AN AFFLICTION, a mark, a blow — the general word Leviticus 13 uses for whatever the priest is examining, BEFORE a diagnosis decides what it is. A nega is not yet tzaraat; it becomes tzaraat, or it does not, only after the priest looks. ⚠ The same root (naga, ‘to touch, to strike’) is the ordinary Hebrew verb for a plague sent by God — Pharaoh’s household is struck ‘with great NEGA’IM’ over Sarai (Genesis 12:17, already on these pages), the identical noun — so the chapter’s whole vocabulary quietly carries the idea that whatever is on the skin counts, grammatically, as a small-scale visitation: the same word used of the plagues on a household, shrunk down to the size of one person’s arm. This translation keeps ‘the affliction’ as the running English handle through the chapter’s repeating diagnostic formula, reserving ‘a scaly disease’ for the moments the text itself commits to that verdict. → first discussed at Lev 13:2