Leviticus 15:19

Summary

Leviticus 15:19 establishes that when a woman experiences a discharge of blood from her body, she remains in a state of impurity for seven days. During this period, anyone who touches her becomes unclean until evening.

Key words

• zavah ("discharging", H2100H) — qal participle feminine singular, describing the woman as one actively in the state of discharging, not a one-time event but an ongoing condition.
• zov ("discharge", H2101) — masculine singular noun in construct form ("discharge of"), paired with besarah ("her flesh", H1320) to specify the discharge occurring in her body.
• niddah ("menstruous impurity", H5079) — feminine singular noun in construct form, naming the specific category of ritual impurity tied to this condition.
• nogea' ("[one who] touches", H5060) — qal participle masculine singular, functioning as a substantive ("the one touching"), universalized by khol ("every", H3605) preceding it.
• yitma' ("he will be unclean", H2930A) — qal imperfect, expressing the resulting future state for anyone who has contact with her.

What the text says

The verse opens with a conditional clause using ki ("if", H3588A) followed by tihyeh ("she will be", H1961) plus the participle zavah ("discharging", H2100H). This construction — imperfect of "to be" plus a participle — expresses a durative or habitual state rather than a single occurrence: the woman "will be [in a state of] discharging." The text then repeats the root zov ("discharge") as a noun in construct with besarah ("her flesh", H1320), reinforcing that the discharge originates from her body specifically.

The duration is marked by shiv'at yamim ("seven of days", H7651 + H3117G), a construct chain meaning "seven days," during which she tihyeh ("will be") be-niddatah ("in her impurity", H5079 with pronominal suffix "her"). The noun niddah names the specific classification of impurity rather than merely describing a physical symptom.

The final clause shifts focus to contact: khol ha-nogea' ("every the-one-touching", H3605 + H5060) uses the participle with the definite article functioning substantively, meaning "anyone who touches." The consequence is stated with the imperfect yitma' ("he will be unclean", H2930A), bounded temporally by 'ad ha-'arev ("until the evening", H5704 + H6153), marking the impurity's duration for the toucher as ending at a fixed point (evening) rather than lasting seven days as with the woman herself.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) adds the phrase "redeunte mense" ("with the month returning"), a temporal specification not present in the Hebrew text, which uses no explicit reference to monthly recurrence. The Hebrew and LXX both preserve the structure of discharge/blood followed by a seven-day period, though the LXX's ῥύσις ("flow") renders zov without the construct-based repetition seen in the Hebrew's zavah...zovah.