Leviticus 13:41

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

If his hair has fallen off from the front part of his head, he is forehead bald. He is clean.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 hapax legomenon — only here in the Hebrew Bible
1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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גִּבֵּ֥חַ

gibbêach

H1371

“bald forehead”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from an unused root

TWOT: 306a

to be high, bald (in the forehead), having a bald forehead

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 →

9: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

1 hapax legomenon — a word that appears only here in the entire Hebrew Bible:

גִּבֵּ֥חַ bald forehead H1371

First appearance in Scripture

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

גִּבֵּ֥חַ bald forehead H1371

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יִמָּרֵ֖ט to make bare H4803 occurs in 11 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
4 nouns
1 adjective
2 pronouns
1 conjunction

Verb forms

יִמָּרֵ֖ט Niphal · Imperfect

Repetition

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

ה֖וּא he H1931 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 20 words from the Hebrew and 17 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 9 Hebrew tokens and 12 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.

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 13:41 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְאִם֙ מִפְּאַ֣ת פָּנָ֔יו יִמָּרֵ֖ט רֹאשׁ֑וֹ גִּבֵּ֥חַ ה֖וּא טָה֥וֹר הֽוּא

If his hair has fallen off from the front part of his head, he is forehead bald. He is clean.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Leviticus 13:41 Septuagint · lemma form

ἐάν δέ κατά πρόσωπον μαδάω ὁ κεφαλή αὐτός ἀναφάλαντος εἰμί καθαρός εἰμί

And if his head should lose the hair in front, he is forehead bald: he is clean.

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)

וְאִם מִלָקֳבֵל אַפּוֹהִי יַתַּר שְׂעַר רֵישֵׁהּ גְלוֹשׁ הוּא דְכֵי הוּא

(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)

וְאִין מִקְבֵל אַנְפּוֹי יִתַּר שְעַר רֵישֵׁיהּ גִלְשַׁלְשָׁן הוּא דְכֵי הוּא

And if the hair fall away from the brow of his face, he is partly bald, but he is clean.

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 13:41 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 →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

By sickness, or any other inconvenience.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(41) And he that hath his hair fallen off—Rather, And if he loseth the hair of his head.

He is forehead bald.—This, which according to the administrators of the law, was from the crown of the head descending to his face, and constituted the man a gibbèach, was also not a sign of leprosy.

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

Then the priest shall look upon it,.... The white reddish sore:

and, behold, if the rising of the sore; or the swelling of it:

be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead; See Gill on Lev 13:42,

as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh; as in Lev 13:2; having the signs of the leprosy there given; anyone of them, excepting the white hair, which in this case could be no sign, there being none: Jarchi's note is, according to the appearance of the leprosy, said in Lev 13:2; and what is said in it is, it defiles by four appearances, and is judged in two weeks; but not according to the appearance of the leprosy said of the boil, and burning, which were judged in one week; nor according to the appearance of the scalls, of the place of hair, which do not defile by the four appearances, the rising or swelling, and the scab of it, the bright spot, and the scab of that.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

41. Forehead bald — This is in distinction from the hind bald. Lev_13:40, note.

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)

ואם מפאת בניו AND IF FROM THE CORNER OF HIS FACE [THERE FALLS OFF THE HAIR OF HIS HEAD] — The area from the slope of one’s skull in the direction of the face is called גבחת (and that explains why the man suffering from such a malady is here called גבח) — and the temples on both sides are also included; and the area from the slope of one’s skull in the direction of the back of his head is termed קרחת (hence the term קרח in v. 40) (Sifra, Tazria Parashat Nega'im, Chapter 10 7).

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 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is gibbêach (“bald forehead”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “bald forehead” (gibbêach) contribute to the verse as a whole?
1 word here appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Why might the author reach for such rare wording?
This is the first place “bald forehead” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Leviticus 13:40, which shares the word «to make bare», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “he” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«יִמָּרֵ֖ט» is a Niphal Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Geneva Bible (1599) and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word in this verse appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 14 words in this verse.
“he” occurs 2× in this single verse.