What Does Leviticus 14:40 Mean in the King James?
Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city:
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 Hebrew calls the house’s plague a נֶגַע (nega, an affliction or stroke), a mark that has reached the stone itself.
THE MEANING
The marked stones are taken out and cast into an unclean place beyond the city. The verse leaves that destination’s uncleanness explicit, separating the affected material from shared habitation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A house can be preserved only if every part of it stays in place.
THE ROOT
נֶגַע
nega
GROWS FROM
נגע
nagaʿ
Touch, reach, or strike; as a noun, a stroke or affliction.
The word translated “plague” grows from a root of touching or reaching: the affliction is pictured as a mark that has reached into the house. Here, the mark is located in particular stones, so the response addresses the material bearing it.
ALSO GROWS
nagaʿ: Touch, reach, or strike.
נָגַע
The verb gives the affliction its sense of contact with the house’s material.
naguaʿ: Stricken or afflicted.
נָגוּעַ
This form describes what bears the mark, as the stones do in the verse.
אֶבֶן
even
GROWS FROM
אבן
even
Stone; in the father-son wordplay, אָב (av, father) and בֵּן (ben, son) meet in the word, sharing ב.
In this name-reading, אֶבֶן (even, stone) holds אָב (av, father) and בֵּן (ben, son) together, with the ב shared. The stones here are not anonymous debris: the word carries that father-son echo as the marked stones are taken out of the house.
ALSO GROWS
avanim: Stones.
אֲבָנִים
This is the plural form used for the stones carrying the mark in the verse.
avnei: Stones of; the construct form of “stones.”
אַבְנֵי
This form shows how the stone-word remains present when stones are named as part of a larger structure.
וְהִשְׁלִיכוּ
ve-hishlikhu
GROWS FROM
שלך
shalakh
Cast or throw.
The verb comes from שלך (shalakh, cast or throw), distinct from שלח (shalach, send or release) despite their close sound. The verse describes casting the stones beyond the city, not using the separate root for sending or release.
ALSO GROWS
shalakh: Cast or throw.
שָׁלַךְ
This is the root verb behind the action done to the stones.
hishlikh: He cast or threw away.
הִשְׁלִיךְ
This form makes the outward casting explicit in the verse’s action.
THE PATTERN
What is designated unclean within a shared space is put beyond its boundary.
And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place.Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.THE THREAD
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 uses the same noun נֶגַע (nega, affliction) for the mark in a person that this verse uses for the mark in a house. The same root’s touch-and-reach sense spans body and dwelling, while the boundary shifts from camp to city.
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