And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house:
Parallel translations
- WEB then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, ‘There seems to me to be some sort of plague in the house.’
- BSB the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, ‘Something like mildew has appeared in my house.’
- NKJV and he who owns the house comes and tells the priest, saying, ‘It seems to me that there is some plague in the house,’
- NASB then the one who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, ‘Something like a spot of leprosy has become visible to me in the house.’
- NLT The owner of such a house must then go to the priest and say, ‘It appears that my house has some kind of mildew.’
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The homeowner must report a suspected plague in the house to the priest. It matters because defilement was to be brought honestly to God's appointed examiner rather than hidden.
Overview
The owner is to come and tell the priest of a suspected contamination, submitting the matter to priestly judgment. The cautious wording, 'some sort of plague,' shows the owner does not presume the verdict himself. This honest reporting models the believer's call to bring suspected sin into the light before God rather than conceal it (1 John 1:7-9).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Ps 91:10There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
- Deut 7:26Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.
- Zech 5:4I will bring it forth, saith the LORD of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.
- Prov 3:33The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.
- 1 Kgs 13:34And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
- Josh 7:21When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.
- 1 Sam 3:12–14In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end.
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 14:35 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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