After his second quarantine-week, the priest must examine him on the seventh (i.e., 13th) day a second time. If the lesion’s color has not become darker; or it has spread, covering more (but not all) of his body; or previously dark hairs within it have turned white; or a patch of healthy flesh has appeared within it; it is tzara’at, and the priest must pronounce him defiled. If, however, no previously dark hairs have turned white, no patch of healthy flesh has appeared, the lesion has become darker than it was before this quarantine—even though it has not darkened to the extent that it no longer exhibits one of the four degrees of whiteness that can develop into tzara’at—and the lesion has not spread on the skin, the priest must pronounce him rid of this defilement, for it is now clear that this lesion is not a case of tzara’at: it has become a different condition, termed mispachat, which does not cause defilement; no third quarantine period is needed.
He must immerse himself and his garments in a mikveh and undergo the rest of the purification process that will be described later, and then he will be rid of this defilement in fact.
If the mispachat spreads on the skin sometime after the person was shown to the priest for his purification on the 13th day, he must be shown to the priest again. The priest must examine the mispachat. If the mispachat has spread on the skin since the previous examination, the priest must pronounce him defiled, for it is no longer mispachat; it has turned into tzara’at.
The following are the rules regarding the third indication of tzara’at, the appearance of healthy flesh within the lesion: As was stated previously, if a person has a white lesion that appears to be tzara’at, due to its falling into one of the four categories of whiteness mentioned above, he must be brought to the priest. The priest must examine it. If there is on the skin a wool-white spot or any of the other three types of white lesions that can develop into tzara’at, and either (a), as stated previously, it has turned at least two of the formerly dark hairs within it white, or (b) there is in the wool-white spot (or other type of lesion) a contiguous patch of healthy, live flesh at least the size of a lentil bean and enclosed completely within the lesion, then, in the case of the appearance of healthy flesh, you should not be deceived into thinking that this is a sign that the tzara’at is healing; rather, it is a case of old, purulent tzara’at remaining under the new, healthy skin of his flesh. Both in this case and in the case of newly white hairs, the priest must pronounce him defiled. He need not quarantine him, because he is definitely defiled.
As we have seen, the spreading of a lesion indicates that it is tzara’at. If, however, the tzara’at erupts all over the skin to the extent that the tzara’at covers all the skin of the person with the lesion, from his head to his feet, wherever the eyes of the priest can see it—meaning that the tzara’at need not appear on interior skin (such as that inside the nose or mouth) that is not readily visible during an external examination—then the priest must examine it. If the tzara’at has indeed covered all his flesh, he must pronounce the person with the lesion rid of this defilement. The fact that he has turned completely white indicates that this lesion is not an anomaly but the natural condition of his body; therefore, he is not defiled.
