What Does Leviticus 13:16 Mean?
Or if the living flesh turns back, and is turned to white, he shall come to the priest;
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Or if the raw flesh turn again, and be changed unto white, he shall come unto the priest;THE KEY
The flesh’s visible change is brought to the priest for discernment; it is not yet the verdict.
THE MEANING
When the raw flesh returns and turns white, the person comes before the priest. The visible change matters, but its meaning is still discerned. The verse holds bodily change and judgment as two distinct moments.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A changed appearance automatically tells you what a condition means; here the person still comes before the priest for judgment.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּב
yāshūv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
to return, turn back
“turns back” in this verse is yāshūv. The Hebrew root שׁוּב (shuv, “return”) makes the phrase a movement back, not a verdict. The flesh returns to a visible state, and the next action is to bring that change for discernment.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: return, turning
תְּשׁוּבָה
This branch shows the same root’s sense of turning back; here the flesh’s return is a change to be seen.
meshubah: turning away, backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch shows that the root names a turn whose direction matters; the verse specifies the direction through the flesh’s changed appearance.
וְנֶהְפַּךְ
ve-nehepakh
GROWS FROM
הָפַךְ
haphak
to turn over, transform
The verse sets two movements beside each other: the flesh returns, then is turned into white. The root of “changed” can also name overturning or reversal, so the whiteness is presented as a changed state to be examined, not merely a color mentioned.
ALSO GROWS
hephekh: opposite, reverse
הֶפֶךְ
This branch makes the root’s sense of a changed or reversed state visible in the verse’s transformation.
mahpekah: overturning, overthrow
מַהְפֵּכָה
This branch carries the force of a state being turned over; here the change is bodily and visible.
THE PATTERN
Cleansing becomes visible through a changed bodily condition.
And the priest shall look upon him; and behold, if the stroke is turned to white; then the priest shall declare clear the one who has the stroke; he is clear.Then he went down and immersed himself seven times in Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh returned like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.And straightway, as he spoke, the scaling went away from him, and he was cleansed.THE THREAD
And the priest shall look upon him; and behold, if the stroke is turned to white; then the priest shall declare clear the one who has the stroke; he is clear.The Hebrew root הָפַךְ (haphak, “to turn or transform”) appears in both verses: here the flesh is changed to white, and in the next verse the plague is turned white. Verse 17 states what the visible change means for the priest’s judgment.
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