Leviticus 13:19

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and in the place of the boil there is a white rising, or a bright spot, reddish-white, then it shall be shown to the priest;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

Full analysis ↓

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Word by word

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אֲדַמְדָּ֑מֶת

ʼădamdâm

H125

“reddish”

Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 6× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: reduplicated from H119

TWOT: 26g

reddish, be reddish

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

12: words
11: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is אֲדַמְדָּ֑מֶת reddish H125 — appearing just 6 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

אֲדַמְדָּ֑מֶת reddish H125

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אֲדַמְדָּ֑מֶת reddish H125 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
3 adjectives
1 preposition
1 conjunction

Verb forms

וְהָיָ֞ה Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְנִרְאָ֖ה Niphal · Sequential Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

לְבָנָ֔ה white H3836 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 25 words from the Hebrew and 29 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 12 Hebrew tokens and 18 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Leviticus 13:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Leviticus 13:24 "Or when the body has a burn from fire on its skin, and the raw flesh of the burn becomes a bright spot, reddish-white, or white,

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Leviticus 13:19 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְהָיָ֞ה בִּמְק֤וֹם הַשְּׁחִין֙ שְׂאֵ֣ת לְבָנָ֔ה א֥וֹ בַהֶ֖רֶת לְבָנָ֣ה אֲדַמְדָּ֑מֶת וְנִרְאָ֖ה אֶל הַכֹּהֵֽן

and in the place of the boil there is a white rising, or a bright spot, reddish-white, then it shall be shown to the priest;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Leviticus 13:19 Septuagint · lemma form

καί γίγνομαι ἐν ὁ τόπος ὁ ἕλκος οὐλή λευκός ἤ τηλαυγής λευκαίνω ἤ πυρρίζω καί ὁράω ὁ ἱερεύς

and there should be in the place of the ulcer a white sore, or one looking white and bright, or fiery, and it shall be seen by the priest;

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיהֵי בַאֲתַר שִׁחֲנָא עַמְקָא חַוְרָא אוֹ בַהֲרָא חַוְרָא סַמְקָא וְיִתַּחֲזִי לְכַהֲנָא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיהֵי בַּאֲתַר שִׁיחְנָא שׁוּמָא זְקִיפָא חִיוְרָא אוֹ בַּהֲקֵי מִיטַפְלָא חִיוְרָא סַמְקָא מְעַרְבִין וְיִתְחֲמֵי לְוַת כַּהֲנָא

but in the place of the ulcer there hath come a white rising tumour, or a bright fixed spot, (in colour) white mixed with red; he shall be seen by the priest.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Leviticus 13:19 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) And in the place of the boil.—If the cicatriced sore breaks out again, and exhibits the usual symptoms of leprosy, the patient is to show himself to the priest.

White, and somewhat reddish.—Better, of a white-reddish colour. This symptom is peculiar to re-opened cicatriced sores, and hence has not been mentioned before. The authorities in the time of Christ describe the mixture of red and white as follows :—“It has the appearance of red wine poured into water, and is either a palish white or somewhat darker.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And in the place of the boil there be a white rising,.... In the place where the boil was, a white swelling appears:

or a bright spot, white, and somewhat reddish; white and red mixed, as the Targum of Jonathan; and so Aben Ezra interprets the word "reddish", of the bright spot being mixed of two colours, or part of it so; and such a mixed colour of white and red, Gersom observes, is usual in a swelling, and adds, we are taught how to judge of these appearances, according to a tradition from Moses, which is this: take a cup full of milk, and put in it two drops of blood, and the colour of it will be as the colour of the bright spot, white and reddish; and if you put into it four drops, its colour will be as the colour of the rising (or swelling) reddish; and if you put into it eight drops, its colour will be as the colour of the scab of the bright spot, more reddish; and if you put into it sixteen drops, its colour will be as the colour of the scab of the swelling, very red: hence it appears, says he, that the bright spot is whitest with its redness, and after that the swelling, and next the scab of the bright spot, and then the scab of the swelling; but Bochart (p) is of opinion that the word is wrongly rendered "reddish", which, he thinks, contradicts the account of the bright spot being white, and especially as the word for "reddish" has its radicals doubled, which always increase the signification; and therefore if the word bears the sense of redness, it should be rendered "exceeding red", which would be quite contrary to the spot being white at all; wherefore from the use of the word in the Arabic language, which signifies white, bright, and glittering; See Gill on Lam 4:7; he chooses to read the words, "or a bright spot, white and exceeding glittering": but this word we render reddish and white, being read disjunctively, Lev 13:24; seems to contradict this observation of his:

and it be shewed to the priest; to look upon and pass his judgment on it.

(p) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 6. col. 689.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Somewhat reddish, i.e. white mixed with red, as when blood and milk are mixed together. A late learned writer renders the words thus, white and very bright, or light, which indeed is the true colour of leprosy, to wit, when it is in its perfection, as Exo 4:6, &c. But here it was only beginning and arising out of a bile, in which together with the white, which was the colour of the leprosy, there might be some mixture of redness arising from the bile, or that part of it which was not yet turned into the nature and colour of leprosy.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

19. Somewhat reddish — The redness is that of the inflamed circumference of the blotch. The two symptoms of white hairs and manifest depth below the skin indicate leprosy.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

או בהרת לבנה אדמדמת in OR A BRIGHT SPOT REDDISH-WHITE — It means that the plague is not evenly white but it is compounded and intermingled with two colours — white and red.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Leviticus, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 12 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼădamdâm (“reddish”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʼădamdâm carries the sense “reddish.” How does it shape the verse?
The word “reddish” first appears here in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
Leviticus 13:24 shares the word «reddish» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“white” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וְהָיָ֞ה» is Qal Sequential Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers and John Gill's Exposition read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 12 Hebrew ↔ 18 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“white” occurs 2× in this single verse.
11 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 12 words in this verse.