Leviticus 15:28

Summary

The verse describes the procedure for a woman after an irregular discharge (zov, H2101) ends: once she is free from it, she counts seven days, and after that period she attains purity. The Hebrew marks two distinct temporal stages using two different verb forms of the same root.

Key words

• ta.ha.Rah ("she has become pure", H2891) — qal perfect: marks the completed cessation of the discharge, the starting point of the process.
• mi.zo.Vah ("from her discharge", H2101 + suffix) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, specifying the source condition she is purified from.
• Sa.fe.rah ("she will count", H5608A) — sequential (waw-consecutive) perfect: continues the narrative chain, expressing the action that follows logically/temporally from the first verb.
• shiv.'At yaMim ("seven of days", H7651 + H3117G) — construct chain, "seven days," designating the fixed duration of the waiting period.
• tit.Har ("she will be pure", H2891) — qal imperfect, same root as ta.ha.Rah: marks a future/resultant state reached only after the seven days conclude.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional clause ('im, H0518A) introducing two sequential actions tied together by the narrative vav (H9001) on Sa.fe.rah. The Hebrew grammar creates a three-stage progression using the same root טהר (H2891) at both ends: first the perfect ta.ha.Rah records that the discharge has stopped (a completed fact), then the sequential perfect Sa.fe.rah moves the narrative forward into the counting action, and finally the imperfect tit.Har marks a not-yet-completed, future state of purity contingent on the seven-day count being finished.

This repetition of the same verb in two different conjugations (perfect vs. imperfect) is a feature the English and Spanish translations cannot preserve, since both render it simply as "clean/pure" or "libre/limpia" without indicating that the Hebrew treats the initial cessation and the final purity as grammatically distinct states separated by the counted interval.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate reads "Si steterit sanguis, et fluere cessaverit" ("if the blood has stopped and ceased to flow"), introducing "sanguis" (blood), a specification not present in the Hebrew, which uses the general term zov ("discharge", H2101) without naming blood. The Vulgate also merges the final clause into "septem dies purificationis suae" ("seven days of her purification"), collapsing the Hebrew's two-step temporal structure (counting, then a separate future purity marked by tit.Har) into a single genitive phrase. The LXX's ἐὰν δὲ καθαρισθῇ ἀπὸ τῆς ῥύσεως ("if she is cleansed from the flow") tracks the Hebrew's two-clause structure more closely, using καθαρισθήσεται (future passive) at the end to parallel the imperfect tit.Har.