Leviticus 11:28

Summary

Leviticus 11:28 states that anyone who carries the carcass (nivlah, H5038) of the animals mentioned in the preceding verses must wash his garments (begadav, H0899B) and remain unclean (tame, H2930A) until evening. The verse closes by reaffirming that these creatures are unclean (teme'im, H2931) for the addressed group.

Key words

• noSe' ("carries", H5375H) — qal participle, masculine singular, functions as a substantive with the article ha- ("the one who carries"), designating an ongoing or characteristic action rather than a single completed event.
• nivlatam ("their carcass", H5038) — feminine singular noun in construct form with the third person masculine plural suffix -m ("their"), linking the carcass to the animals named earlier in the chapter.
• yekhabbes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel imperfect, third person masculine singular. The piel stem intensifies the action of washing compared to a simple qal form.
• tame' ("he will be unclean", H2930A) — qal sequential perfect (vav + perfect), continuing the narrative chain after the imperfect yekhabbes, indicating a resulting state that follows the washing action.
• teme'im ("unclean", H2931) — masculine plural adjective, agreeing with hemah ("they", H1992), applied to the animals as a class rather than to the person who touched them.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional-style construction introduced by the participle ha-noSe' ("the one who carries"), which functions like "whoever carries." This participial subject is followed by two verbs describing consequence: first yekhabbes ("he will wash") in the piel imperfect, then tame' ("he will be unclean") in the sequential perfect joined by the narrative ve- (H9001). This grammatical sequence — participle followed by imperfect then converted perfect — is a standard Hebrew way of expressing "if/whoever does X, then Y will happen, and then Z will follow," marking a chain of cause and resulting state rather than three independent statements.

The final clause, teme'im hemah lakhem ("unclean they [are] to you"), uses a plural adjective (teme'im) with the plural pronoun hemah ("they"), which refers back to the animals discussed in the passage rather than to the person who touched the carcass. The preposition lakhem ("to/for you", built from H9005 + H9036) directs this classification toward the addressed group, plural "you."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders nivlatam ("their carcass") with the plural genitive tōn thnēsimaiōn autōn ("of their dead bodies"), a plural formulation where the Hebrew noun is grammatically singular in construct with a plural suffix. The Vulgate expands the final clause—rendered in Hebrew simply as "unclean they [are] to you"—into "quia omnia haec immunda sunt vobis" ("because all these things are unclean to you"), adding the causal conjunction "quia" and the quantifier "omnia," elements not present as separate words in the Hebrew text.