What Does Leviticus 13:40 Mean in the King James?
And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse names baldness and cleanness together: what has disappeared from the body is not, by itself, contamination.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now: bodily change does not by itself make you unclean. It names the hair loss plainly, then says the man is clean. The absence of hair is not the same thing as the affliction the chapter is examining.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a visible bodily difference is proof of impurity.
THE ROOT
קֵרֵחַ
qērēaḥ
GROWS FROM
קרח
q-r-ḥ
To be bald or to make a bald patch.
This root names both a bald head and the act of making a bald patch. The verse calls the man’s bodily condition clean; the bare surface itself does not determine the verdict.
ALSO GROWS
qorchah: A bald patch made on the head.
קָרְחָה
Deuteronomy uses this same root for baldness made for the dead, revealing the link between the condition named here and an intentional act.
yiqreḥu: They make a bald patch.
יִקְרְחוּ
The same root can describe an action, while this verse describes a man who is bald and clean.
טָהוֹר
ṭāhôr
GROWS FROM
טהר
ṭ-h-r
To be clean or pure.
“clean” in this verse is ṭāhôr. טָהוֹר names the man’s state; it does not describe his hair. The verse separates a visible bodily feature from the judgment of cleanness.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāhorāh: Cleanness or purification.
טָהֳרָה
This noun from the same root names cleanness as a state, the status given to the man here.
letahēr: To cleanse or make clean.
לְטַהֵר
The verb shows the same root can name the act of cleansing as well as the clean state declared in this verse.
THE PATTERN
A visible bodily difference does not, by itself, establish impurity or guilt.
Then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean.But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.THE THREAD
Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.The same קרח root names the bald head here and the baldness made for the dead there. One verse names a bodily condition and calls the man clean; the other names an act.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us