The priest shall examine the plague in the skin of the body. If the hair in the plague has turned white, and the appearance of the plague is deeper than the body’s skin, it is the plague of leprosy; so the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean.
A person afflicted with tzaraat (leprosy) shall follow the prescribed purification ritual
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְרָאָה הַכֹּהֵן אֶת־הַנֶּגַע בְּעוֹר־הַבָּשָׂר ... וְטִמֵּא אֹתוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להיות מצורע טמא, ומצוה זו כוללת דיני צרעת אדם ומה שממנה טהור ומה שממנה צריכה הסגר או אינה צריכה ומה שיצטרך עם ההסגר גלוח או אינו צריך והוא גלוח הנתק וזולת זה מחלקי דיניה ואיכות טומאתה. (תזריע, טהרה הלכות טומאת צרעת בז' פרקים הראשונים):
That is that He commanded us that a metsora be impure. And this commandment includes all of the laws of tsaraat of a person: That which is pure from it, that which requires quarantine, and that which needs shaving - that is shaving of the scab - along with quarantine, and that which does not need it; and its other laws and the nature of its impurity. (See Parashat Tazria; Mishneh Torah, Defilement by Leprosy 1-7.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a ritual instruction
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Inoperative pending the Temple
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 4Q266 (4QDamascus Document^a) frag. 6 read it more strictly
- 4Q272 (4QDamascus Document^g) read it more strictly
- 11QTemple (11Q19) cols. 48-49 The catalog describes this reception as: stringent expansion of exclusion zones
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 16:1-6 expanded it homiletically
- Leviticus Rabbah 17:3 expanded it homiletically
- Numbers Rabbah 7:5 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.117-118 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.261-269 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Mark 1:40-44 affirmed it Jesus instructs the cleansed leper to show himself to the priest and offer what Moses commanded, presupposing and upholding the priestly diagnostic procedure within the healing narrative.
- Luke 17:11-14 affirmed it The ten lepers are directed to show themselves to the priests, presupposing the Levitical examination role.
- Matthew 8:2-4 affirmed it Synoptic parallel to Mark 1:40-44; the cleansed man is directed to show himself to the priest and bring the Mosaic offering, presupposing the priestly verification procedure.
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum 8 read it allegorically
- Theodoret of Cyrus, Quaestiones in Leviticum, qu. 18 read it spiritually
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.