The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Laws about Mildew
Leviticus 13:47–59 — Laws about Mildew. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
47If any fabric is contaminated with mildew—any wool or linen garment,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- wə·hab·be·ḡeḏ yih·yeh ḇōw ne·ḡa‘ ṣā·rā·‘aṯ ṣe·mer ’ōw bə·ḇe·ḡeḏ piš·tîm bə·ḇe·ḡeḏ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“When a garment has in it a mark of ṣāraʽat — in a garment of wool or in a garment of linen,”
Where the English smooths the original
The fact that the same phrase, “plague of leprosy,” is used both in the case of garments and of human beings, and that the symptoms and working of leprous garments and those of leprous men are identical, shows beyond doubt that the same distemper is meant.
The only wearing apparel mentioned in Leviticus 13:47 is either woollen or linen, as in Deuteronomy 22:11 ; Hosea 2:7 ; Proverbs 31:13 ; and among the ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks these were the materials usually worn.
The nature of these spots in clothing is not clear. It is generally supposed that they are caused by mildew or moth
the language of this passage clearly indicates a disease to which clothes themselves were subject, and which was followed by effects on them analogous to those which malignant leprosy produces on the human body—for similar regulations were made for the rigid inspection of suspected garments by a priest as for the examination of a leprous person.JFB presses the naturalist reading — the garment-affliction as a real, even quasi-contagious disease of the cloth itself, surfacing in stains "analogous" to bodily leprosy. It is the counter-pole to the moderns' bare "mildew," and the very view the sola-reading weighs and sets aside.
if Moses had been a deceiver, as some have impudently affirmed, a man of his wisdom would not have exposed himself to the disbelief and contempt of his people by giving laws about that which their experience showed to be but a fiction.Poole answers the skeptic not by botany but by apologetic: an invented law about an invented disease would have shamed its lawgiver before a people able to check it against daily experience.
48any weave or knit of linen or wool, or any article of leather—
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ōw ḇiš·ṯî ’ōw ḇə·‘ê·reḇ lap·piš·tîm wə·laṣ·ṣā·mer ’ōw ḇə·‘ō·wr ’ōw bə·ḵāl mə·le·ḵeṯ ‘ō·wr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“or in warp or in woof, of the linen or of the wool, or in a skin, or in anything worked of skin;”
Where the English smooths the original
"the flax and the wool," i.e., for linen and woollen fabrics, are distinguished from clothes of wool or flax. The rendering given to these words by the early translators is στήμων and κρόκη, stamen et subtegmen (lxx, Vulg.), i.e., warp and weft.
or in yarn for warp or in yarn for woof, either for linen clothing or for woolen clothing; or in a skin of leather or in any article made of leather.
it is quite possible that a heap of yarn, used either for the warp or for the woof, might have been injuriously affected before it was woven, and then the fault would naturally make its appearance where the mischief had been originally done.
The LXX. and other versions translate thus; another suggestion is that different ways of working up the material are meant
In the warp, or woof; a learned man renders it, in the outside, or in the inside of it .Poole records the live minority alternative to the warp/woof reading: not loom-threads at all but the face and back of the cloth — the same outside/inside contrast that will resurface at v. 55 in the "forehead" and "hinder part" of the fabric.
49and if the mark in the fabric, leather, weave, knit, or leather article is green or red, then it is contaminated with mildew and must be shown to the priest.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
han·ne·ḡa‘ bab·be·ḡeḏ ’ōw ḇā·‘ō·wr ’ōw- ḇaš·šə·ṯî ’ōw- ḇā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw ḇə·ḵāl- ‘ō·wr kə·lî- wə·hā·yāh yə·raq·raq ’ōw ’ă·ḏam·dām hū ne·ḡa‘ ṣā·ra·‘aṯ wə·hā·rə·’āh ’eṯ- hak·kō·hên
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and the mark is greenish or reddish, in the garment, or in the skin, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin — it is a mark of ṣāraʽat, and it shall be shown to the priest.”
Where the English smooths the original
The Jewish canons define the colour of the green symptom to be like that of herbs, and that of the red to be like fair crimson.
the radicals of both these words being doubled, according to some, and particularly Aben Ezra, lessen the sense of them; and so our translators understand it; but, according to Ben Gersom, the signification is increased thereby, and the meaning is, if it be exceeding green or exceeding red
The priest is to deal with the texture as nearly as may be in the same way that lie dealt with the human subject, in order to discriminate between a tempo-rare discoloration and a real leprosy.
Whether it be garment, vessel, or instrument.
50And the priest is to examine the mildew and isolate the contaminated fabric for seven days.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên ’eṯ- wə·rā·’āh han·nā·ḡa‘ wə·his·gîr ’eṯ- han·ne·ḡa‘ šiḇ·‘aṯ yā·mîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And the priest shall see the mark, and he shall shut up the mark seven days.”
Where the English smooths the original
he must put it in quarantine for a week, as in the case of a human being.
and shut up it that hath the plague seven days; the woollen or linen garment, the warp or the woof, or skins, and those things that were made of them.
The garment suspected to be tainted with leprosy was not to be burned immediately.
51On the seventh day the priest shall reexamine it, and if the mildew has spread in the fabric, weave, knit, or leather, then regardless of how it is used, it is a harmful mildew; the article is unclean.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haš·šə·ḇî·‘î bay·yō·wm wə·rā·’āh ’eṯ- kî- han·ne·ḡa‘ han·ne·ḡa‘ p̄ā·śāh bab·be·ḡeḏ ḇaš·šə·ṯî ’ōw- ḇā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw ’ōw- ḇā·‘ō·wr lə·ḵōl ’ă·šer- hā·‘ō·wr yê·‘ā·śeh lim·lā·ḵāh han·ne·ḡa‘ mam·’e·reṯ ṣā·ra·‘aṯ hū ṭā·mê
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And he shall see the mark on the seventh day: if the mark has spread in the garment… in whatever use the skin is made for, the mark is a fretting ṣāraʽat — it is unclean.”
Where the English smooths the original
A fretting leprosy - i. e. a malignant or corroding leprosy. What was the nature of the leprosy in clothing, which produced greenish or reddish spots, cannot be precisely determined. It was most likely destructive mildew, perhaps of more than one kind.
the plague is a fretting leprosy; according to Jarchi, a sharp and pricking one, like a thorn; which signification the word has in Ezekiel 28:24 .
The leprous garment, like a human leper, makes everything and everybody unclean by contact with it, or by coming into the house where it remains.
a fretting leprosy ] i.e. malignant.
52He is to burn the fabric, weave, or knit, whether the contaminated item is wool or linen or leather. Since the mildew is harmful, the article must be burned up.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·śā·rap̄ ’eṯ- hab·be·ḡeḏ haš·šə·ṯî ’eṯ- ’ōw ’eṯ- hā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw ’ă·šer- yih·yeh ḇōw han·nā·ḡa‘ baṣ·ṣe·mer ḇap·piš·tîm ’ōw ’eṯ- ’ōw kāl- hā·‘ō·wr kə·lî kî- ṣā·ra·‘aṯ mam·’e·reṯ hî bā·’êš tiś·śā·rêp̄
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And he shall burn the garment… wherein is the mark, for it is a fretting ṣāraʽat; in the fire it shall be burned.”
Where the English smooths the original
As this distemper could never be eradicated from stuffs, the garments which have once become possessed of leprosy had to be burnt.
it shall be burnt in the fire; which may teach both to hate the garment spotted with the flesh, and to put no trust in and have no dependence on a man's own righteousness, which is as filthy rags, and both are such as shall be burnt, and the loss of them suffered, even when a man himself is saved, yet so as by fire, 1 Corinthians 3:15 .
If, upon search, it was found that there was a leprous spot, it must be burned, or at least that part of it.
53But when the priest reexamines it, if the mildew has not spread in the fabric, weave, knit, or leather article,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im hak·kō·hên yir·’eh wə·hin·nêh han·ne·ḡa‘ lō- p̄ā·śāh bab·be·ḡeḏ ḇaš·šə·ṯî ’ōw ḇā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw ’ōw bə·ḵāl ‘ō·wr kə·lî-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“But if the priest sees, and behold, the mark has not spread in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin,”
Where the English smooths the original
If, however, after a week’s quarantine, the priest on examination finds that the disease has not spread, he must order the affected garments to be washed, and shut them up for another week
so when men do not proceed to more ungodliness, as wicked men commonly do, but there is a stop put to their vicious life and conversation, it is an hopeful sign of future good.
But abide still in one place
54the priest is to order the contaminated article to be washed and isolated for another seven days.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên wə·ṣiw·wāh ’ă·šer- bōw han·nā·ḡa‘ wə·ḵib·bə·sū ’êṯ wə·his·gî·rōw šê·nîṯ šiḇ·‘aṯ- yā·mîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“then the priest shall command, and they shall wash that wherein the mark is, and he shall shut it up seven days a second time.”
Where the English smooths the original
The priest did not wash it himself, but ordered others to do it
If it proved to be free, it must be washed, and then might be used.
If the mole had not spread during the seven days, the priest was to cause the fabric in which the mole appeared to be washed, and then shut it up for seven days more.
55After it has been washed, the priest is to reexamine it, and if the mildewed article has not changed in appearance, it is unclean. Even though the mildew has not spread, you must burn it, whether the rot is on the front or back.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’a·ḥă·rê huk·kab·bês ’eṯ- hak·kō·hên wə·rā·’āh wə·hin·nêh han·ne·ḡa‘ han·ne·ḡa‘ ’eṯ- lō- hā·p̄aḵ ‘ê·nōw hū ṭā·mê wə·han·ne·ḡa‘ lō- p̄ā·śāh tiś·rə·p̄en·nū bā·’êš hî pə·ḥe·ṯeṯ ḇə·ḡab·baḥ·tōw ’ōw bə·qā·raḥ·tōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And the priest shall see, after the mark has been washed, and behold, the mark has not changed its eye [appearance], and the mark has not spread — it is unclean; in the fire you shall burn it; it is a fret, in its back-bald or its front-bald place.”
Where the English smooths the original
The Heb. word for ‘fret’ occurs only here, and probably means a depression in the surface caused by the material being eaten away. The Heb. words which follow are those used for baldness in the back or front of the head in Leviticus 13:40-41 .
though it has not spread in breadth, the distemper has eaten into the fabric, either on the upper side, which is compared to the forehead, or into the under side, which is compared to the hinder part of the head in human head-leprosy.
If washing doth not take away that vicious colour, and restore it to its own native colour.
a bald place in the front or right side, גּבּחת a bald place in the back or left side of the fabric or leather.
56If the priest examines it and the mildew has faded after it has been washed, he must cut the contaminated section out of the fabric, leather, weave, or knit.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im hak·kō·hên wə·hin·nêh rā·’āh han·ne·ḡa‘ kê·hāh ’a·ḥă·rê huk·kab·bês ’ō·ṯōw wə·qā·ra‘ ’ō·ṯōw min- hab·be·ḡeḏ hā·‘ō·wr ’ōw min- haš·šə·ṯî ’ōw min- ’ōw min- hā·‘ê·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“But if the priest sees, and behold, the mark is dim/faint after it has been washed, then he shall tear it out of the garment, or of the skin, or of the warp, or of the woof.”
Where the English smooths the original
Somewhat dark - Rather, somewhat faint. Compare Leviticus 13:6 .
But if after the washing the priest finds that the suspicious colour has changed from green or red into a darkish colour, and the spot has contracted, he is to cut out the affected spot and burn it, and declare the garment itself clean.
The manner of expression confirms what I have observed on Leviticus 13:48 ; that the warp and woof are considered as separate things, and as before they are wove together, or wrought into one garment.
If after washing, the colour is dim, the affected part is to be torn out, and if any further sign of infection is found, the garment must be burnt.
57But if it reappears in the fabric, weave, or knit, or on any leather article, it is spreading. You must burn the contaminated article.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im- tê·rā·’eh ‘ō·wḏ bab·be·ḡeḏ ḇaš·šə·ṯî ’ōw- ḇā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw ’ōw- ḇə·ḵāl- ‘ō·wr kə·lî- hî pō·ra·ḥaṯ tiś·rə·p̄en·nū bā·’êš ’êṯ bōw han·nā·ḡa‘ ’ă·šer-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And if it appears again in the garment, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin, it is breaking out; in the fire you shall burn that wherein the mark is.”
Where the English smooths the original
it indicates beyond doubt that it is spreading leprosy; the garment must therefore be entirely destroyed, as in stuffs this disorder is incurable.
if it appeared again after this, it was a leprosy bursting forth afresh, and the thing affected with it was to be burned.
It should be noticed that no religious or symbolic rite is prescribed for leprosy in clothing. The priest had only to decide whether the process of decay was at work in the article presented to him and to pronounce accordingly.
it is a spreading plague; or leprosy; a flourishing one, as the word signifies, a growing and increasing one
58If the mildew disappears from the fabric, weave, or knit, or any leather article after washing, then it is to be washed again, and it will be clean.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
han·nā·ḡa‘ wə·sār mê·hem wə·hab·be·ḡeḏ haš·šə·ṯî ’ōw- hā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw- ’ōw- ḵāl hā·‘ō·wr kə·lî ’ă·šer tə·ḵab·bês wə·ḵub·bas šê·nîṯ wə·ṭā·hêr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“But the garment, or the warp, or the woof, or any article of skin, which you wash and the mark departs from them — then it shall be washed a second time, and it shall be clean.”
Where the English smooths the original
But though non-leprous, the garments had to be washed a second time before they could be pronounced fit for use.
this washing was by dipping; and so the Targum renders it; and Jarchi observes, that all washings of garments, which are for dipping, they interpret by the same word.
The garment which after washing ( Leviticus 13:54 ) shews no further sign of the plague, is to be washed again, and then declared clean.
59This is the law concerning a mildew contamination in wool or linen fabric, weave, or knit, or any leather article, for pronouncing it clean or unclean.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
zōṯ tō·w·raṯ ṣā·ra·‘aṯ ne·ḡa‘- haṣ·ṣe·mer ’ōw hap·piš·tîm be·ḡeḏ ’ōw haš·šə·ṯî ’ōw hā·‘ê·reḇ ’ōw kāl- ‘ō·wr kə·lî- lə·ṭa·hă·rōw ’ōw lə·ṭam·mə·’ōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“This is the law of the mark of ṣāraʽat in a garment of wool or linen, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any article of skin — to pronounce it clean or to pronounce it unclean.”
Where the English smooths the original
the above-mentioned regulations are to guide the priests in their decisions whether a garment or leathern utensil is leprous or not, and in their declaration of its being clean or defiling.
The learned confess that this leprosy in a garment was a sign and a miracle in Israel; an extraordinary punishment inflicted by the divine power, as a token of great displeasure against a person or family.
to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean; either to declare it free from the plague of the leprosy, or as infected with it, and so accordingly dispose of it.
But the robes of righteousness never fret, nor are moth-eaten.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens by carrying a single Hebrew word across a startling boundary. The mark on the garment is named נֶגַע צָרָעַת (negaʽ ṣāraʽat) — the very phrase used through this whole chapter for the disease on human skin. Ellicott presses the point: the same phrase, “plague of leprosy,” is used both in the case of garments and of human beings, and the identity of symptoms “shows beyond doubt that the same distemper is meant.” The materials are the era’s only two cloths — wool and linen — which Keil & Delitzsch note were, “among the ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks,” the “materials usually worn.” Yet the physical reality is openly disputed in the sources: Cambridge admits “The nature of these spots in clothing is not clear,” supposing “mildew or moth,” and the moderns (K&D, Barnes) settle on a corrupting fungus. So the unit holds a tension the English translations paper over: the name is identical to human leprosy, while the thing is, by best judgment, mildew. The text records the name; the identification is inference.
Garment-leprosy is not handed to a physician but to הַכֹּהֵן (hakkōhēn), the priest, and the procedure mirrors the human rite stroke for stroke. Ellicott: he “must put it in quarantine for a week, as in the case of a human being.” The verbs that structure the unit are diagnostic, not curative — the priest sees (rāʾāh, vv. 50–51, 55–56), shuts up (hisgîr, the same quarantine-verb as 13:4), and waits the sacred seven days, twice over (vv. 50, 54). The single decisive sign is פָשָׂה (pāśāh), “spreading”: as on the body (13:7), it is not the color but the advance of the mark that condemns. The Pulpit Commentary sees the deliberate parallel — “the priest is to deal with the texture as nearly as may be in the same way that lie dealt with the human subject.”
When the mark spreads, it is a צָרַעַת מַמְאֶרֶת (ṣāraʽat mamʾeret) — a “fretting” leprosy. The participle mamʾeret is so rare (four verses in all Scripture) and so contested that the sources reach for Latin: Barnes calls it “a malignant or corroding leprosy”; Gill relays Jarchi’s “sharp and pricking… like a thorn” and Bochart’s lepra exasperata. The verdict is fire — בָּאֵשׁ תִּשָּׂרֵף, “in the fire it shall be burned” (v. 52), the verb bracketing the verse active and passive. And in v. 55 the text reaches its strangest image: the corroded garment is described with the words for a bald man’s head, גַּבַּחַת and קָרַחַת (forehead-baldness and back-baldness), the identical nouns from 13:42–43. Cambridge flags the hapax: the word for ‘fret’ here “occurs only here,” and the words that follow “are those used for baldness in the back or front of the head.” The cloth is diagnosed as if it were a body.
The unit is not only severity. Where the mark does not spread (v. 53), the garment is washed and given a second week; where it merely fades (kēhāh, v. 56), the diseased patch is torn out (qāraʽ) and the rest spared; where the mark departs (sār, v. 58), the cloth is washed “a second time, and it shall be clean.” Matthew Henry draws the governing note for the whole passage: the suspect garment “was not to be burned immediately… If it proved to be free, it must be washed, and then might be used.” The closing colophon (v. 59), זֹאת תּוֹרַת, “this is the tôrâh of,” seals the unit with its sole purpose: the twin declarative verdicts לְטַהֲרוֹ … לְטַמְּאוֹ, “to pronounce it clean… or unclean.” Barnes marks what is absent: “no religious or symbolic rite is prescribed for leprosy in clothing. The priest had only to decide whether the process of decay was at work… and to pronounce accordingly.”
Set against the rule that Scripture alone is the final authority, three things stand out in this small unit — offered as a reading to be tested, not a verdict to be trusted.
The defilement is corruption, not contagion. The older instinct (argued at length by JFB, who saw a real disease “to which clothes themselves were subject,” bred by “infectious vermin”) was to read a contagious infection; but Ellicott marshals the evidence that the administrators “did not regard leprosy as contagious,” and the text itself never speaks of catching the disease — only of its spreading within the object. What the law tracks is decay at work (Barnes), an inner rot that surfaces as a stain and eats the fabric from inside. The category is moral-symbolic before it is medical: a thing whose corruption proves it is not merely dirty but unclean.
The priest declares; he does not cure. The unit’s whole machinery — seeing, shutting up, washing, the final pair of infinitives “to pronounce clean / unclean” — issues in a verdict, never a remedy. No sacrifice, no rite, no medicine attends garment-leprosy. This is a law about discernment and honest judgment under inspection, not about healing.
Even the doom is patient. Nothing is burned on suspicion. Two seven-day quarantines, two washings, the option to tear out one patch and save the whole — the law leans hard toward sparing what can be spared, and condemns only what proves incurable by its own spreading. The severity is real; so is the restraint.
These are this tool’s readings, not the verses themselves. Weigh them against the text; keep what the Word supports.
The God who marks the rot in a man’s coat with the same word He marks the rot in a man’s skin is teaching His people to read corruption wherever it spreads — and to wait, and to test, before they call a thing unclean.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The garment law is not a separate ordinance but the deliberate extension of the human-leprosy diagnosis that fills the first half of Leviticus 13. The Verifier ties this unit back to the body-leprosy verses by the shared keyword chain ṣāraʽat (“leprosy,” H6883) and negaʽ (“stroke/mark,” H5061), and the same governing verb pāśāh (“spread,” H6581) is the single diagnostic test in both domains (13:7–8 on skin; 13:51, 53 on cloth). The procedure — the priest’s seeing and seven-day shutting up — is identical. The Pulpit Commentary states the parallel outright: the priest deals with the cloth “as nearly as may be in the same way that lie dealt with the human subject.” Structural, not a quotation: the link is shared legal pattern and shared moderate-frequency vocabulary, not a rare lexeme.
Leviticus 13:47 · Leviticus 13:51 · Leviticus 13:42-43 · Leviticus 13:5-8
basis: Verifier (Lev 13:47↔13:43): shared lexemes H6883 tsâraʻat (33 vv), H5061 negaʻ (62 vv), H176 ʼôw (218 vv); shared diagnostic verb H6581 pâsâh — a shared legal pattern and moderate-frequency vocabulary, not a rare quotation-marker, so tiered structural.
The rare participle מַמְאֶרֶת (mamʾeret, H3992, “fretting/malignant”) binds this unit to the law of leprosy in houses in the next chapter. The Verifier confirms a genuine verbal link between Leviticus 13:51 and 14:44 on the strength of mamʾeret — a word occurring in only four verses of the entire Hebrew Bible — alongside pāśāh, ṣāraʽat, and negaʽ. Keil & Delitzsch follow Bochart in reading the participle as lepra exasperata, “making the mole bad or angry”; tellingly, their own argument turns on the house-law: they reject Gesenius’s alternative derivation precisely because it “would not apply to leprosy in fabrics and houses ( Leviticus 14:44 ).” Their philology assumes what the lexeme proves — that one word spans garment and house. Garment, body, and house form one triad of corruption diagnosed by one priestly procedure.
Leviticus 13:51 · Leviticus 13:52 · Leviticus 14:44
basis: Verifier (Lev 13:51↔14:44): shared rare lexeme H3992 mâʼar/mamʾeret (only 4 vv) plus H6581 pâsâh (18 vv), H6883 tsâraʻat (33 vv), H5061 negaʻ (62 vv). The very low frequency of mamʾeret makes the co-occurrence a true verbal chain, not common vocabulary.
The unit’s materials, צֶמֶר (ṣemer, “wool,” H6785) and פִּשְׁתִּים (pishtîm, “linen,” H6593), are a recurring word-pair across Scripture, and both words are rare — wool in 16 verses, linen in 15. The Verifier confirms a verbal link to Hosea 2 (vv. 5, 9), where the LORD reclaims the adulterous wife’s “wool and flax,” and to Ezekiel 44:17, where the ministering priests are forbidden wool and clothed in linen. Keil & Delitzsch name the same cluster — “Deuteronomy 22:11; Hosea 2:7; Proverbs 31:13” — as the standard biblical attire. The thread is lexical co-occurrence of a rare cloth-pair, not a narrative borrowing; the senses differ (here a diagnostic law; in Hosea, covenant judgment; in Ezekiel, priestly vesture).
Leviticus 13:47 · Leviticus 13:59 · Hosea 2:5 · Hosea 2:9 · Ezekiel 44:17 · Deuteronomy 22:11
basis: Verifier (Lev 13:47↔Hosea 2:9 and ↔Ezekiel 44:17): shared rare lexemes H6593 pishteh (15 vv) and H6785 tsemer (16 vv), plus H899 beged. Both cloth-words are low-frequency, so their co-occurrence is a genuine verbal pair — though the passages’ senses differ, so no quotation is claimed.
In v. 55 the corroded fabric is described with גַּבַּחַת (gabbaḥat, H1372) and קָרַחַת (qāraḥat, H7146) — “forehead-baldness” and “back-baldness” — the identical nouns used of a balding man only thirteen verses earlier (13:42–43). The Verifier confirms a verbal link on the strength of these two words, each occurring in only three verses of the whole Bible. Cambridge documents the cross-reference precisely: the words “are those used for baldness in the back or front of the head in Leviticus 13:40–41,” here transferred to “the back or front of the garment.” The metaphor is deliberate: the law sees the garment’s decay as the body’s decay, named in the same flesh-and-scalp words.
Leviticus 13:55 · Leviticus 13:42-43
basis: Verifier (Lev 13:55↔13:42): shared rare lexemes H1372 gabbachath (only 3 vv) and H7146 qârachath (only 3 vv), plus H5061 negaʻ. The extreme rarity of both baldness-words makes their reuse on the garment a deliberate verbal echo of the human diagnosis.
The Verifier surfaces several links resting on עֵרֶב (ʽēreb, H6154) — to Exodus 12:38, Nehemiah 13:3, Jeremiah 25:20, 24; 50:37, and Ezekiel 30:5. Held honestly: these are almost certainly a homonym trap. In this unit ʽēreb means the woof / weft of cloth (the cross-threads of a weave); in Exodus 12:38 (ʽēreb rab, “a mixed multitude”) and Nehemiah 13:3 the same consonants and the same Strong’s number carry a wholly different sense — a mingled crowd of people. Strong’s numbering does not distinguish the two, so a purely lexical matcher will wrongly bind a weaving-term to a sociological one. The connection is therefore flagged, not asserted: the shared “lexeme” is a spelling coincidence between distinct words, and any real link would have to be argued on other grounds.
Leviticus 13:48 · Exodus 12:38 · Nehemiah 13:3
basis: Verifier reports shared H6154 ʻêreb (15 vv) with Exodus 12:38 / Nehemiah 13:3, but H6154 is a homonym: ‘woof of cloth’ here vs. ‘mixed multitude’ there. Same Strong’s number, different word — the link is a lexical false-friend and must not be asserted as verbal.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The voices of the unit themselves turn the law toward the gospel. Matthew Henry, on the whole passage, reads the corrupting garment as a figure of sin that “not only defiles the sinner’s conscience, but… brings a stain upon all he has,” and ends on the contrast: “the robes of righteousness never fret, nor are moth-eaten.” Joseph Benson takes the same turn at v. 59. This is the New Testament’s own movement: the believer is to hate “even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 23), having put off the old self and put on the imperishable robe of Christ’s righteousness (Isaiah 61:10; Revelation 7:14). Cross-Testament and figural, so it is offered as a long-held devotional reading, not a lexical identity — Jude and Revelation are Greek and can share no Strong’s number with the Hebrew of Leviticus.
Leviticus 13:47 · Leviticus 13:52 · Leviticus 13:59 · Jude 1:23 · Revelation 7:14
John Gill, commenting on the burning of the leprous garment in v. 52, draws the line to Paul himself: the destroyed cloth “may teach… to put no trust in… a man’s own righteousness, which is as filthy rags, and both are such as shall be burnt, and the loss of them suffered, even when a man himself is saved, yet so as by fire, 1 Corinthians 3:15.” The corrupt covering is consumed; the man is spared. It is a figure of judgment that purges what cannot be cleansed while rescuing the person — the same economy as the fire that tests every work in 1 Corinthians 3. The reading is typological and cross-Testament (Hebrew Leviticus to Greek Paul), so it rests on argued correspondence and Gill’s own exposition, never on shared vocabulary.
Leviticus 13:52 · 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 · Isaiah 64:6
The unit’s hopeful verb is כָבַס (kāḇas, to wash by treading), and its hopeful verdict is טָהֵר (ṭāhēr, “it shall be clean,” v. 58). Gill hears the gospel in it twice over: the washing of the cloth pictures “the washing of the garments of men in the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin (Revelation 7:14),” and “this washing was by dipping.” Yet the law could only pronounce clean or unclean (v. 59); it could not make the corrupt thing pure. What the priestly verdict could only declare, Christ accomplishes — the robes “made white in the blood of the Lamb,” the believer washed and justified (1 Corinthians 6:11). Figural and cross-Testament, offered as a reading the Church has long drawn from the cleansing rites.
Leviticus 13:58 · Leviticus 13:59 · Revelation 7:14 · 1 Corinthians 6:11
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
The base text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). The named voices (✦) are quoted verbatim from public-domain commentaries on BibleHub — Ellicott, Benson, Henry, Barnes, Jamieson–Fausset–Brown, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, the Pulpit Commentary, and Keil & Delitzsch — each attributed in place. Every excerpt is a contiguous substring of its source, trimmed only at the ends. Several voices carry Hebrew, Greek, and Latin from the originals (e.g. K&D’s στήμων / κρόκη and lepra exasperata); these are reproduced exactly as transcribed, including their Unicode normalization.
The literal renderings, the transliterations, the “where the English smooths the Hebrew” notes, the parses-as-read, and all synthesis (⚙) are this tool’s own fallible work; check them against a lexicon (BDB, HALOT) and a standard grammar. Three points are held with extra honesty. (1) One Hebrew word, two English words. Throughout this unit BSB renders ṣāraʽat on skin as “leprosy” but on cloth as “mildew”; the original uses the same word, and whether the garment-affliction is literally human leprosy or (the modern judgment) a corrupting mildew is an inference the sources openly dispute — Ellicott for identity, K&D/Cambridge/Barnes for mildew. (2) The ʽēreb homonym. The cross-reference to Exodus 12:38 / Nehemiah 13:3 is left flagged because the shared Strong’s number H6154 covers two distinct words — “woof of cloth” here, “mixed multitude” there — so a lexical match is a false friend, not a real verbal link. (3) The Christ-readings are cross-Testament. Because the New Testament is Greek and Leviticus Hebrew, no shared Strong’s number can carry them; they are tiered on argued correspondence and the testimony of the named voices (Henry, Gill, Benson), never on lexical identity — and Gill’s 1 Corinthians 3:15 reading is marked novel as his own homiletical extension. This unit contains no Joshua 1:5, so the Joshua→Hebrews 13:5 flag rule does not apply here. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)