What Does Leviticus 13:27 Mean?
And the priest shall look upon him on the seventh day; and if it spreads far in the skin, then the priest shall declare him soiled; it is the stroke of the striking.
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
And the priest shall look upon him the seventh day: and if it be spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy.THE KEY
The priest’s authority waits on the skin’s movement: expansion observed across seven days turns inspection into a verdict.
THE MEANING
The priest looks again on the seventh day, and spreading across the skin determines the declaration. The verse makes the change itself evidence, not mere presence. “Unclean” names a ritual status here; it does not itself assign moral fault.
THE ROOT
פָּשֹׂה תִפְשֶׂה
pāśōh tifśeh
GROWS FROM
פשה
pāśāh
Spread, extend outward.
The Hebrew pairs פָּשֹׂה (pāśōh, spreading) with תִפְשֶׂה (tifśeh, it spreads), intensifying the condition. English preserves the emphasis in “spread much abroad,” but the repeated root makes the point plain: expansion itself tips the assessment.
ALSO GROWS
pāśōh: Spreading; to spread.
פָּשֹׂה
This infinitive form begins the emphatic pairing that focuses attention on expansion.
tifśeh: It spreads.
תִפְשֶׂה
This verb names the change in the skin that determines the priest’s verdict.
נֶגַע
negaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
nāgaʿ
Touch, reach, or strike; the related noun can mean an affliction or stroke.
“stroke of the striking” in this verse is negaʿ. The word translated “plague” belongs to the touch-and-strike family and can name an affliction or lesion. It adds the sense of a marked bodily affliction without naming its cause.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaʿ: Touch, reach, or strike.
נָגַע
The verb supplies the root sense behind the word used for the skin’s affliction.
negaʿ: An affliction, stroke, or lesion.
נֶגַע
This noun names the condition the priest observes.
וְטִמֵּא
vetimmēʾ
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
Be impure; render or declare impure.
“pronounce him unclean” in this verse is vetimmēʾ. The priest’s declaration belongs to a vocabulary of ritual status: the same root names being unclean and declaring something unclean. This keeps the verse’s ruling specific to its classification, without making it a judgment about the person’s character.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean, ritually impure.
טָמֵא
This adjective names the status declared in the verse.
ṭumʾāh: Impurity, ritual uncleanness.
טֻמְאָה
This noun names the state belonging to the same root as the priest’s declaration.
THE PATTERN
A bodily condition is assessed through what becomes visible, and its status follows what the examination finds.
And the priest shall look upon him on the seventh day; and behold, if the stroke in its sight stands, and the stroke has not spread in the skin; then the priest shall shut him in seven days more;And the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall look and see, if the striking of the skin is healed in the one struck.And when he saw them, he said to them, Go, present yourselves to the priests. And it came to pass, that as they went, they were cleansed.THE THREAD
And the priest shall look upon him on the seventh day; and behold, if the stroke in its sight stands, and the stroke has not spread in the skin; then the priest shall shut him in seven days more;Both verses use פשה (pāśāh, spread): verse 5 describes a mark that has not spread, while verse 27 describes expansion that changes the priest’s ruling. Together they make the threshold visible: the condition’s spread, rather than its mere presence, determines this declaration.
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