And if the plague be greenish or reddish the garment, or in the skin,.... Either of these two colours were signs of leprosy in garments; but it is not agreed whether stronger or weaker colours are designed; the radicals of both these words being doubled, according to some, and particularly Aben Ezra, lessen the sense of them; and so our translators understand it; but, according to Ben Gersom, the signification is increased thereby, and the meaning is, if it be exceeding green or exceeding red; and this is evidently the sense of the Misnah ; garments are defiled by green in greens, and by red in reds, that is, by the greenest and reddest; the green, the commentators say , is like that of the wings of peacocks and leaves of palm trees, and the red like crimson or scarlet; and now these garments or skins, in which the green or red spots appeared, must be white, and not coloured or dyed: the canon runs thus ; skins and garments dyed are not defiled with plagues (of leprosy); a garment whose warp is dyed, and its woof white, or its woof dyed, and its warp white, all goes according to the sight; that is, according to what colour to the eye most prevails, whether white or dyed:either in the warp or in the woof, or in anything of the skin; the same held good of these as of a garment, or anything else made of them:it [is] a plague of leprosy; it has the signs of one, and gives great suspicion that it is one:and shall be shewed unto the priest; by the person in whose possession it is, that it may be examined and judged of whether it is a leprosy or no.
Misn. Negaim, c. 11. sect. 4. Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Edaiot, c. 7. sect. 8. Misn. ut supra, (c.11.) sect.