Leviticus 14:2–3

Footnotes

1. 1 Heb “and.” Here , use a semicolon; begins a new sentence with “Now.”
2. 2 The alternative rendering, “when it is reported to the priest” may be better in light of the fact that the priest had to go outside the camp. Since he or she had been declared “unclean” by a priest (Lev 13:3) and was, therefore, required to remain outside the camp (13:46), the formerly diseased person could not reenter the camp until he or she had been declared “clean” by a priest (cf. Lev 13:6 for “declaring clean.”). See especially J. Milgrom, Leviticus (), 1:, who supports this rendering both here and in Lev 13:2 and 9. B. A. Levine, however, prefers the rendering in the text (Leviticus [], and ). It is the most natural meaning of the verb (i.e., “to be brought” from בּוֹא [bo’, “to come”] in the Hophal stem, which means “to be brought” in all other occurrences in Leviticus other than 13:2, 9, and 14:2; see only 6:30; 10:18; 11:32; and 16:27), it suits the context well in 13:2, and the rendering “to be brought” is supported by 13:7b, “he shall show himself to the priest a second time.” Although it is true that the priest needed to go outside the camp to examine such a person, the person still needed to “be brought” to the priest there. The translation of vv. 2–3 employed here suggests that v. 2 introduces the proceeding and then v. 3 goes on to describe the specific details of the examination and purification.
3. 3 Heb “and he shall be brought to the priest and the priest shall go out to from outside to the camp and the priest shall see [it].” The understood “it” refers to the skin infection itself (see the note on above). The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4. 4 Heb “And behold, the diseased infection has been healed from the diseased person.” The expression “diseased infection” has been translated as simply “infection” to avoid redundancy here in terms of English style.