Leviticus 15:20

Summary

The verse establishes that any surface a menstruating woman lies on or sits on becomes ritually unclean. Two parallel clauses—one for lying (tishkav, H7901G), one for sitting (teshev, H3427)—both conclude with the same verdict: the object yitma' ("it will be unclean", H2930A).

Key words

• khol ("all", H3605) — appears twice, opening each clause; it broadens the rule to any object or surface, not a specific named item.
• tishkav ("she will lie down", H7901G) — qal imperfect, third person feminine; describes the woman's action of lying down as the triggering event.
• nidatah ("her menstruous impurity", H5079) — feminine singular noun in construct form with the pronominal suffix -ah ("her", H9024), naming the specific condition (niddah) during which contact transmits impurity.
• teshev ("she will sit", H3427) — qal imperfect, third person feminine; parallels tishkav but covers sitting instead of lying.
• yitma' ("it will be unclean", H2930A) — qal imperfect, third person masculine, repeated at the end of both clauses; the subject is the object touched (grammatically masculine "it"), not the woman.

What the text says

The Hebrew builds two mirrored conditional clauses joined by ve ("and", H9002). Each begins with khol asher ("all that", H3605 + H0834A), a relative construction that turns the clause into an open class: "anything such that…". The verb of contact (tishkav / teshev) is feminine, referring back to the woman, while the resulting verb yitma' is masculine, referring to the object she lay or sat upon (via the suffix -av, "on it", H9033). This grammatical shift—feminine subject acting, masculine object becoming unclean—shows that the impurity is described as passing from the woman's condition (niddah) to whatever surface receives her weight, rather than being a property of the woman's action itself in isolation.

The phrase be-nidatah ("in her menstruous impurity", H5079 + H9024) is attached only to the first clause (lying), but its temporal condition governs both actions, since the second clause is grammatically parallel and repeats the same structural pattern culminating in yitma'.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate text supplied here (Omnis qui tetigerit eam, immundus erit usque ad vesperum — "Whoever touches her will be unclean until evening") diverges sharply from the Hebrew of this verse: it speaks of touching the woman herself and specifies "until evening," neither of which appears in the Hebrew of Leviticus 15:20, which speaks instead of lying/sitting on objects with no time limit stated. The LXX text given follows the Hebrew's two-part structure (lying and sitting, each producing ἀκάθαρτον/"unclean") more closely than the Vulgate does.