Leviticus 13:40-59

Baldness on the Head

13:40 “When a man’s head is bare so that he is balding in back, ¹  he is clean. 13:41 If his head is bare on the forehead ²  so that he is balding in front, ³  he is clean. 13:42 But if there is a reddish white infection in the back or front bald area, it is a disease breaking out in his back or front bald area. 13:43 The priest is to examine it, ⁴  and if ⁵  the swelling of the infection is reddish white in the back or front bald area like the appearance of a disease on the skin of the body, ⁶  13:44 he is a diseased man. He is unclean. The priest must surely pronounce him unclean because of his infection on his head. ⁷ 

The Life of the Person with Skin Disease

13:45 “As for the diseased person who has the infection, ⁸  his clothes must be torn, the hair of his head must be unbound, he must cover his mustache, ⁹  and he must call out ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 13:46 The whole time he has the infection ¹⁰  he will be continually unclean. He must live in isolation, and his place of residence must be outside the camp.

Infections in Garments, Cloth, or Leather

13:47 “When a garment has a diseased infection in it, ¹¹  whether a wool or linen garment, ¹²  13:48 or in the warp or woof ¹³  of the linen or the wool, or in leather or anything made of leather, ¹⁴  13:49 if the infection ¹⁵  in the garment or leather or warp or woof or any article of leather is yellowish green or reddish, it is a diseased infection and it must be shown to the priest. 13:50 The priest is to examine and then quarantine the article with the infection for seven days. ¹⁶  13:51 He must then examine the infection on the seventh day. If the infection has spread in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in the leather – whatever the article into which the leather was made ¹⁷  – the infection is a malignant disease. It is unclean. 13:52 He must burn the garment or the warp or the woof, whether wool or linen, or any article of leather which has the infection in it. Because it is a malignant disease it must be burned up in the fire. 13:53 But if the priest examines it and ¹⁸  the infection has not spread in the garment or in the warp or in the woof or in any article of leather, 13:54 the priest is to command that they wash whatever has the infection and quarantine it for another seven days. ¹⁹  13:55 The priest must then examine it after the infection has been washed out, and if ²⁰  the infection has not changed its appearance ²¹  even though the infection has not spread, it is unclean. You must burn it up in the fire. It is a fungus, whether on the back side or front side of the article. ²²  13:56 But if the priest has examined it and ²³  the infection has faded after it has been washed, he is to tear it out of ²⁴  the garment or the leather or the warp or the woof. 13:57 Then if ²⁵  it still appears again in the garment or the warp or the woof, or in any article of leather, it is an outbreak. Whatever has the infection in it you must burn up in the fire. 13:58 But the garment or the warp or the woof or any article of leather which you wash and infection disappears from it ²⁶  is to be washed a second time and it will be clean.”

Summary of Infection Regulations

13:59 This is the law ²⁷  of the diseased infection in the garment of wool or linen, or the warp or woof, or any article of leather, for pronouncing it clean or unclean. ²⁸ 

[13:40]  ¹ tn Heb “And a man, when his head is rubbed bare, he is bald-headed.” The translation offered here, referring to the back of the head (i.e., the area from the top of the head sloping backwards), is based on the contrast between this condition and that of the following verse. See also B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 82.

[13:41]  ² tn Heb “And if from the front edge of his face, his head is rubbed bare.” See the note on v. 40 above.

[13:41]  ³ tn The rendering “balding in front” corresponds to the location of the bareness at the beginning of the verse.

[13:43]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the priest shall see it” (cf. KJV). The MT has “him/it” which some take to refer to the person as a whole (i.e., “him”; see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:770; NIV, NRSV, etc.), while others take it as a reference to the “infection” (נֶגַע, nega’) in v. 42 (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 172, 177). Smr has “her/it,” which would probably refer to “disease” (צָרַעַת, tsara’at) in v. 42. The general pattern in the chapter suggests that “it,” either the infection or the disease, is the object of the examination (see, e.g., v. 3 above and v. 50 below).

[13:43]  ⁵ tn Heb “and behold.”

[13:43]  ⁶ tn Heb “like appearance of disease of skin of flesh.”

[13:44]  ⁷ tn Or perhaps translate, “His infection [is] on his head,” as a separate independent sentence (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV). There is no causal expression in the Hebrew text connecting these two clauses, but the logical relationship between them seems to be causal.

[13:45]  ⁸ tn Heb “And the diseased one who in him is the infection.”

[13:45]  ⁹ tn Heb “and his head shall be unbound, and he shall cover on [his] mustache.” Tearing one’s clothing, allowing the hair to hang loose rather than bound up in a turban, and covering the mustache on the upper lip are all ways of expressing shame, grief, or distress (cf., e.g., Lev 10:6 and Micah 3:7).

[13:46]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “All the days which the infection is in him.”

[13:47]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And the garment, if there is in it a mark of disease.”

[13:47]  ¹² tn Heb “in a wool garment or in a linen garment.”

[13:48]  ¹³ sn The warp (vertical) and woof (horizontal) thread may be two different sets of thread not yet woven together, or they may refer to two different kinds of thread already woven, in which case one might have the disease in it while the other does not. See the explanation in J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:809-10.

[13:48]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in any handiwork of skin” (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV); most other modern English versions have “leather.”

[13:49]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the infection is.” This clause is conditional in force, and is translated as such by almost all English versions.

[13:50]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And the priest shall see the infection and he shall shut up the infection seven days.”

[13:51]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to all which the leather was made into a handiwork.”

[13:53]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And if the priest sees and behold”; NASB “and indeed.”

[13:54]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “a second seven days.”

[13:55]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, ASV).

[13:55]  ²¹ tn Heb “the infection has not changed its eye.” Smr has “its/his eyes,” as in vv. 5 and 37, but here it refers to the appearance of the article of cloth or leather, unlike vv. 5 and 37 where there is a preposition attached and it refers to the eyes of the priest.

[13:55]  ²² tn The terms “back side” and “front side” are the same as those used in v. 42 for the “back or front bald area” of a man’s head. The exact meaning of these terms when applied to articles of cloth or leather is uncertain. It could refer, for example, to the inside versus the outside of a garment, or the back versus the front side of an article of cloth or leather. See J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:814, for various possibilities.

[13:56]  ²³ tn Heb “And if the priest saw and behold….”

[13:56]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and he shall tear it from.”

[13:57]  ²⁵ tn Heb “And if”; NIV, NCV “But if”; NAB “If, however.”

[13:58]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and the infection turns aside from them.”

[13:59]  ²⁷ sn The Hebrew term translated “law” (תוֹרָה, torah) introduces here a summary or colophon for all of Lev 13. Similar summaries are found in Lev 7:37-38; 11:46-47; 14:54-57; and 15:32-33.

[13:59]  ²⁸ tn These are declarative Piel forms of the verbs טָהֵר (taher) and טָמֵא (tame’) respectively (cf. the notes on vv. 3 and 6 above).