What Does Leviticus 13:46 Mean?
All the days in which the stroke is in him, he shall be soiled; he is soiled. He shall sit alone; outside the camp shall his sitting place be.
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
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.THE KEY
The verse makes exclusion a dwelling: outside the camp becomes the place where the afflicted person lives.
THE MEANING
When a condition is named unclean, the label reaches beyond the body and determines whether a person can dwell among others. The verse makes the cost concrete: the person lives alone outside the camp for as long as the affliction remains.
THE ROOT
מוֹשָׁבוֹ
moshavo
GROWS FROM
ישב
yashav
To sit, dwell, remain, or settle.
“sit alone” in this verse is moshavo. The verse places יֵשֵׁב (yeshev, he shall dwell) beside מוֹשָׁבוֹ (moshavo, his habitation), both from יָשַׁב (yashav, sit or dwell). The repeated root turns exclusion into an assigned residence: outside is where his life is made to settle.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell, or remain settled.
יָשַׁב
The verse uses this verb directly in “he shall dwell,” so the following word for habitation repeats the same root.
moshav: A dwelling, settled place, or seat.
מוֹשָׁב
This noun is the base of מוֹשָׁבוֹ (moshavo, his habitation), locating the exclusion in the person’s actual place of residence.
בָּדָד
badad
GROWS FROM
בדד
badad
To be alone, separate, or isolated.
“alone” in this verse is badad. The root names more than being physically outside a boundary: it names solitude itself. Here that solitude is imposed, making separation the condition of the person’s daily life.
ALSO GROWS
levaddo: By himself, alone.
לְבַדּוֹ
Genesis 2:18 uses this form for the human being alone; here the same root family marks solitude imposed by exclusion from the camp.
levadad: Alone, apart.
לְבָדָד
Numbers 23:9 uses this form for a people dwelling apart; here solitude is assigned to one person.
THE PATTERN
A communal boundary turns a judgment about a person into a concrete condition of where that person may belong.
From male to female you send out; outside the camp you send them, so that they soil not their camps, in whose midst I pitch my tent.They answered and said to him, You were born wholly in shortcomings, and do you teach us? And they cast him out.So Jesus also, that he might set the people apart through his own blood, suffered outside the gate.THE THREAD
How she sits alone, the city crowded with people! How she has become like a widow! She who is great among the nations, princess among the provinces, how she has become a laborer under tribute!The Hebrew echoes both roots: יָשַׁב (yashav, sit or dwell) and בָּדָד (badad, be alone). Leviticus assigns solitary dwelling to one afflicted person; Lamentations gives the same posture to a city, extending the image of isolation from one person to an entire community.
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