The owner of such a house must then go to the priest and say, ‘It appears that my house has some kind of mildew.’
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.’
- KJV 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:
- 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.’
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 91:10no evil shall happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
- Deut 7:26You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.
- Zech 5:4I will cause it to go out,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears falsely by my name; and it will remain in the middle of his house, and will destroy it with its timber and its stones.”
- Prov 3:33Yahweh’s curse is in the house of the wicked, but he blesses the habitation of the righteous.
- 1 Kgs 13:34This thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the surface of the earth.
- Josh 7:21When I saw among the plunder a beautiful Babylonian robe, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted them and took them. Behold, they are hidden in the ground in the middle of my tent, with the silver under it.”
- 1 Sam 3:12–14In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from the beginning even to the 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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