The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Signs of Home Contamination
Leviticus 14:33–47 — Signs of Home Contamination. 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.
33Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
Yah·weh way·ḏab·bêr ’el- mō·šeh wə·’el- ’a·hă·rōn lê·mōr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-spoke YHWH to Moses and-to Aaron, saying —”
Where the English smooths the original
the regulations about leprous houses, like those with regard to leprous garments and persons, are for the same reason delivered to Moses and Aaron conjointly.
the affair of the leprosy of houses being what belonged to the priest to examine into and cleanse from
now sin, where that reigns in a house, is a plague there, as it is in a heart. Masters of families should be aware, and afraid of the first appearance of sin in their families, and put it away, whatever it is.Henry's note runs across the whole pericope (14:33–53).
34“When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a contamination of mildew into a house in that land,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî ṯā·ḇō·’ū ’el- ’e·reṣ kə·na·‘an ’ă·šer ’ă·nî nō·ṯên lā·ḵem la·’ă·ḥuz·zāh wə·nā·ṯat·tî ne·ḡa‘ ṣā·ra·‘aṯ bə·ḇêṯ ’e·reṣ ’ă·ḥuz·zaṯ·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“When you-enter into the-land of-Canaan, which I am-giving to-you for-a-possession, and-I-put a-stroke-of mildew in-a-house of-the-land of-your-possession,”
Where the English smooths the original
putting the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of their possession" is also ascribed to Him ( Leviticus 14:34 ), inasmuch as He held it over them, to remind the inhabitants of the house that they owed not only their bodies but also their dwelling-places to the Lord, and that they were to sanctify these to Him.
This expression has led to the idea that the leprosy of houses was a special infliction at God's hand in a manner different flora other inflictions or diseases; but the words do not mean that. All that is done is in a sense done by God, inasmuch as his providence rules over allThe bracketed “flora” is an OCR artifact for “from” in the public-domain source; left verbatim.
it being common in Scripture to represent God as doing that which He only permits in His providence to be doneJFB's note runs on the whole pericope (vv. 34–48); this is the clause weighing the “I put” idiom against the providence reading.
I put the plague - Yahweh here speaks as the Lord of all created things, determining their decay and destruction as well as their production. Compare Isaiah 45:6-7
This declares that no plague nor punishment comes to man without God's providence and his sending.
Now they were in the wilderness, dwelt in tents, and had no houses; and therefore this law is made only as an appendix to the former laws concerning the leprosy, because it related not to their present state, but to their future settlement in Canaan.
35the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, ‘Something like mildew has appeared in my house.’
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ă·šer- lōw hab·ba·yiṯ ū·ḇā wə·hig·gîḏ lak·kō·hên lê·mōr kə·ne·ḡa‘ nir·’āh lî bab·bā·yiṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-he-shall-come [the-one] to-whom the-house [belongs] and-tell the-priest, saying, like-a-stroke has-appeared to-me in-the-house.”
Where the English smooths the original
he is not to say positively to the priest, “The plague has appeared in my house,” but “It seemeth to me . . . as it were,” &c, because it was the office of the priest to pronounce a positive sentence on the subject.
though he is a wise man, and knows that there is a plague certainly, he may not determine, and say, there appears to me a plague in the house, but there appears to me as it were a plague in the house; it looks like one, there is some reason to suspect it.
First, the house is to be emptied of its furniture, lest the latter should contract a ceremonial uncleanness in case the house were found to be leprous, but not, it will be noted, lest it should convey contagion or infection.
36The priest must order that the house be cleared before he enters it to examine the mildew, so that nothing in the house will become unclean. After this, the priest shall go in to inspect the house.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên wə·ṣiw·wāh hab·ba·yiṯ ū·p̄in·nū ’eṯ- bə·ṭe·rem hak·kō·hên yā·ḇō lir·’ō·wṯ ’eṯ- han·ne·ḡa‘ wə·lō kāl- ’ă·šer bab·bā·yiṯ yiṭ·mā wə·’a·ḥar kên hak·kō·hên yā·ḇō lir·’ō·wṯ ’eṯ- hab·bā·yiṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-shall-command the-priest, and-they-shall-clear-out the-house, before the-priest comes-in to-examine the-stroke, so-that not all that-[is] in-the-house become-unclean; and-after that the-priest shall-come-in to-examine the-house.”
Where the English smooths the original
Hence the benign law that everything should be removed previous to the priest’s inspection, to save the household stuff. This assuredly shows that the law did not regard leprosy as infectious.
neither the people nor the household stuff were polluted till the leprosy was discovered and declared by the priest, to show what great difference God makes between sins of ignorance, and sins against knowledge and conscience.
as what was in the house became unclean only when the priest had declared the house affected with leprosy, the reason for the defilement is not to be sought for in physical infection, but must have been of an ideal or symbolical kind.
this was a kindness to the owner of the house, that his loss might not be so great as it otherwise would be, if he did not take care to get his goods out previous to the inspection of the priest
It is evident that the latter was the true state of the case, from the furniture being removed out of it on the first suspicion of disease on the walls.JFB argues from this very emptying that the leprosy lay in the house itself, not in contagion carried by its occupants — confirming Keil's “ideal or symbolical” reading from the opposite direction.
37He is to examine the house, and if the mildew on the walls consists of green or red depressions that appear to be beneath the surface of the wall,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·rā·’āh ’eṯ- han·ne·ḡa‘ wə·hin·nêh han·ne·ḡa‘ bə·qî·rōṯ hab·ba·yiṯ yə·raq·raq·qōṯ ’ōw ’ă·ḏam·dam·mōṯ šə·qa·‘ă·rū·rōṯ ū·mar·’ê·hen šā·p̄āl min- haq·qîr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-he-shall-examine the-stroke, and-behold, the-stroke [is] in-the-walls-of the-house, greenish or reddish depressions, and-their-appearance [is] lower than the-wall —”
Where the English smooths the original
the priest on inspecting it will find in the walls the same three symptoms which are visible in the skin of leprous human beings: (1) hollow strakes, or, rather, deep cavities or depressions
Rather, depressed spots of dark green or dark red, appearing beneath (the surface of) the wall.
as a document of the mischievous nature of sin, typified by leprosy, which did not only destroy persons, but their habitations also
If the leprous spot appeared in "greenish or reddish depressions, which looked deeper than the wall," the priest was to shut up the house for seven days.
38the priest shall go outside the doorway of the house and close it up for seven days.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên min- wə·yā·ṣā hab·ba·yiṯ ’el- pe·ṯaḥ hab·bā·yiṯ wə·his·gîr ’eṯ- hab·ba·yiṯ šiḇ·‘aṯ yā·mîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-the-priest shall-go-out from the-house to the-doorway-of the-house, and-shall-shut-up the-house seven days.”
Where the English smooths the original
the priest is to put the house in quarantine for seven days, in order to see what alteration will take place during this interval, adopting the same treatment as in the case of leprous garments.
Thereby signifying that it was not fit to be inhabited, and there standing to see it shut up
If the leprous spot appeared in "greenish or reddish depressions, which looked deeper than the wall," the priest was to shut up the house for seven days.
39On the seventh day the priest is to return and inspect the house. If the mildew has spread on the walls,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haš·šə·ḇî·‘î bay·yō·wm hak·kō·hên wə·šāḇ wə·rā·’āh wə·hin·nêh han·ne·ḡa‘ pā·śāh bə·qî·rōṯ hab·bā·yiṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-the-priest shall-return on-the-day the-seventh, and-shall-examine, and-behold, the-stroke has-spread in-the-walls-of the-house —”
Where the English smooths the original
If on inspecting it again at the end of the first week’s quarantine, the priest finds that the depression or discolouring has spread in the walls, thus indicating the progress of the disease
spreading was always a sign of leprosy, both in the bodies of men, and in garments.
If after that time he found that the mole had spread on the walls, he was to break out the stones upon which it appeared, and remove them to an unclean place outside the town
40he must order that the contaminated stones be pulled out and thrown into an unclean place outside the city.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên wə·ṣiw·wāh ’ă·šer bā·hên han·nā·ḡa‘ hā·’ă·ḇā·nîm wə·ḥil·lə·ṣū ’eṯ- wə·hiš·lî·ḵū ’eṯ·hen ’el- ṭā·mê mā·qō·wm mi·ḥūṣ lā·‘îr ’el-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“then-shall-command the-priest, and-they-shall-pull-out the-stones in-which [is] the-stroke, and-they-shall-cast them to outside the-city, to a-place unclean.”
Where the English smooths the original
these stones were to be drawn or pulled out, as the word signifies, in such manner as not to endanger the fall of the house, and two stones at least were to be taken out
Some have thought the leprosy in the house was typical of the idolatry which did strangely cleave to the Jewish Church, and though some of the reforming kings took away the infected stones, yet still it broke out again
Where they used to cast dirt and filthy things.Poole's whole note on the verse — glossing the “unclean place.”
41And he shall have the inside of the house scraped completely and the plaster that is scraped off dumped into an unclean place outside the city.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’eṯ- hab·ba·yiṯ mib·ba·yiṯ yaq·ṣi·a‘ sā·ḇîḇ he·‘ā·p̄ār ’ă·šer hiq·ṣū wə·šā·p̄ə·ḵū ’eṯ- ’el- ṭā·mê mā·qō·wm mi·ḥūṣ lā·‘îr ’el-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-the-house he-shall-scrape from-inside round-about, and-they-shall-pour-out the-dust that they-scraped-off to outside the-city, to a-place unclean.”
Where the English smooths the original
All the walls on each side, and at each end, and every stone in them; which, though they had no appearance on them, yet should there be any infection in them, which as yet was not seen, it might be removed, and a spread prevented
Where trash was cast, and other filth, that the people might not be infected by them.
The mortar or other rubbish.Poole's entire note on the verse — identifying “the dust” as the mortar.
42So different stones must be obtained to replace the contaminated ones, as well as additional mortar to replaster the house.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ă·ḥê·rō·wṯ ’ă·ḇā·nîm wə·lā·qə·ḥū wə·hê·ḇî·’ū ’el- ta·ḥaṯ hā·’ă·ḇā·nîm yiq·qaḥ ’a·ḥêr wə·‘ā·p̄ār wə·ṭāḥ ’eṯ- hab·bā·yiṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-they-shall-take other stones and-bring [them] into the-place-of the-stones, and-other dust he-shall-take and-shall-plaster the-house.”
Where the English smooths the original
He was then to put other stones in their place, and plaster the house with fresh mortar.
such as will exactly answer them, as to number and size, and so fill up the space vacant by the removal of the other, and support the building
And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and shall plaster the house.
43If the mildew reappears in the house after the stones have been torn out and the house has been scraped and replastered,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im- han·ne·ḡa‘ ū·p̄ā·raḥ yā·šūḇ bab·ba·yiṯ ’a·ḥar hā·’ă·ḇā·nîm ḥil·lêṣ ’eṯ- wə·’a·ḥă·rê hab·ba·yiṯ wə·’a·ḥă·rê hiq·ṣō·wṯ ’eṯ- hiṭ·ṭō·w·aḥ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-if the-stroke returns and-breaks-out in-the-house after [he] pulled-out the-stones, and-after the-scraping-of the-house, and-after the-replastering —”
Where the English smooths the original
If after these alterations and precautions the symptoms reappear, the house must be pulled down, just as the garment was destroyed under similar circumstances (see Leviticus 13:51 ), and the materials deposited in the unclean receptacle outside the city, since its re-appearance shows that it is an incurable leprosy.
to prevent if possible any return of it, but in vain.
If the mole broke out again after this had taken place, it was a malicious leprosy, and the house was to be pulled down as unclean
44the priest must come and inspect it. If the mildew has spread in the house, it is a destructive mildew; the house is unclean.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên ū·ḇā wə·rā·’āh wə·hin·nêh han·ne·ḡa‘ pā·śāh bab·bā·yiṯ hî mam·’e·reṯ ṣā·ra·‘aṯ bab·ba·yiṯ ṭā·mê hū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“then-shall-come the-priest and-shall-examine, and-behold, the-stroke has-spread in-the-house; a-malignant leprosy it [is] in-the-house; unclean it [is].”
Where the English smooths the original
if the plague be spread in the house; after all the above precaution is taken: it is a fretting leprosy in the house; like that in the garment
it was a malicious leprosy, and the house was to be pulled down as unclean, whilst the stones, the wood, and the mortar were to be taken to an unclean place outside the town.
If it remain in the house, the whole must be pulled down. The owner had better be without a dwelling, than live in one that was infected.From Henry's note on the whole pericope.
45It must be torn down with its stones, its timbers, and all its plaster, and taken outside the city to an unclean place.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hab·ba·yiṯ ’eṯ- wə·nā·ṯaṣ ’eṯ- ’ă·ḇā·nāw wə·’eṯ- ‘ê·ṣāw wə·’êṯ kāl- hab·bā·yiṯ ‘ă·p̄ar wə·hō·w·ṣî mi·ḥūṣ lā·‘îr ’el- ’el- ṭā·mê mā·qō·wm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-he-shall-tear-down the-house — its-stones and-its-timbers and-all the-dust-of the-house — and-shall-bring-[it]-out to outside the-city, to a-place unclean.”
Where the English smooths the original
As the leper was removed from the camp, so the leprous house is to be utterly pulled down; the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and all its materials carried forth eat of the city into an unclean place.“eat” is an OCR slip for “out” in the public-domain source; left verbatim.
This house may be an emblem of a visible church of God on earth, which is often in Scripture compared to an house, as that signifies both an edifice and a family, and is sometimes called the house of the living God; and into which sometimes the leprosy of immorality and profaneness gets and spreads, or of errors and heresies, which creep in unawares
That is, he shall command it to be pulled down, as in Le 14:40.
46Anyone who enters the house during any of the days that it is closed up will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hab·bā ’el- hab·ba·yiṯ kāl- yə·mê his·gîr ’ō·ṯōw yiṭ·mā ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-the-one-entering into the-house all the-days-of its-being-shut-up shall-be-unclean until the-evening.”
Where the English smooths the original
If any one only momentarily entered the house whilst it was under quarantine, he contracted defilement, which lasted till sundown of the same day.
The leprous house conveys uncleanness to those that enter it, but of so slight a nature that it ceases with the evening, and requires only that the clothes of the wearer be washed. Such a regulation would have been ineffectual for preventing the spread of infection, if that had been its purpose.
Whoever went into the house during the time that it was closed, became unclean till the evening and had to wash himself
47And anyone who sleeps in the house or eats in it must wash his clothes.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·haš·šō·ḵêḇ bab·ba·yiṯ yə·ḵab·bês ’eṯ- bə·ḡā·ḏāw wə·hā·’ō·ḵêl bab·ba·yiṯ yə·ḵab·bês ’eṯ- bə·ḡā·ḏāw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“and-the-one-lying-down in-the-house shall-wash his-garments, and-the-one-eating in-the-house shall-wash his-garments.”
Where the English smooths the original
As abiding in it all night was graver than a momentary entrance, it involved the washing of the garments before the person so defiled could be clean. The same was the case if any one made a meal in it.
Which is more than bare entrance into it, and might be supposed the more to be infected by it, and therefore obliged to the washing of himself, and his garments
but whoever slept or ate therein during this time, was to wash his clothes, and of course was unclean till the evening.
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, like Joshua, on the seam of speech: “And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron.” Ellicott notes that the diagnostic house-law, like the laws of leprous garments and persons, is “delivered to Moses and Aaron conjointly” — Aaron is named because, as Gill says, “the affair of the leprosy of houses being what belonged to the priest to examine into and cleanse from.” Then comes the verse that has unsettled every commentator: wənāṯattî, “and I put,” the same root nāṯan that gave the land. The Geneva note reads it flatly — “no plague nor punishment comes to man without God's providence and his sending.” Keil presses it as deliberate theology: the LORD “held it over them, to remind the inhabitants of the house that they owed not only their bodies but also their dwelling-places to the Lord.” JFB and the Pulpit Commentary pull the other way: it is, JFB says, “common in Scripture to represent God as doing that which He only permits in His providence to be done.” Barnes splits the difference, hearing not penalty but creation-sovereignty — God “speaks as the Lord of all created things, determining their decay and destruction as well as their production.” The tool does not adjudicate; it records that the Hebrew verb is first-person and blunt, and that the house is struck with ṣāraʻaṯ — the very word for human leprosy.
What follows is a procedure built to protect, not to quarantine a pathogen. The owner must speak provisionally — kə-negaʻ, “like a plague” — because, Ellicott reports from the authorities in the time of Christ, even an expert who knows certainly that it is leprosy “is not to say positively to the priest, “The plague has appeared in my house,” but “It seemeth to me . . . as it were,” &c, because it was the office of the priest to pronounce a positive sentence on the subject.” The priest then orders the house ūp̄innū, emptied, before he enters — Ellicott’s “benign law,” Poole’s witness that nothing was “polluted till the leprosy was discovered and declared by the priest, to show what great difference God makes between sins of ignorance, and sins against knowledge.” Keil draws the decisive inference: since the contents defile only on the priest’s word, “the reason for the defilement is not to be sought for in physical infection, but must have been of an ideal or symbolical kind.” The house is then wəhisgîr — put under the same seven-day quarantine (sāḡar) as a leprous body.
The disease is met in three escalating stages, each keyed to the verb pāśāh, “spread” — for, as Gill says, “spreading was always a sign of leprosy, both in the bodies of men, and in garments.” First the infected stones are wəḥilləṣū, drawn out (Gill: “in such manner as not to endanger the fall of the house”), and the interior scraped sāḇîḇ, all around. If the plague yāšûḇ — returns, using the priest’s own “return” verb from v. 39, and indeed ūp̄āraḥ, breaks out / blossoms — it is judged mam’ereṯ, a fretting, malignant evil, and the house is wənāṯaṣ, razed. The Pulpit Commentary closes the analogy with the leper: “As the leper was removed from the camp, so the leprous house is to be utterly pulled down… carried forth… into an unclean place.” Benson and Gill alike hear it as a parable: of “the idolatry which did strangely cleave to the Jewish Church,” and of “a visible church… into which sometimes the leprosy of immorality and profaneness gets and spreads, or of errors and heresies, which creep in unawares.”
The last two verses quietly confirm the whole unit’s logic. Whoever enters the shut-up house is unclean only ʻad-hāʻereḇ, “until the evening” — the mildest grade of defilement, lifting at sundown. The Pulpit Commentary draws the conclusion the tool finds hard to resist: “Such a regulation would have been ineffectual for preventing the spread of infection, if that had been its purpose.” Sleeping or eating in the house — settled, intimate presence — raises it one degree, requiring the clothes be yəḵabbês, laundered. The graded scale (enter / lodge / eat) shows a system measuring nearness to a symbol of corruption, not viral load. The whole law treats the house as a body that can sicken and die — and the man who would dwell with the dying must wash.
Set against the rule that Scripture alone is final, three things stand out — offered to be tested, not trusted. God claims the house, body and roof-beam. Whether one reads “I put” as direct infliction (Keil) or providential permission (Pulpit, JFB), the text refuses to let the home fall outside the LORD’s rule; a man owes his walls to God as truly as his body. Uncleanness is a declared status, not a germ. Nothing defiles until the priest speaks; the defilement is light and self-clearing; the goods are spared if removed in time. This is a theology of holiness and boundary, dramatized in plaster and stone — which is exactly why the older voices reach for sin: Henry’s “sin, where that reigns in a house, is a plague there, as it is in a heart.” The remedy runs toward death and exile. Extract, scrape, raze, carry outside the city — the same path the leper walked. The cure for what cannot be cleansed is removal beyond the camp. The tool notes the danger in the typological reading: the older expositors press it confidently toward idolatry and the church; the text itself states a procedure and leaves the figure implicit. Hold the figure loosely; hold the procedure as written.
The house-leprosy law is the clearest case in the whole code that Israel’s uncleanness was never mere hygiene. A plague that defiles only when a priest names it, that lifts at sundown for a passer-by, that spares the furniture if you act before the verdict — this is a grammar of holiness, not a quarantine manual. Read whole, it says that the living God lays claim to the place a man sleeps and eats, that corruption left to spread must finally be carried outside the camp, and that the only house which never has to be torn down is the one whose true Owner has cleansed it. That is the tool’s reading; weigh it against the text and keep what Scripture supports.
A house, like a heart, is judged not by the first stain but by whether the stain keeps spreading after every cure.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The whole pericope is consciously modeled on the law of leprous clothing just before it: the same diagnostic colors (greenish or reddish), the same seven-day shut-up, the same test of spreading, and — most tellingly — the same rare verdict-word mam’ereṯ, a fretting / malignant leprosy. Ellicott makes the link explicit: the house “must be pulled down, just as the garment was destroyed under similar circumstances (see Leviticus 13:51).” Both bodies, garment and house, are surrogates for the human frame.
Leviticus 13:51 · Leviticus 14:44
basis: rare shared lexeme H3992 mâʼar ("fretting/malignant," in only 4 vv), with H6581 pâsâh ("spread," 18 vv) and the governing keywords H6883 tsâraʻath + H5061 negaʻ
The keywords that govern the human-leprosy diagnosis in ch. 13 — ṣāraʻaṯ (leprosy) and negaʻ (the stroke) — are deliberately re-used here for a house. The transfer is the point: a wall is examined exactly as a body is, so that, as Keil notes of the signs in v. 37, the appearance is “so similar to that of leprosy in the human body, as to derive its name from the latter by analogy.” The shared negaʻ is common across the code (62 verses), so this is a structural-thematic kinship, not a pointed quotation.
Leviticus 13:49 · Leviticus 14:34
basis: shared governing lexemes H6883 tsâraʻath (33 vv) and H5061 negaʻ (62 vv); high-frequency, so a shared diagnostic pattern rather than a verbal quotation
This unit ends with the verdict of uncleanness (vv. 44–47); the immediately following verses (14:48–53) supply the counterpart — the rite for a house pronounced clean, performed (Cambridge) “the same… as that prescribed for the leper in Leviticus 14:4–7.” The thread is held only by the common word bayith (house), which is everywhere in the chapter, so the connection is structural: judgment and cleansing are the two halves of one law.
Leviticus 14:45 · Leviticus 14:48
basis: shared lexeme H1004 bayith (1709 vv) only — a very high-frequency word, so the link is the shared subject (the house) and the law's bipartite structure, not a verbal echo
The verb for scraping the defiled wall, yaqṣiaʻ (root qāṣaʻ), occurs in only two passages in the whole Hebrew Bible. Its sole sibling is Ezekiel 46:22, where the temple’s outer courts are “cornered / set in corners.” The same rare root frames both the stripping of an unclean house and the precise squaring of holy space — a verbal curiosity binding defilement-removal to sanctuary-architecture. The link is real but slender; the tool offers it as a lexical thread, not a developed typology.
Leviticus 14:41 · Ezekiel 46:22
basis: rare shared lexeme H7106 qâtsaʻ — occurs in only 2 verses in the entire OT, making the verbal link statistically pointed
The rare verb hiqṣôṯ (root qāṣāh, “to cut off,” five passages) that describes scraping the house reappears, with bayith, in Habakkuk 2:10 — “you have devised shame for your house, cutting off many peoples, and forfeiting your soul.” Where Leviticus cuts away a plague to save a house, Habakkuk indicts a man who builds a house by violence and so cuts off his own life — the same verbal pair (cut-off + house) turned toward judgment. Compare 2 Kings 10:32, where the LORD “began to cut off” parts of Israel. Note: this is a verbal kinship of a single rare root, not a quotation of Leviticus.
Leviticus 14:43 · Habakkuk 2:10 · 2 Kings 10:32
basis: rare shared lexeme H7096 qâtsâh ("cut off," in only 5 vv); the Habakkuk pairing adds H1004 bayith. Confirmed as verbal on the low-frequency root, though the sense is analogical, not citational
The faint sickly green of the wall-plague, yəraqraqōṯ (root yᵉraqraq), is one of only three occurrences in the Hebrew Bible. One sibling is the gold-green sheen of a dove’s wings in Psalm 68:13 — the same rare reduplicated color word stretched from a plague-stain to a thing of beauty. By raw frequency the Verifier would tag this “verbal,” but the tool deliberately downgrades it: there is no shared motif, structure, or quotation — only a homonym of color, and the senses (corruption vs. iridescence) point in opposite directions. A rare word alone, with no shared meaning, does not earn a “confirmed verbal” badge. It is offered as a lexical curiosity to be checked, not a connection to be trusted.
Leviticus 14:37 · Psalm 68:13
basis: the only shared lexeme is H3422 yᵉraqraq (in 3 vv) — rare by count, but the meanings diverge sharply (plague-stain vs. dove-iridescence) with no shared motif or citation, so the verbal coincidence is flagged rather than confirmed
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The condemned house could not be cleansed; it had to be razed and carried outside the city (v. 45) — as the leper was put outside the camp. The older voices already read the house as a body and a temple. Gill calls it “an emblem of a visible church… compared to an house.” The Gospel presses past the figure: at His own body Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), and He “suffered outside the gate” (Hebrews 13:12), the very place to which the unclean house and the leper were carried. The house that man must demolish prefigures the temple that God tears down and raises incorruptible. The tool offers this as a reading to be weighed, not a claim the text makes outright.
Leviticus 14:45 · John 2:19 · Hebrews 13:12
Every human remedy is applied — stones pulled, walls scraped, fresh plaster laid — and still the plague returns (v. 43). The law diagnoses a corruption that the law itself cannot finally remove; the house must die. This is leprosy as Scripture’s standing emblem of sin (Henry: “The leprosy of sin ruins families and churches,” and “Thus sin is so interwoven with the human body, that it must be taken down by death”), and it is precisely what only Christ can do: He touched the leper and was not defiled but cleansed him (Matthew 8:3), doing what the priest, who could only declare, never could — He makes clean. The typology of leprosy-as-sin is ancient and widely held; the specific reach to Christ’s cleansing touch is the tool’s application of it.
Leviticus 14:43 · Matthew 8:2-3 · Leviticus 13:45-46
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:
This is a prospective, never-yet-applied law (vv. 33–34): Israel was still in tents, so the statute is, as Benson, Barnes, and Gill all note, “an appendix” awaiting the settlement of Canaan. Two interpretive questions are genuinely unsettled and left open here rather than decided: (1) the nature of the plague — saltpetre, mineral salts, fungus, lichen, or a strictly supernatural infliction (Keil, JFB, Gill survey the options without consensus); and (2) the force of “I put the plague” — direct divine infliction (Keil, Geneva) versus providential permission expressed in the idiom of Scripture (Pulpit Commentary, JFB). The tool records both and adjudicates neither.
The cross-Testament Christ readings carry no Strong’s-number basis: links from a Hebrew text to Greek New-Testament passages cannot share Hebrew lexemes, so they are offered as typology/thematic reading, explicitly marked, never as “verbal.” Several within-Hebrew threads above are tagged verbal only because the Verifier found a genuinely rare shared root (qâtsaʻ, 2 vv; qâtsâh, 5 vv; yᵉraqraq, 3 vv; mâʼar, 4 vv); where the shared word is high-frequency (negaʻ, bayith) the link is downgraded to structural/thematic on purpose. The yᵉraqraq ↔ Psalm 68:13 thread is the one case where the tool overrides the Verifier’s frequency-based “verbal”: the rare word is matched but its senses diverge (plague-stain vs. dove-iridescence) with no shared motif or citation, so the badge is set to flagged — verify source rather than confirmed — a caution against over-reading a coincidence of a rare word.
Several public-domain voices carry OCR artifacts preserved verbatim (e.g., “flora” for “from” at 14:34; “eat” for “out” at 14:45); these are noted in the editorial_note for each and were left unaltered to keep every excerpt a true substring of the source. Matthew Henry’s note is a single comment on the whole pericope (14:33–53) and recurs across verses in the source; it is quoted once or twice, not on every verse. The Berean Standard Bible (CC0) supplies the base text; the parses are Berean/Strong’s and are not contradicted here.
✦ = 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)