What Does Leviticus 13:51 Mean in the King James?

And he shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the plague is a fretting leprosy; it is unclean.

Leviticus 13:51 · 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 seventh-day inspection reveals that the mark is actively spreading, and that movement changes the status of the whole garment.

THE MEANING

The verse makes the seventh-day inspection decisive: when the mark has spread through cloth, threadwork, or leather, the whole article is unclean. Its living force is that a condition is disclosed by how far it reaches, not only by its first appearance.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A small first mark tells you nothing about what may be spreading through the whole.

THE ROOT

נֶגַע

negaʿ

GROWS FROM

נגע

nāgaʿ

To touch or strike.

The Hebrew calls the mark ⁨נֶגַע⁩ (negaʿ, stroke or affliction), from ⁨נגע⁩ (nāgaʿ, to touch or strike). “Plague” can sound like an illness category; this word keeps the impact visible, as something that has struck the material and whose reach is inspected.

ALSO GROWS

nāgaʿ: To touch or strike.

נָגַע

The verb preserves the sense of contact behind the mark named in this verse.

negaʿ: A stroke, affliction, or mark.

נֶגַע

This is the word used here for the mark on the garment, keeping its impact in view even when the material is cloth or leather.

פָּשָׂה

pāśâ

GROWS FROM

פשה

pāśâ

To spread or extend, used of a mark or condition advancing.

The verb ⁨פָּשָׂה⁩ (pāśâ, to spread) makes movement the deciding fact: the mark is not merely present but reaching farther. The same root recurs in these inspections for conditions that do spread and those that do not, a distinction English can flatten into simply describing a stain.

ALSO GROWS

pāśâ: Spread or extend.

פָּשָׂה

This is the verb that makes continued expansion the test in this verse.

pāśətâ: It spread; a feminine form of the same verb.

פָּשְׂתָה

The same root appears in descriptions of a mark spreading in other inspections, making its advance the recurring measure.

THE PATTERN

A spreading condition reveals its reach through what it continues to affect.

And the priest shall look on him the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague in his sight be at a stay, and the plague spread not in the skin; then the priest shall shut him up seven days more:

Leviticus 13:5 · KJVThe inspection distinguishes a mark that has stopped from one that continues to advance.

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

1 Corinthians 5:6 · KJVA small beginning is shown by how it spreads through the whole.

And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

2 Timothy 2:17 · KJVThe image of a spreading disease shows harmful influence by the ground it continues to consume.

THE THREAD

And if the priest shall look, and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin;

Leviticus 13:53 · KJV

This verse uses the same root, ⁨פָּשָׂה⁩ (pāśâ, to spread), in the negative: the mark has not advanced. Beside verse 51, it makes spread itself the boundary that changes how the garment is judged.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us