Leviticus 15:13

Summary

Leviticus 15:13 describes the purification procedure once a man's genital discharge stops. The text lays out a sequential process: waiting seven days, washing clothes, bathing the body, resulting in ritual purity.

Key words

• yit.Har ("he will be pure", H2891) — qal imperfect, marking the future/ongoing condition triggering the whole procedure ("when he becomes pure...").
• Zav ("[one] discharging", H2100H) — qal participle with definite article ha ("the"), functioning as a substantive: "the one who discharges", i.e., the person's identity is defined by the ongoing action.
• zo.V ("discharge", H2101) construct with suffix o ("his") — forms mizzovo, "from his discharge", marking the source from which purity is reached.
• Sa.far ("he will count", H5608A) — sequential (waw-consecutive) perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the initial condition; introduces the seven-day count.
• khi.Bes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel stem (intensive/factitive), sequential perfect; the intensive form marks a thorough washing action distinct from the simple qal ra.Chatz used later for bathing the body.
• chai.Yim ("living", H2416A) — adjective modifying Ma.yim ("water", H4325G), describing the water as "living" (flowing/fresh) rather than standing.

What the text says

The verse opens with the conditional particle khi ("if/when", H3588A) attached to the verb yit.Har ("he will be pure", H2891), establishing the triggering condition: the moment the Zav ("the one discharging", H2100H) becomes pure mizzovo ("from his discharge", H2101 + suffix). The rest of the verse is built as a chain of sequential (waw-consecutive) perfect verbs — Sa.far ("he will count"), khi.Bes ("he will wash"), ra.Chatz ("he will wash/bathe"), and finally ta.Her ("he will be pure") — each introduced by the narrative ve (H9001). This verbal chain structure presents the actions as a fixed sequence following from the initial condition, rather than as independent or optional steps.

Two distinct washing verbs appear: khi.Bes (H3526H, piel) applies to the be.ga.Da ("garments", H0899B), while ra.Chatz (H7364, qal) applies to the be.sa.R ("body", H1320), specifying immersion be.Ma.yim chai.Yim ("with living water", H4325G + H2416A). The construct chains — shiv.'At yamim ("seven of days"), le.toho.ra.To ("for the purification of himself") — tie the seven-day count directly to the purification process. The final verb ta.Her ("he will be pure", H2891) repeats the same root used to open the verse, framing the entire sequence as a movement from the state named in verse's first clause to its completed fulfillment at the close.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ha.Zav ("the one discharging", H2100H) as ὁ γονορρυής, a technical Greek term for the condition, and translates yit.Har with καθαρισθῇ ("be cleansed"), shifting the semantic field slightly toward ritual cleansing rather than a state of "being pure." The Vulgate uses sanatus fuerit ("shall have been healed"), introducing a medical nuance ("healed") not explicit in the Hebrew yit.Har ("he will be pure"), which describes a state of purity rather than physical healing. For Ma.yim chai.Yim ("living water", H4325G + H2416A), the LXX has simply ὕδατι ("with water") without the qualifier "living," while the Vulgate reads in aquis viventibus ("in living waters"), matching the Hebrew adjective more closely than the LXX does.