What Does Leviticus 13:45 Mean in the King James?

And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.

Leviticus 13:45 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The upper lip is covered, yet the condition must be cried aloud: the person’s body and voice become one public sign.

THE MEANING

Here, a person’s visible condition shapes how he is encountered: his clothing is torn, his head uncovered, his upper lip covered, and he calls out his ritual status. Even with his mouth partly veiled, he must speak the designation aloud; the body and voice together mark his condition in public.

THE ROOT

נֶגַע

negaʿ

GROWS FROM

נגע

n-g-ʿ

To touch, reach, or strike; as a noun, a stroke or affliction.

The word rendered “plague” carries the image of something that has reached or struck the body. The separate word “unclean” names a ritual status, so the verse distinguishes the affliction from the public designation attached to it.

ALSO GROWS

nāgaʿ: to touch, reach, or strike

נָגַע

This verb shows the root’s action: contact that reaches something.

negaʿ: a stroke, affliction, or mark of impact

נֶגַע

This noun is the word used for the condition present in the person.

טָמֵא

ṭāmēʾ

GROWS FROM

טמא

ṭ-m-ʾ

To be unclean or ritually impure; in this passage, to occupy a ritual status.

Here, “unclean” names ritual standing, not moral blame. Its repetition makes that status audible even while the upper lip is covered: the condition is announced, not left to inference.

ALSO GROWS

ṭāmēʾ: unclean; a person in an unclean state

טָמֵא

This form names the person’s status in the verse.

ṭumʾāh: uncleanness or impurity

טֻמְאָה

This noun names the state itself, showing the root’s reach from a person’s designation to the condition’s status.

THE PATTERN

When a bodily condition carries communal consequences, Scripture makes it visible in the body and audible in speech.

All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

Leviticus 13:46 · KJVThe condition remains publicly legible and determines where the person lives.

Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead:

Numbers 5:2 · KJVBodily and ritual conditions are named as matters that shape the community’s shared space.

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.

Mark 1:40-42 · KJVThe man speaks his condition aloud, and the encounter turns on the words “clean” and “unclean” as well as on touch.

THE THREAD

And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.

Leviticus 13:3 · KJV

The Hebrew word ⁨נֶגַע⁩ (negaʿ, stroke or affliction) appears here as the word translated “plague.” Leviticus 13:3 shows the skin mark being examined and named; this verse shows the public signs and speech attached to that status.

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