What Does Leviticus 13:42 Mean?
And if there is in the bald head, or the bald forehead, a white-reddish stroke; it is a striking that blooms in his bald head, or his bald forehead.
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 if there be in the bald head, or bald forehead, a white reddish sore; it is a leprosy sprung up in his bald head, or his bald forehead.THE KEY
The bare place is not the sign; what breaks forth upon it is.
THE MEANING
This verse identifies a white-reddish outbreak on the bald scalp or forehead as a sign of the skin condition named here. Its location and coloring matter; baldness by itself is not what this line marks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A bare head is itself the mark of uncleanness. The verse locates the sign in the outbreak that appears on it.
THE ROOT
פֹּרַחַת
pōraḥat
GROWS FROM
פרח
to sprout, blossom, or break forth
“blooms” in this verse is pōraḥat. English “sprung up” can sound like mere motion, but פֹּרַחַת (pōraḥat, breaking forth) belongs to the same root as words for blossoms and for an eruption on the body. The root holds flourishing and outbreak within one language of visible emergence.
ALSO GROWS
pāraḥ: to sprout, blossom, or break forth
פָּרַח
This verb names the emergence that the verse marks on the bare scalp.
peraḥ: blossom or flower
פֶּרַח
The same root describes ordinary growth coming visibly into bloom.
pōrēaḥ: breaking out or erupting
פֹּרֵחַ
Exodus 9:9 uses this form for boils breaking out on bodies, showing the root’s bodily sense.
נֶגַע
negaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
to touch, reach, or strike
“stroke” in this verse is negaʿ. The Hebrew word נֶגַע (negaʿ, lesion or affliction) belongs to a root that also means to touch or strike. English “sore” can hide that connection; here the word names a visible mark on the skin, keeping attention on what has appeared rather than an inferred inner state.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaʿ: to touch or reach
נָגַע
The verb shares the root’s sense of contact with the body’s surface.
negaʿ: a blow, affliction, or lesion
נֶגַע
This noun names the visible skin mark whose location and color the verse specifies.
THE PATTERN
What breaks forth becomes visible evidence of what is taking shape.
And the man whose hair has been uprooted from his head, he is bald; yet he is clean.And it shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth in blisters upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.The wilderness and the parched place rejoice, and the desert plain leaps and blooms like the crocus.THE THREAD
And it shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth in blisters upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.Leviticus describes a mark breaking forth on bare skin, and Exodus uses פֹּרֵחַ (pōrēaḥ, breaking out) for a boil emerging on the body. The shared root פרח (pāraḥ, sprout or break forth) gives blossoming and eruption one language of visible emergence.
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