Leviticus 15:10

Summary

Leviticus 15:10 continues the regulations on ritual impurity caused by a genital discharge, addressing two related cases: anyone who touches an object that was underneath the affected person, and anyone who carries such objects. Both incur impurity lasting until evening, though carrying additionally requires washing garments and bathing.

Key words

• no.Ge.a' ("touches", H5060) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing the person as one habitually or currently "doing the touching"; the participle form frames impurity as tied to the ongoing act rather than a single event.
• tach.Ta ("under", H8478G) with suffix v ("his") — construct noun plus pronominal suffix, meaning "underneath him," specifying the spatial relationship to the person with the discharge.
• yit.Ma' ("he will be unclean", H2930A) — qal imperfect, marking a future/ongoing state entered into as a result of contact.
• no.Se' ("carries", H5375H) — qal participle, masculine singular, parallel in form to no.Ge.a', distinguishing the "carrier" from the mere "toucher."
• ye.kha.Bes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel imperfect, an intensive verb stem indicating a thorough washing action, applied only to the one who carries, not the one who merely touches.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel clauses, each introduced by a definite participle functioning as a substantive: ha.nno.Ge.a' ("the one touching") and ha.nno.Se' ("the one carrying"). Both participles describe classes of people defined by an action rather than a fixed identity, and Hebrew often uses this construction to state general legal categories ("whoever does X"). The first clause specifies contact with khol 'a.Sher yih.Yeh tach.Tav ("all that was under him"), using the qal imperfect yih.Yeh to describe what "will be" underneath — a general, unspecified object defined only by its position relative to the person with the discharge. The consequence, yit.Ma' 'ad ha.'A.rev ("he will be unclean until evening"), uses the same imperfect verb form as in v. 10's second clause, showing the impurity as a temporary state expiring at a fixed time.

The second clause escalates the requirement: ha.nno.Se' 'o.Tam ("the one carrying them") must not only wait out the impurity but actively remove it through ye.kha.Bes ("he will wash", piel of H3526), a stem indicating deliberate, intensive action. The narrative vav (ve., H9001) attached to ra.Chatz ("he will wash [wash]", H7364) and ta.Me' ("he will be unclean", H2930A) shifts these verbs to sequential perfects, indicating a fixed order of events: washing garments, then bathing in water, and only then remaining unclean until evening — three sequential steps rather than three simultaneous conditions.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tach.Tav ("under him") as ὑποκάτω αὐτοῦ ("underneath him"), matching the Hebrew spatial sense closely. The Vulgate inserts an explanatory phrase, "qui fluxum seminis patitur" ("who suffers a flow of semen"), which is not present in the Hebrew text of this verse but reflects context from earlier verses in the chapter, making explicit what the Hebrew leaves implicit through the pronoun "him."