Leviticus 11:25

Summary

The verse states that anyone who carries any part of the carcasses of the creatures previously mentioned must wash his garments, and he remains ritually unclean until evening.

Key words

• no.Se' ("[one who] carries", H5375H) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing an ongoing action of "carrying/lifting"; functions as the subject of the sentence, "the one who carries."
• niv.la.Ta ("carcass", H5038) — feminine singular noun in construct form with the suffix -m ("their"), meaning "the carcass of them," referring back to creatures named earlier in the chapter.
• ye.kha.Bes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel imperfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the action, and the imperfect conveys a future/ongoing obligation ("he shall wash").
• ta.Me' ("he will be unclean", H2930A) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative chain begun with the vav in ve.tame'; this construction links washing and uncleanness as sequential consequences.
• 'A.rev ("evening", H6153) — masculine singular noun marking the temporal boundary of the state of uncleanness, paired with the preposition 'ad ("until", H5704).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ve.khol ha.no.Se' ("and every one who carries"), using the article ha- (H9009) attached to the participle no.Se' to form a substantive: "the one who carries" functions as a generic subject, "whoever carries." This participle takes the preposition mi- ("any of", H9006) before niv.la.Ta.m ("their carcass"), a construct-suffix combination meaning "some of their carcass," indicating partial contact — carrying even a portion, not necessarily the whole body.

The main verb ye.kha.Bes ("he will wash", H3526H) is in the piel stem, which in Biblical Hebrew often marks intensive or thorough action; here it denotes the required washing of be.ga.Dav ("his garments", H0899B), a construct noun with the third person masculine singular suffix -v ("his"). The clause then shifts to a sequential perfect ve.ta.Me' ("and he will be unclean", H2930A), joined by the narrative vav (H9001), which links this state grammatically to the prior washing action as a continuing consequence rather than a separate command. The temporal clause 'ad ha.'A.rev ("until the evening") closes the sentence, marking the endpoint of the unclean state.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew participle construction ho airōn ("the one lifting"), matching the grammatical sense of "carrying" closely. The Vulgate expands the clause with a conditional structure, "et si necesse fuerit ut portet quippiam horum mortuum" ("and if it should be necessary that he carry any of these dead things"), introducing a conditional nuance not present in the Hebrew participial clause, which states the case generally rather than conditionally. The Vulgate also specifies "usque ad occasum solis" ("until the setting of the sun"), an expansion beyond the Hebrew 'ad ha.'Arev ("until the evening").