What Does Leviticus 14:46 Mean?
Moreover, the one who goes into the house all the days that it is shut up shall be soiled until evening.
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
Moreover he that goeth into the house all the while that it is shut up shall be unclean until the even.THE KEY
The entrant’s uncleanness has a boundary: even while the house remains shut, it lasts only until evening.
THE MEANING
When you enter a space that is still shut away, this verse names the contact as making you unclean until evening. The condition is real, and it has a stated limit. It does not become a permanent name for the person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that one contact makes a person unclean forever: the verse gives this condition an endpoint.
THE ROOT
הִסְגִּיר
hisgîr
GROWS FROM
סגר
To close or shut; in this form, to shut something up or close it off.
“shut up” in this verse is hisgîr. The root holds together the act of closing and the boundary that results: מִסְגֶּרֶת (misgeret) also means a frame or border. Here, the house’s closure frames the entrant’s condition, rather than making that condition endless.
ALSO GROWS
sāgar: Close, shut.
סָגַר
This base form names the closing that keeps the house inaccessible.
misgeret: Frame, border, or enclosure.
מִסְגֶּרֶת
This branch names a boundary that holds something within limits, echoing the closed house in the verse.
הָעָרֶב
haʿerev
GROWS FROM
ערב
To grow dark or become evening; the word family also names the west, where the sun sets.
The Hebrew for evening belongs to the same word family as מַעֲרָב (maʿarav), west, the direction of sunset. The endpoint is not indefinite: this condition lasts to the day’s turn toward darkness.
ALSO GROWS
ʿerev: Evening or dusk.
עֶרֶב
This is the time boundary given for the entrant’s uncleanness.
maʿarav: West.
מַעֲרָב
The word family links evening with the direction of sunset, giving the stated endpoint a visible daily threshold.
THE PATTERN
An unclean state is bounded: it has a named time or way by which it ends.
By these you are made unclean. Whoever touches their limp body is unclean until evening.Then the priest shall wash his garments, and bathe his flesh in waters, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until evening.And straightway, as he spoke, the scaling went away from him, and he was cleansed.THE THREAD
If the shining spot is white in the skin of his flesh, and in its sight it is not deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white; then the priest shall shut in the one who has the stroke seven days;The same root, סגר (s-g-r), names the act of shutting someone up for examination. In this verse it describes the house’s closure; the entrant’s resulting condition still has a stated limit, ending at evening.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us