Leviticus 13:9-11

A Swelling on the Skin

13:9 “When someone has a diseased infection, he must be brought to the priest. 13:10 The priest will then examine it, and if a white swelling is on the skin, it has turned the hair white, and there is raw flesh in the swelling, 13:11 it is a chronic disease on the skin of his body, so the priest is to pronounce him unclean. The priest must not merely quarantine him, for he is unclean.


tn Heb “When there is an infection of disease in a man.” The term for “a man; a human being” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2 and cf. v. 2 above) refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. For the rendering “diseased infection” see the note on v. 2 above.

tn Heb “and the priest shall see.” The pronoun “it” is unexpressed, but it should be assumed and it refers to the infection (cf. the note on v. 8 above).

tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, ASV).

tn Heb “and rawness [i.e., something living] of living flesh is in the swelling”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “quick raw flesh.”

tn The term rendered here “chronic” is a Niphal participle meaning “grown old” (HALOT 448 s.v. II ישׁן nif.2). The idea is that this is an old enduring skin disease that keeps on developing or recurring.

tn Heb “in the skin of his flesh” as opposed to the head or the beard (v. 29; cf. v. 2 above).

tn This is the declarative Piel of the verb טָמֵא (tame’, cf. the note on v. 3 above).

tn Heb “he”; the referent (the priest) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

sn Instead of just the normal quarantine isolation, this condition calls for the more drastic and enduring response stated in Lev 13:45-46. Raw flesh, of course, sometimes oozes blood to one degree or another, and blood flows are by nature impure (see, e.g., Lev 12 and 15; cf. J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 191).