“If a man’s hair has fallen from his head, he is bald. He is clean.
Parallel Translations
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“If a man’s hair has fallen from his head, he is bald. He is clean.
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And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.
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And if a man's hair be fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Leviticus 13:40 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Galatians 4:13 but you know that because of weakness in the flesh I preached the Good News to you the first time.
- Leviticus 13:41 If his hair has fallen off from the front part of his head, he is forehead bald. He is clean.
- 2 Kings 2:23 He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!”
- Song of Solomon 5:11 His head is like the purest gold. His hair is bushy, black as a raven.
- Isaiah 15:2 They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.
- Amos 8:10 I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
- Romans 6:12 Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
- Romans 6:19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
- Romans 8:10 If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (7 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And if there be,.... Or, "but if there be",…
And if there be,.... Or, "but if there be", or, "when there shall be" (y), or shall appear to be:
in the bald head, or in the bald forehead, a white reddish sore; white and red mixed, as the Targum of Jonathan, having something of both colours, neither a clear white nor thorough red; though, according to Bochart, it should be rendered "a white sore exceeding bright"; See Gill on Lev 13:19,
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it is a leprosy sprung up in his bald head, or in his bald forehead; the signs of which were raw flesh and spreading; so it is said in the Misnah (z),"those two sorts of baldness defile in two weeks, by two signs, by quick raw flesh and by spreading;''if there was the bright spot and no quick flesh, then he was to be shut up seven days, and looked upon at the end of them; and if there was either quick flesh or a spreading, he was pronounced unclean, but if neither, he was shut up seven days more; and if either of the above signs appeared he was pronounced unclean, if not he was set free.
(y) "sin autem", V. L. "quum autem", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator Drusius. (z) Ut supra. (Misn. Negaim, c. 10. sect. 10.)
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain bald . . . forehead bald--The falling off of…
bald . . . forehead bald--The falling off of the hair, when the baldness commences in the back part of the head, is another symptom which creates a suspicion of leprosy. But it was not of itself a decisive sign unless taken in connection with other tokens, such as a "sore of a reddish white color" [Lev 13:43]. The Hebrews as well as other Orientals were accustomed to distinguish between the forehead baldness, which might be natural, and that baldness which might be the consequence of disease.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 40. Bald… yet… clean — Literally, hind bald. Natural…
40. Bald… yet… clean — Literally, hind bald. Natural baldness was so uncommon among the Israelites that it subjected men to an unpleasant suspicion and public derision. It is perpetually alluded to as a mark of squalor and misery. 2Ki_2:23; Isa_3:24. Herodotus says that “one would see the fewest bald Egyptians of all men.” He attributes this immunity to their construct shaving. It is here carefully distinguished from the methek, or scall, of Lev_13:29-39.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain Baldness in the back or front part of the…
Baldness in the back or front part of the head (40–44)
This is not in itself a sign of uncleanness, but if in either part a reddish white plague (white reddish sore A. V.) appears, he must be seen by the priest. The word ‘bald’ in Lev_13:40 means bald at the back of the head, as distinguished from forehead bald in Lev_13:41.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (40) And the man whose hair is fallen off—Better,…
(40) And the man whose hair is fallen off—Better, And if a man loseth the hair of his head. The sixth and last case, discussed in Lev_13:40-44, is leprosy either at the back or in the front of the head. Though baldness in itself was regarded as a disgrace, and often looked upon as a Divine punishment (2Ki_2:23; Isa_3:17; Jer_48:37), yet the simple fact of the mere falling of the hair is not to be taken as a sign of leprosy.
He is bald; yet is he clean.—Better, if he is backhead bald, he is clean. The baldness mentioned in the first part of the verse in general terms is now more minutely specified as consisting of two kinds of baldness.
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Lev_13:41-42 distinctly show that the word (kçrçach), here translated simply “bald” in the Authorised Version, denotes a person who has lost hair from the crown of his head downwards towards the channel of his neck, as the administrators of the law during the second Temple rightly define it, in contradistinction to the fore baldness which immediately follows.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 40-44. Leprosy appearing on the bald head. Though…
Vers. 40-44. Leprosy appearing on the bald head. Though leprosy makes the hair drop off around the leprous spot, baldness is in itself no sign of leprosy, whether at the back or front of the head (verses 40, 41); but as the bald head is a not unusual place for the leprous spot to appear, any eruption upon it is therefore to be watched and tested as before.
Vers. 40-44. Affections of the mind.
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We learn lessons concerning
I THE BLEMISH OF MENTAL PECULIARITY. (Verse 40.) Evidently baldness was an unusual and an unsightly thing among the Israelites. Otherwise it would not have excited notice and could not have created derision. (2Ki_2:23 Isa_3:24 Eze_7:18) It was regarded as an unbecoming peculiarity. Affecting the head, we may regard it as a type of mental peculiarity which does not amount to a serious sin, but is yet unusual and unbecoming. Many men who are substantially sound in heart and life, loving that which is highest and doing that which is just and right, are yet affected and afflicted by mental peculiarities oddities, crotchets, fancies, awkwardness or crookedness of mental habit; things which are not formidably had, but which, because they are superficial, strike the eye, provoke general remark, and stand in the way of effective service.
1. It is right that those who observe them in others should remember that they are only blemishes, and nothing more; detracting in some degree from "the beauty of holiness," but not inconsistent with real and even admirable excellence. "He is bald, yet he is clean" (verse 40).
2. It is right that those who possess them should reflect, and act on the reflection, that these things, though only blemishes, may importantly diminish the power of the possessor to influence, guide, and win other people. The candle (character) is of much more importance than the candlestick (mental habit), but if character be obscured by some darkening "bushel," and not put on the candlestick of pleasant and agreeable habits, it will not "give light to all that are in the house". (Mat_5:15)
II THE EVIL OF ERROR. There might come on the bald head a spot, a sore; this might be a "white reddish sore leprous (verses 42, 43). But it might not; it might be nothing but a boil or some coetaneous disorder, which was not leprosy. In that case the patient Would be treated as described in verses 2-6. There would be something wrong, but it was not the unclean thing, leprosy. There is a mental disease which is something more serious than peculiarity and something less serious than guilty perversity. It is error; the arrival at wrong conclusions. There may be but small faultiness in coming to convictions which are not correct, but there may be positive disaster resulting therefrom. A man may innocently take the wrong road, but his innocency will not save him from walking into the bog or over the precipice to which it leads. Error is not the worst thing in the world, but it is a seriously bad and dangerous thing. When we are earnestly warned, by obviously thoughtful and godly men, that we are wrong in our judgments, it becomes us to listen patiently and consider well whether we are in the right track, or whether we have mistaken a false path for the "path of life.
III THE SIN OF MENTAL PERVERSITY. (Verses 43, 44) There is great significance in the sentence "the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean." The man who had leprosy in the head was accounted unclean in an especial degree: he was utterly unclean. Sin, of which this malady was so striking a type, never assumes so dangerous a phase as when it appears in the form of a perverted judgment or a darkened conscience. When, by sinning, a man has blunted his spiritual perceptions so that he "calls evil good, and good evil," he is in the last stage of moral decline; death is near at hand. If" our eye be evil" (if our judgment be perverted, our faculty of spiritual perception be diseased), our "whole body is full of darkness;" if "the light that is in, us" (our own mental and spiritual faculty) be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Mat_5:23) Witness the Pharisees in their treatment of our Lord. We may well be actively on our guard against, and may well be earnest in prayer that God will deliver us from, that of which leprosy in the head is the painful picture, a guilty, blinding, ruinous perversity of mind. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues telling Moses and Aaron what the people must do when someone has a skin disease.
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he is clean
The person whom other people may touch is spoken of as if he were physically clean. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
clean
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.