What Does Leviticus 13:41 Mean?

And the one whose hair has been uprooted from the part of his head toward his face, he is bald at the forehead; yet he is clean.

Leviticus 13:41 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean.

THE KEY

A visible lack is not, by itself, a stain.

THE MEANING

A bare front of the head can be visible without making you unclean. This verse holds hair loss and cleanness together in the same person: what is missing does not, by itself, make you defiled.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a visible bodily difference automatically makes you unclean.

THE ROOT

טָהוֹר

tahor

GROWS FROM

טהר

ṭ-h-r

To be clean or pure.

The word for “clean” belongs to a root that also describes becoming clean or being cleansed. The verse does not deny the visible loss; it names the person as clean through it.

ALSO GROWS

taher: To be clean; to cleanse or purify.

טָהֵר

The verb shows cleanness as a condition that can be recognized or restored, not just a spotless surface.

tohorah: Cleanness or purity.

טָהֳרָה

This noun names the state the verse assigns even while hair is absent.

THE PATTERN

Cleanness names the actual condition, not a label imposed from what merely appears.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steady breath within me.

Psalm 51:10 · SDVCleanness reaches the heart too; it is not limited to how the body looks.

There is nothing from outside a man, entering into him, that can make him common. But the things coming out of a man, those are the things that make the man common.

Mark 7:15 · SDVThe verse locates defilement in what comes from within, rather than in an outward feature alone.

And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has cleansed, do not make common.

Acts 10:15 · SDVThe verse warns against giving something the label “unclean” after it has been named clean.

THE THREAD

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steady breath within me.

Psalm 51:10 · SDV

The Hebrew word translated “clean” in both verses is ⁨טָהוֹר⁩ (tahor), from ⁨טהר⁩ (ṭ-h-r). The same root names cleanness of the body and cleanness of the heart, holding both meanings in one word-family.

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