leprosy, leprous

The Greek and Hebrew terms that are often translated as “leprosy (or: defiling/skin disease)” or “leprous (person)” in English is translated in Mairasi as “the bad sickness,” since “leprosy is very common in the Mairasi area” (source: Enggavoter 2004).

Following are various other translations:

  • Shilluk: “disease of animals”
  • San Mateo Del Mar Huave: “devil sore” (this and the above are indigenous expressions)
  • Inupiaq: “decaying sores”
  • Kaqchikel: “skin-rotting disease” (source for this and three above: Eugene Nida in The Bible Translator 1960, p. 34f. )
  • Noongar: “bad skin disease” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Tzotzil “rotting sickness” (source: Ronald D. Olson in Notes on Translation January, 1968, p. 15ff.)
  • Usila Chinantec “sickness like mal de pinta” (a skin disease involving discoloration by loss of pigment) (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)

See also stricken and leprosy healed.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Leprosy (Word Study) and leprosy .

Translation commentary on Leviticus 14:54

This is the law: again, a collective singular. Another way of translating is “These are the regulations (or, instructions).” See 6.2 and 11.46-47.

For any leprous disease: this is taken in Revised Standard Version (and New Jerusalem Bible) as a kind of title or cover term for all the various problems listed here and in the following verses. Other versions take it as the first term in the list. If it is taken as a cover term, a very general expression will be needed to include all of what follows. However, it is probably better to take it as the first word in the list.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .