he will shave") framing the list.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.