Leviticus 15:2

Summary

The verse opens the legal section on bodily discharges by instructing Moses to speak to the Israelites: any man who has a discharge from his flesh is rendered unclean by that discharge. The Hebrew uses a doubled construction and a participle-based description rather than naming the specific bodily condition.

Key words

• 'ish 'ish ("a man", "a man", H0376G) — the noun is repeated in sequence, a distributive pattern in Biblical Hebrew meaning "each/any man," rather than "man man."
• zav ("discharging", H2100H) — a qal participle, not a finite verb; it describes an ongoing state or characteristic ("the one who is discharging") rather than a single completed action.
• basar ("flesh", H1320) construct form besaro — "his flesh," used here as the source of the discharge; the word itself is generic for body/flesh, not a specific organ.
• zov ("discharge", H2101) construct form zovo — "his discharge," a noun built from the same root as zav, repeating the concept: "his discharge, unclean it [is]."
• tame' ("unclean", H2931) — an adjective, paired with the independent pronoun hu' ("he/it", H1931) to form a nominal clause, "unclean it [is]," without a copula verb.

What the text says

The verse is structured as reported speech: Moses is commanded to speak (dabberu, H1696G, piel imperative) and then to say ('amartem, H0559, sequential perfect continuing the imperative force) to the Israelites. The content of the speech begins with the distributive phrase 'ish 'ish ("a man, a man"), a repetition pattern that functions to mean "any/each man," setting up a general case rather than referring to two men.

The condition is introduced by ki ("if", H3588A) followed by yihyeh ("he will be", H1961, qal imperfect), producing "if he will be discharging" — the imperfect verb "to be" combined with the participle zav expresses an ongoing or repeated state rather than a single event. The phrase mibbesaro ("from his flesh") uses basar in construct with the pronominal suffix "his"; the noun itself is generic ("flesh"), not specifying which body part.

The final clause, zovo tame' hu' ("his discharge, unclean it [is]"), is a nominal (verbless) sentence: the noun zov with suffix, the adjective tame', and the independent pronoun hu' stand together without a linking verb, a common way in Hebrew to state a fact or classification with emphasis on the pronoun.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew mibbesaro ("from his flesh") is rendered by the LXX as ek tou sōmatos autou ("from his body"), a similarly generic term. The Vulgate, however, specifies fluxum seminis ("flux of semen"), adding an interpretive detail not present in the Hebrew basar ("flesh") or the LXX sōma ("body"), both of which remain unspecific about the nature of the discharge.