Leviticus 11:32

Summary

The verse states that any object touched by the carcass of one of the unclean creatures (mentioned earlier in the chapter) becomes impure — whether made of wood, cloth, hide, or sackcloth. Such objects must be immersed in water, remain impure until evening, and then become pure.

Key words

• yippol ("it will fall", H5307G) — qal imperfect, describing the action of the carcass falling upon an object; the imperfect marks this as a recurring/hypothetical case rather than a single past event.
• yitma' ("it will be unclean", H2930A) — qal imperfect, the resulting state declared for the object; repeated later in the verse as tame' (sequential perfect) to mark the continuation of that state through time.
• keli ("vessel of", H3627) — masculine singular construct, used twice (lines 15, 23-24) to introduce categories of objects susceptible to impurity, chaining wood, garment, hide, and sackcloth as sub-types.
• ye'aseh ("it will be done", H6213A) — niphal (passive) imperfect, describing an object "in which work is done," i.e., an implement used for a task, marked grammatically as passive since the object undergoes use rather than acting itself.
• yuva' ("it will be put", H935P) — hophal (causative passive) imperfect, indicating the object is caused to be brought into water by an external agent, distinct from the qal forms used for the states of impurity/purity.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional-relative construction: khol 'asher yippol 'alav mehem bemotam ("all that falls on it from them, in their death") sets up the case, followed by the main clause yitma' ("it will be unclean"). The phrase bemotam ("in their death", from H4194 mot, construct with 3mp suffix) specifies that impurity results specifically from contact with the carcass at the point of death, not from the living animal.

The list of materials — khkeli-'etz ("vessel of wood"), beged ("a garment"), 'or ("a hide"), saq ("sackcloth") — is introduced by the construct chain mikkol-keli-'etz ("from every vessel of wood"), grouping these materials under the general category keli ("vessel/implement"). A second keli is then singled out by the relative clause 'asher ye'aseh melakhah bahem ("which work is done with them"), using the niphal verb ye'aseh to mark the object as the passive site of labor rather than naming an agent.

The final sequence uses two verbs in sequential perfect form, tame' ("it will be unclean") and taher ("it will be pure"), both following the narrative vav (H9001) that chains the process: immersion in water (yuva', hophal), impurity "until the evening" ('ad ha'erev), and then purity. The hophal form of yuva' marks the object as being brought into water by an unstated causer, distinguishing the act of immersion from the stative qal verbs describing impurity and purity.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yuva' ("it will be put/brought", H935P, hophal) as βαφήσεται ("it will be dipped/dyed"), specifying immersion more concretely than the Hebrew's causative "to be brought." The Vulgate similarly reads tingentur aqua ("they will be dipped in water"), aligning with the LXX's reading rather than a bare "brought" sense. The Hebrew bemotam ("in their death") is rendered in the LXX as τεθνηκότων αὐτῶν ("them having died"), a participial construction, while the Vulgate uses de morticinis eorum ("from their carcasses"), a nominal phrase — both conveying the same referent to the dead animal but through different grammatical structures than the Hebrew construct noun mot ("death").