Leviticus 15:3

Summary

Leviticus 15:3 defines what counts as ritual uncleanness (tum'ah) connected to a man's bodily discharge (zov). The verse states that this uncleanness applies whether the discharge flows or is blocked, closing with a pronoun that reaffirms the identification of this condition as uncleanness.

Key words

• zot ("this", H2063) — demonstrative particle opening the verse, pointing forward to the definition that follows.
• tihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third-person feminine, indicating a rule with ongoing or generalized application rather than a single completed event.
• rar ("it has secreted", H7325) — qal perfect, third-person masculine, describing the first scenario as a completed/realized condition: the flesh emitting discharge.
• hechtim ("it has been obstructed", H2856) — hiphil perfect, third-person masculine; the hiphil stem marks a causative sense, so the flesh is described as having caused a blockage or stoppage of the discharge, contrasting with the free flow in rar.
• hi' ("it", H1931) — feminine personal pronoun closing the verse, referring back to tum'ato ("his uncleanness") and syntactically confirming the equivalence between the described condition and uncleanness.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a frame: it opens with zot tihyeh tum'ato ("this will be his uncleanness") and closes with tum'ato hi' ("it is his uncleanness"), repeating the noun tum'ato ("his uncleanness", H2932) with its third-person masculine suffix at both ends. This repetition brackets the two conditions described in between, functioning as an inclusio that marks the boundaries of the legal definition.

Between these two occurrences of tum'ato, two verbal clauses are joined by the disjunctive 'o ("or", H0176A): rar besaro et-zovo ("his flesh has secreted his discharge") and hechtim besaro mizzovo ("his flesh has been obstructed from his discharge"). Both verbs are in the perfect aspect, presenting each scenario as a realized state rather than a hypothetical. The qal form rar denotes a simple, unmarked flowing, while the hiphil form hechtim adds a causative nuance, marking the stoppage as an effected condition of the flesh rather than a mere absence of flow. The construct chains tum'ato, zovo, and besaro — each followed by the third-person masculine suffix -o ("his", H9023) — consistently tie the uncleanness, the discharge, and the flesh back to the same male subject throughout the verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening as "this is the law (νόμος) of his uncleanness," introducing the noun "law," which has no equivalent in the Hebrew wording of zot tihyeh tum'ato ("this will be his uncleanness"). The LXX also expands the description of the discharge with phrases like "flowing seed from his body" and "the flux by which his body coheres," which elaborate beyond the more compact Hebrew construct phrases zovo and besaro. The Vulgate diverges further, speaking of judgment occurring when the discharge "adheres to his flesh at every moment" and a "foul humor coagulates," phrasing not directly mapped onto the Hebrew perfect verbs rar and hechtim.