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The Seven Days of Purification

“The one being cleansed[a] must then wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and bathe in water, and so be clean.[b] Then afterward he may enter the camp, but he must live outside his tent seven days.

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Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 14:8 tn Heb “the one cleansing himself” (i.e., Hitpael participle of טָהֵר [taher, “to be clean”]).
  2. Leviticus 14:8 tn Heb “and he shall be clean” (so ASV). The end result of the ritual procedures in vv. 4-7 and the washing and shaving in v. 8a is that the formerly diseased person has now officially become clean in the sense that he can reenter the community (see v. 8b; contrast living outside the community as an unclean diseased person, Lev 13:46). There are, however, further cleansing rituals and pronouncements for him to undergo in the tabernacle as outlined in vv. 10-20 (see Qal “be[come] clean” in vv. 9 and 20, Piel “pronounce clean” in v. 11, and Hitpael “the one being cleansed” in vv. 11, 14, 17, 18, and 19). Obviously, in order to enter the tabernacle he must already “be clean” in the sense of having access to the community.

“The person to be cleansed must wash their clothes,(A) shave off all their hair and bathe with water;(B) then they will be ceremonially clean.(C) After this they may come into the camp,(D) but they must stay outside their tent for seven days.

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