What Does Leviticus 14:44 Mean?

Then the priest shall come and look and see, and if the stroke has spread in the house, it is a gnawing stroke in the house; it is soiled.

Leviticus 14:44 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is unclean.

THE KEY

The house is judged by what the mark is doing: its spreading is the evidence.

THE MEANING

What spreads through the dwelling makes its condition visible: the mark is no longer confined to one place. The verse pronounces the house unclean when the inspection finds the plague extending within it. Here, reach changes what the whole dwelling can be called.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A blemish is harmless as long as it began small or is easy to overlook. The verse makes its continued spread the decisive sign.

THE ROOT

פָּשָׂה

pāśâ

GROWS FROM

פשה

To spread, extend, or grow in extent.

The root names the mark’s reach, not its color or cause. “Spread” can sound like a side detail in English, but here the expansion itself discloses the condition and changes the house’s status.

ALSO GROWS

tiphseh: It spreads.

תִּפְשֶׂה

In Leviticus 13:7, this form describes the scab extending across the skin; the same root makes spread a visible sign.

pasah: It spread.

פָשָׂה

In Leviticus 13:5, the plague is assessed by whether it has spread or remained at a standstill; the root marks the difference between expansion and containment.

THE PATTERN

A spreading mark is read by its reach, because what expands can affect the whole it enters.

But if the scab spreads far in the skin, after he has been seen by the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again;

Leviticus 13:7 · SDVAs in the house, the scab’s spread across the skin is the sign that calls for another inspection.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

1 Corinthians 5:6 · SDVA small presence can work through the whole mass, showing how expansion reveals what has entered.

THE THREAD

But if the scab spreads far in the skin, after he has been seen by the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again;

Leviticus 13:7 · SDV

The same Hebrew root for “spread” appears in both verses. The skin and the house are different surfaces, but in each, spread makes the condition visible through the reach of the mark.

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