What Does Leviticus 13:51 Mean?
And he shall look upon the stroke on the seventh day; if the stroke has spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the weft, or in a skin, or in any work made of skin; the stroke is a gnawing striking; it is soiled.
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 he shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the plague is a fretting leprosy; it is unclean.THE KEY
The seventh-day inspection reveals that the mark is actively spreading, and that movement changes the status of the whole garment.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the seventh-day inspection decisive: when the mark has spread through cloth, threadwork, or leather, the whole article is unclean. Its living force is that a condition is disclosed by how far it reaches, not only by its first appearance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A small first mark tells you nothing about what may be spreading through the whole.
THE ROOT
נֶגַע
negaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
nāgaʿ
To touch or strike.
The Hebrew calls the mark נֶגַע (negaʿ, stroke or affliction), from נגע (nāgaʿ, to touch or strike). “Plague” can sound like an illness category; this word keeps the impact visible, as something that has struck the material and whose reach is inspected.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaʿ: To touch or strike.
נָגַע
The verb preserves the sense of contact behind the mark named in this verse.
negaʿ: A stroke, affliction, or mark.
נֶגַע
This is the word used here for the mark on the garment, keeping its impact in view even when the material is cloth or leather.
פָּשָׂה
pāśâ
GROWS FROM
פשה
pāśâ
To spread or extend, used of a mark or condition advancing.
The verb פָּשָׂה (pāśâ, to spread) makes movement the deciding fact: the mark is not merely present but reaching farther. The same root recurs in these inspections for conditions that do spread and those that do not, a distinction English can flatten into simply describing a stain.
ALSO GROWS
pāśâ: Spread or extend.
פָּשָׂה
This is the verb that makes continued expansion the test in this verse.
pāśətâ: It spread; a feminine form of the same verb.
פָּשְׂתָה
The same root appears in descriptions of a mark spreading in other inspections, making its advance the recurring measure.
THE PATTERN
A spreading condition reveals its reach through what it continues to affect.
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;Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?And their word will feed like gangrene; among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus.THE THREAD
And if the priest looks, and behold, the stroke has not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the weft, or in anything of skin;This verse uses the same root, פָּשָׂה (pāśâ, to spread), in the negative: the mark has not advanced. Beside verse 51, it makes spread itself the boundary that changes how the garment is judged.
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