What Does Leviticus 14:40 Mean?
Then the priest shall command that they take out the stones in which the stroke is, and they shall throw them into a soiled place outside the city.
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
Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city:THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the house’s plague a נֶגַע (nega, an affliction or stroke), a mark that has reached the stone itself.
THE MEANING
The marked stones are taken out and cast into an unclean place beyond the city. The verse leaves that destination’s uncleanness explicit, separating the affected material from shared habitation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A house can be preserved only if every part of it stays in place.
THE ROOT
נֶגַע
nega
GROWS FROM
נגע
nagaʿ
Touch, reach, or strike; as a noun, a stroke or affliction.
“stroke” in this verse is nega. The word translated “plague” grows from a root of touching or reaching: the affliction is pictured as a mark that has reached into the house. Here, the mark is located in particular stones, so the response addresses the material bearing it.
ALSO GROWS
nagaʿ: Touch, reach, or strike.
נָגַע
The verb gives the affliction its sense of contact with the house’s material.
naguaʿ: Stricken or afflicted.
נָגוּעַ
This form describes what bears the mark, as the stones do in the verse.
אֶבֶן
even
GROWS FROM
אבן
even
Stone; in the father-son wordplay, אָב (av, father) and בֵּן (ben, son) meet in the word, sharing ב.
In this name-reading, אֶבֶן (even, stone) holds אָב (av, father) and בֵּן (ben, son) together, with the ב shared. The stones here are not anonymous debris: the word carries that father-son echo as the marked stones are taken out of the house.
ALSO GROWS
avanim: Stones.
אֲבָנִים
This is the plural form used for the stones carrying the mark in the verse.
avnei: Stones of; the construct form of “stones.”
אַבְנֵי
This form shows how the stone-word remains present when stones are named as part of a larger structure.
וְהִשְׁלִיכוּ
ve-hishlikhu
GROWS FROM
שלך
shalakh
Cast or throw.
The verb comes from שלך (shalakh, cast or throw), distinct from שלח (shalach, send or release) despite their close sound. The verse describes casting the stones beyond the city, not using the separate root for sending or release.
ALSO GROWS
shalakh: Cast or throw.
שָׁלַךְ
This is the root verb behind the action done to the stones.
hishlikh: He cast or threw away.
הִשְׁלִיךְ
This form makes the outward casting explicit in the verse’s action.
THE PATTERN
What is designated unclean within a shared space is put beyond its boundary.
And he shall tear down the house, its stones, its timber, and all the mortar of the house; and he shall carry them out of the city into a soiled place.You shall also have a place outside the camp, where you shall go out. You shall have a digging stake upon your weapon, and it shall be, when you would go outside to ease yourself, that you shall dig with it, and turn back and cover what comes from you. For the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give your enemies before you. Therefore your camp shall be set apart, so that he sees no naked thing in you and turns away from you.But those outside, God will judge. Lift out the wicked one from among yourselves.THE THREAD
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.Leviticus 13:46 uses the same noun נֶגַע (nega, affliction) for the mark in a person that this verse uses for the mark in a house. The same root’s touch-and-reach sense spans body and dwelling, while the boundary shifts from camp to city.
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