What Does Leviticus 14:32 Mean?
This is the instruction for the one whose skin bears the striking, whose hand cannot reach what belongs to his cleansing.
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
This is the law of him in whom is the plague of leprosy, whose hand is not able to get that which pertaineth to his cleansing.THE KEY
The hand that cannot reach the means of cleansing is still directly addressed by the instruction for cleansing.
THE MEANING
When your hand cannot reach all that cleansing involves, the instruction still names your case. Your lack of means does not place you outside the path it describes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that if you cannot obtain what cleansing requires, you are beyond its reach.
THE ROOT
תַּשִּׂיג
taśśîg from nāśag
GROWS FROM
נ־שׂ־ג
n-ś-g
reach, overtake, attain
“hand cannot reach” in this verse is taśśîg from nāśag. The Hebrew pictures the hand reaching for what is needed and being unable to attain it. The limit belongs to the person’s reach; the verse still names them within the instruction.
ALSO GROWS
nāśag: to catch up with or come upon
נָשַׂג
The same root can describe something reaching a person; here it is the hand that cannot reach what is needed.
hisig: to reach or obtain
הִשִּׂיג
This makes the issue one of capacity: what the hand can attain is explicitly in view.
תּוֹרָה
torah
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ה
y-r-h
direct, instruct
The verse calls this a torah, an instruction that addresses the person whose hand cannot attain what is associated with purification. The instruction includes the limits of the person it speaks about.
ALSO GROWS
yarah: to guide or teach
יָרָה
This root sense brings out the Torah as direction for a real case, not only a bare rule.
moreh: one who instructs
מוֹרֶה
The related word keeps the emphasis on guidance: this instruction shows a way through the person’s constraint.
בְּטָהֳרָתוֹ
betahorato
GROWS FROM
ט־ה־ר
ṭ-h-r
be clean, pure
“cleansing” in this verse is betahorato. The word points to the person’s purification, the movement or condition of being clean. The verse places the person’s limited means alongside that process, rather than treating the limit as the end of the matter.
ALSO GROWS
tahor: clean or pure
טָהוֹר
The related form names the state toward which purification is directed.
tohorah: cleansing or purity
טָהֳרָה
This form makes the process of becoming clean explicit, matching the verse’s concern with what pertains to the person’s cleansing.
THE PATTERN
The way to cleanness is proportioned to the reach of the person who needs it.
And if he is low, and his hand cannot reach so much, then he shall take one lamb for a guilt offering to be waved, to make a covering for him, and one tenth of an ephah of fine flour kneaded with oil for a gift, and a log of oil.Each one shall give according to the gift of his hand, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which he has given you.For if the leaning heart is there first, it is well received according to what one has, and not according to what one does not have.THE THREAD
And if he is low, and his hand cannot reach so much, then he shall take one lamb for a guilt offering to be waved, to make a covering for him, and one tenth of an ephah of fine flour kneaded with oil for a gift, and a log of oil.This verse repeats the same Hebrew root for “reach” or “attain”: the person’s hand cannot attain what is needed. The earlier instruction then gives that person a provision suited to their means, making the limit part of the path described.
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