Leviticus 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD speaks to Moses and Aaron, giving the priests detailed rules for examining marks on a person's skin: swellings, rashes, bright spots, sores left by boils and burns, scaly patches on the head or beard, and sores on bald skin. In each case the priest looks at the mark, sometimes keeping the person apart for seven days at a time, and then declares him clean or unclean. A person found to have the disease must wear torn clothes, leave his head uncovered, cover his upper lip, call out "Unclean, unclean," and live alone outside the camp. The chapter then applies the same kind of examination to marks that appear in wool, linen, and leather, which are washed, cut out, or burned.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron.
   • The LORD's speech to them was introduced as words to be delivered.
2. 13:2
   • A person may have on the skin of his body a swelling, or a scab, or a bright spot.
   • The affected place may become on the skin of his body a mark of the diseased skin condition.
   • Such a person is to be brought to Aaron the priest.
   • Alternatively, such a person is to be brought to one of Aaron's sons, the priests.
3. 13:3
   • The priest is to examine the mark on the skin of the body.
   • If the hair in the mark has turned white, that is one sign.
   • If the mark appears deeper than the skin of his body, that is another sign.
   • When both signs are present, it is a mark of the diseased skin condition.
   • The priest is to examine him and declare him unclean.
4. 13:4
   • The bright spot may be white in the skin of his body.
   • It may not appear deeper than the skin.
   • The hair in it may not have turned white.
   • In that case the priest is to shut up the person with the mark for seven days.
5. 13:5
   • The priest is to examine him on the seventh day.
   • The mark may have stayed unchanged in the priest's sight.
   • The mark may not have spread in the skin.
   • In that case the priest is to shut him up seven days a second time.
6. 13:6
   • The priest is to examine him again on the seventh day.
   • The mark may have faded.
   • The mark may not have spread in the skin.
   • In that case the priest is to declare him clean.
   • It is a scab.
   • The man is to wash his clothes.
   • He shall be clean.
7. 13:7
   • The scab may spread further in the skin after he has shown himself to the priest for his cleansing.
   • In that case he is to be seen by the priest a second time.
8. 13:8
   • The priest is to examine him.
   • The scab may have spread in the skin.
   • In that case the priest is to declare him unclean.
   • It is the diseased skin condition.
9. 13:9
   • A mark of the diseased skin condition may be on a person.
   • Such a person is to be brought to the priest.
10. 13:10
    • The priest is to examine him.
    • There may be a white swelling in the skin.
    • The swelling may have turned the hair white.
    • There may be raw living flesh in the swelling.
11. 13:11
    • It is a long-standing diseased skin condition in the skin of his body.
    • The priest is to declare him unclean.
    • The priest is not to shut him up.
    • The reason is that he is already unclean.
12. 13:12
    • The diseased condition may break out all over the skin.
    • The disease may cover all the skin of the person with the mark from his head to his feet.
    • This is judged by everything the priest's eyes can see.
13. 13:13
    • The priest is to examine him.
    • The disease may have covered all his flesh.
    • In that case the priest is to declare the person with the mark clean.
    • All of him has turned white.
    • He is clean.
14. 13:14
    • On the day raw living flesh appears on him, he becomes unclean.
15. 13:15
    • The priest is to examine the raw living flesh.
    • The priest is to declare him unclean.
    • The raw living flesh is unclean.
    • It is the diseased skin condition.
16. 13:16
    • The raw living flesh may change back and turn white.
    • In that case the person is to come to the priest.
17. 13:17
    • The priest is to examine him.
    • The mark may have turned white.
    • In that case the priest is to declare the mark clean.
    • He is clean.
18. 13:18
    • A person may have a boil on his skin.
    • The boil may be healed.
19. 13:19
    • In the place of the boil there may be a white swelling.
    • Alternatively there may be a bright spot that is white and reddish.
    • The affected place is to be shown to the priest.
20. 13:20
    • The priest is to examine it.
    • It may appear lower than the skin.
    • Its hair may have turned white.
    • In that case the priest is to declare him unclean.
    • It is a mark of the diseased skin condition that has broken out in the boil.
21. 13:21
    • The priest may examine it and find no white hair in it.
    • It may not be lower than the skin.
    • It may be faded.
    • In that case the priest is to shut him up seven days.
22. 13:22
    • If it spreads further in the skin, the priest is to declare him unclean.
    • It is a diseased mark.
23. 13:23
    • The bright spot may stay in its place and not spread.
    • In that case it is the scar of the boil.
    • The priest is to declare him clean.
24. 13:24
    • A person may have a burn from fire on his skin.
    • The raw flesh of the burn may become a bright spot that is white and reddish, or white.
25. 13:25
    • The priest is to examine it.
    • The hair in the bright spot may have turned white.
    • The spot may appear deeper than the skin.
    • In that case it is the diseased skin condition that has broken out in the burn.
    • The priest is to declare him unclean.
    • It is a mark of the diseased skin condition.
26. 13:26
    • The priest may examine it and find no white hair in the bright spot.
    • It may not be lower than the skin.
    • It may be faded.
    • In that case the priest is to shut him up seven days.
27. 13:27
    • The priest is to examine him on the seventh day.
    • If it has spread further in the skin, the priest is to declare him unclean.
    • It is a mark of the diseased skin condition.
28. 13:28
    • The bright spot may stay in its place and not spread in the skin.
    • It may be faded.
    • In that case it is the swelling of the burn.
    • The priest is to declare him clean.
    • The reason is that it is the scar of the burn.
29. 13:29
    • A man or a woman may have a mark on the head or in the beard.
30. 13:30
    • The priest is to examine the mark.
    • It may appear deeper than the skin.
    • There may be thin yellow hair in it.
    • In that case the priest is to declare the person unclean.
    • It is a scaly eruption.
    • It is the diseased condition of the head or of the beard.
31. 13:31
    • The priest may examine the mark of the scaly eruption and find that it does not appear deeper than the skin.
    • There may be no black hair in it.
    • In that case the priest is to shut up the person with the scaly eruption for seven days.
32. 13:32
    • The priest is to examine the mark on the seventh day.
    • The scaly eruption may not have spread.
    • There may be no yellow hair in it.
    • The scaly eruption may not appear deeper than the skin.
33. 13:33
    • The person is to shave himself.
    • He is not to shave the scaly eruption.
    • The priest is to shut up the person with the scaly eruption seven days a second time.
34. 13:34
    • The priest is to examine the scaly eruption on the seventh day.
    • The scaly eruption may not have spread in the skin.
    • It may not appear deeper than the skin.
    • In that case the priest is to declare him clean.
    • The man is to wash his clothes.
    • He shall be clean.
35. 13:35
    • The scaly eruption may spread further in the skin after his cleansing.
36. 13:36
    • The priest is to examine him.
    • The scaly eruption may have spread in the skin.
    • In that case the priest is not to look for yellow hair.
    • The person is unclean.
37. 13:37
    • The scaly eruption may have stayed unchanged in the priest's sight.
    • Black hair may have grown in it.
    • In that case the scaly eruption is healed.
    • The person is clean.
    • The priest is to declare him clean.
38. 13:38
    • A man or a woman may have bright spots on the skin of their body.
    • The bright spots may be white.
39. 13:39
    • The priest is to examine them.
    • The bright spots on the skin of their body may be dull white.
    • In that case it is a harmless rash that has broken out on the skin.
    • The person is clean.
40. 13:40
    • A man may lose the hair of his head.
    • Such a man is bald.
    • He is clean.
41. 13:41
    • A man may lose the hair of his head on the side toward his face.
    • Such a man is bald at the forehead.
    • He is clean.
42. 13:42
    • There may be a white and reddish mark on the bald head or the bald forehead.
    • In that case it is the diseased condition breaking out on his bald head or his bald forehead.
43. 13:43
    • The priest is to examine him.
    • The swelling of the mark may be white and reddish on his bald head or his bald forehead.
    • It may look like the diseased condition of the skin of the body.
44. 13:44
    • The man is a diseased man.
    • He is unclean.
    • The priest is to declare him thoroughly unclean.
    • His mark is on his head.
45. 13:45
    • The diseased person who has the mark shall have his clothes torn.
    • His head shall be left unbound.
    • He shall cover his upper lip.
    • He shall call out, 'Unclean, unclean.'
46. 13:46
    • All the days the mark is on him he shall be unclean.
    • He is unclean.
    • He shall dwell alone.
    • His dwelling shall be outside the camp.
47. 13:47
    • A garment may have on it a mark of the diseased condition.
    • The garment may be a wool garment or a linen garment.
48. 13:48
    • The mark may be in the warp or in the woof, of linen or of wool.
    • The mark may be in a skin or in anything made of skin.
49. 13:49
    • The mark may be greenish or reddish.
    • It may be in the garment, or in the skin, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin.
    • Such a mark is a mark of the diseased condition.
    • The affected thing is to be shown to the priest.
50. 13:50
    • The priest is to examine the mark.
    • The priest is to shut up the marked thing seven days.
51. 13:51
    • The priest is to examine the mark on the seventh day.
    • The mark may have spread in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in the skin, in whatever use the skin is made into.
    • In that case the mark is a malignant, eating disease.
    • The thing is unclean.
52. 13:52
    • He is to burn the garment, or the warp, or the woof, whether of wool or of linen, or any article of skin in which the mark is.
    • The reason is that it is a malignant, eating disease.
    • It shall be burned in fire.
53. 13:53
    • The priest may examine it and find that the mark has not spread in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin.
54. 13:54
    • The priest is to command that they wash the thing in which the mark is.
    • He is to shut it up seven days a second time.
55. 13:55
    • The priest is to examine the mark after it has been washed.
    • The mark may not have changed its appearance.
    • The mark may not have spread.
    • In that case the thing is unclean.
    • You shall burn it in fire.
    • It is an eaten-in corrosion, on the back of the thing or on the front of it.
56. 13:56
    • The priest may examine it and find that the mark has faded after it was washed.
    • In that case he is to tear the marked part out of the garment, or out of the skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof.
57. 13:57
    • The mark may appear again in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin.
    • In that case it is breaking out.
    • You shall burn with fire the thing in which the mark is.
58. 13:58
    • A garment, or warp, or woof, or any article of skin may be washed.
    • The mark may depart from them.
    • In that case it shall be washed a second time.
    • Then it shall be clean.
59. 13:59
    • This is the law of the mark of the diseased condition in a garment of wool or of linen, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin.
    • The purpose of the law is to declare it clean or to declare it unclean.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

"The LORD" in small capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four letters (YHWH) that readers traditionally did not pronounce aloud. Where the King James has "God" or "Lord" in ordinary type, a different Hebrew word lies behind it.

13:2

The King James word "leprosy" translates Hebrew *tsara'at*, a broad term covering a range of flaking, scaling, discolouring conditions of the skin, and, from verse 47 on, mold or rot in cloth and leather. It is almost certainly not the disease called leprosy today (Hansen's disease). "Plague" in the King James here means a mark or affliction on the body, not an epidemic. Aaron was Moses' brother and Israel's first priest, and his male descendants inherited the office; their role in this chapter is to inspect cases and rule on them, not to treat them. Nothing in the chapter prescribes any cure.

13:3

"Clean" and "unclean" are terms of ritual status, not of hygiene or of morality. To be unclean meant a person could not take part in worship at the sanctuary or mix normally with the community until the condition passed and the status was formally reversed. It is the priest's declaration, not the condition itself, that settles the matter.

13:4

"Shut up" in the King James means confined or kept apart. This is a period of observation to see whether the mark changes, not a punishment, and seven days is the standard waiting period used throughout the chapter.

13:5

"At a stay" is old English for standing still, that is, unchanged since the last inspection.

13:6

Washing one's clothes is a required step in the formal process of returning to clean status, not ordinary laundry.

13:7

"Seen of the priest" means examined by the priest. In older English "of" often marks the person doing the action, where we would now say "by".

13:10

"Quick" in the King James means alive or living, as in the phrase "the quick and the dead". "Quick raw flesh" is live, open flesh that has not scabbed or closed over.

13:11

"An old leprosy" means a long-established, chronic case. Because the diagnosis is already obvious, the priest skips the seven-day observation period entirely.

13:13

The priest's warning signs are raw flesh, spreading, and hair turned white. A body wholly turned white with none of these was judged an inactive condition, so it did not carry unclean status.

13:18

Healed boils and burns leave marks that can look like the condition described above, so the chapter handles them as separate cases with their own tests, in verses 18–23 and 24–28.

13:19

"Shewed" is simply the older spelling of "showed", and is pronounced the same way.

13:23

"A burning boil" is the King James rendering of what the Hebrew describes as the inflamed scar left behind where the boil was. It is old damage, not new disease.

13:24

"A hot burning" means a burn, an injury from fire or something scalding. "The quick flesh that burneth" is again living flesh, here the raw area inside the burn.

13:29

The head and the beard are treated separately because they are covered with hair. On hairy skin the priest cannot judge depth and color the same way, so the color and thickness of the hair growing in the patch becomes the test instead. The word rendered "beard" refers to the chin and jaw area.

13:30

"Scall" is an old English word, now out of use, for a scabby or scaly eruption of the scalp or chin. The Hebrew word behind it suggests something torn or scraped away.

13:33

Shaving the surrounding hair let the priest see whether the patch was spreading beyond its old edges; the patch itself was left unshaved so that edge stayed visible.

13:39

The Hebrew word here refers to a dull-white harmless blemish on the skin. The point of the verse is that not every white patch counted as the condition under examination.

13:40

A change in the hair is one of the priest's chief diagnostic signs, so ordinary hair loss is ruled out explicitly: baldness in itself carried no status at all.

13:44

"Utterly unclean" is emphatic rather than a stronger grade of uncleanness. It means the case is now settled, with no further waiting period and no re-examination.

13:45

Torn clothes, uncovered or loosened hair, and a covered upper lip were the recognized outward signs of mourning in Israel. The call of "Unclean, unclean" warned others away from contact, which would have passed the status on to them.

13:46

The camp is Israel's encampment in the wilderness, laid out around the sanctuary. Living outside it meant separation from the settled community and from worship at its center.

13:47

The Hebrew uses the same word here that it used for the skin condition. What is described (greenish or reddish patches that spread through the material, eat into it, and come back after washing) corresponds to mold, mildew or rot.

13:48

"Warp" and "woof" are weaving terms: the warp is the lengthwise threads held on the loom, the woof (or weft) the threads passed across them. The two Hebrew words are of uncertain meaning, and may instead distinguish two kinds or two stages of cloth, which is why modern translations render them differently.

13:49

Greenish and reddish are the colors mold leaves as it grows and spreads in fabric.

13:51

"Fretting" in the King James means eating away or corroding, the way rust or moths destroy material. It has nothing to do with worrying, which is the only sense the word still carries today.

13:52

Cloth was spun, woven and sewn by hand, so a garment took many days of work and cost real money. Burning one was a serious loss, not a small thing.

13:55

The Hebrew of the final clause is obscure. It has been understood as the worn or bald patch being on the back or the front of the material, and as the rot having eaten in on the inside or the outside; translations differ.

13:56

"Rend it out" means tear or cut the affected piece out of the cloth or leather, salvaging the rest of the item.

13:59

"This is the law of..." is a standard closing formula in Leviticus, marking the end of a block of instructions. The Hebrew word translated "law" means instruction or ruling rather than legislation in the modern sense.