who is this HU הוא in Lev. 13:55?

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Isaac Fried
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Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm

who is this HU הוא in Lev. 13:55?

Post by Isaac Fried »

The verse הֻכַּבֵּס אֶת הַנֶּגַע is on the act KBS כבס 'wash'. It appears to me that the pre-attached personal pronoun, or identity marker, HU הוא in HU-KABES is for the stain, הַנֶּגַע in the washable. In verse 58 the interior HU of וְכֻבַּס is also for the garment.

So what is the difference between HU-KBAS and K-U-BAS? I think nothing. It appears to me that they are but vestiges of the confluence of disparate grammatical traditions as to where to place the personal pronouns identifying the actors, outside the root, or in its interior, between the radicals.

Isaac Fried, Boston University
TerryC
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Re: who is this HU הוא in Lev. 13:55?

Post by TerryC »

I think those bible commentaries may help.

Geneva Bible Notes - Lev. 13

(q) But remain as it did before.
(r) Or, whether it be in any bare place before, or behind.

John Gill’s Exposition - Lev. 13

and, behold, if the plague has not changed its colour; and the plague be not spread, it is unclean, thou shalt burn it in the fire; if it remains just as it was at first, very green or very red, and has not diminished of its colour at all, nor changed from one colour to another, although it should not have spread itself, yet it is defiled, and to be burnt without the camp, as before; that which spreads itself here and there, it is to be burnt:

it is after inward, whether it be bare within or without; that is, whether it be threadbare on the wrong or right side of the garment, the nap being eaten off by the leprosy; which shows it to be a fretting, eating, and corroding one: in the Hebrew text it is, "in the boldness of the hinder", or "in the baldness of the fore part"; they are the same words which are used of the boldness of the back part and fore part of the head, Leviticus 13:42; the nap being off either of the outer and right side of the cloth, or of the inner and wrong side, made it look like a bald head, whether before or behind.
Isaac Fried
Posts: 1783
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm

Re: who is this HU הוא in Lev. 13:55?

Post by Isaac Fried »

Thank you for the interesting link. I looked it up and saw on Genesis 1:2 that "the earth was without form". Do you have an idea as to what is this "form" that the earth lacked?

Isaac Fried, Boston University
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