Leviticus 17:15

וְכָל־נֶפֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר תֹּאכַל נְבֵלָה וּטְרֵפָה בָּאֶזְרָח וּבַגֵּר וְכִבֶּס בְּגָדָיו וְרָחַץ בַּמַּיִם וְטָמֵא עַד־הָעֶרֶב וְטָהֵֽר׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְכָל־נֶ֗פֶשׁ אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֹּאכַ֤ל נְבֵלָה֙ וּטְרֵפָ֔ה בָּאֶזְרָ֖ח וּבַגֵּ֑ר וְכִבֶּ֨ס בְּגָדָ֜יו וְרָחַ֥ץ בַּמַּ֛יִם וְטָמֵ֥א עַד־הָעֶ֖רֶב וְטָהֵֽר׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ πᾶσα ψυχὴ ἥτις φάγεται θνησιμαῖον ἢ θηριάλωτον, ἐν τοι αὐτόχθοσιν ἢ ἐν τοῖς προσηλύτοις, πλυνεῖ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ καὶ λούσεται ὕδατι, καὶ ἀκάθαρτος ἕως ἑσπέρας, καὶ καθαρὸς ἔσται.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Anima, quæ comederit morticinum, vel captum a bestia, tam de indigenis, quam de advenis, lavabit vestimenta sua et semetipsum aqua, et contaminatus erit usque ad vesperum: et hoc ordine mundus fiet.

Spanish

“‘Cualquier persona, sea israelita de nacimiento o extranjero, que coma carne de un animal que murió por sí solo o que fue despedazado por las fieras, deberá lavar su ropa y bañarse. Quedará impura hasta el atardecer y después quedará pura.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y cualquiera persona que comiere cosa mortecina, ó despedazada por fiera, así de los naturales como de los extranjeros, lavará sus vestidos y á sí mismo se lavará con agua, y será inmundo hasta la tarde; y se limpiará.

English

And any person, whether native or foreigner, who eats anything found dead or mauled by wild beasts must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening; then he will be clean.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Leviticus 17:15 addresses any person — native-born or foreigner — who eats an animal that died naturally (nevelah, "carcass", H5038) or was killed by a predator (terefah, "a torn animal", H2966). The text prescribes a sequence: washing garments, bathing in water, remaining impure until evening, then becoming pure.

Key words

Nefesh ("person", H5315J) — feminine singular noun, functioning here as "soul/person" in a generic sense, governing the feminine verb forms that follow it.
to.Khal ("it will eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, third feminine singular, agreeing with nefesh; expresses the ongoing or hypothetical condition ("whoever eats").
khi.Bes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel sequential perfect; the piel (intensive) stem marks a thorough or deliberate washing of garments, distinct from the qal used for the body.
ra.Chatz ("he will wash", H7364) — qal sequential perfect; simple stem applied to washing the body itself with water (Ma.yim, H4325G).
ta.Me' / ta.Her (H2930A / H2891) — qal sequential perfects describing the state changes: "he will be unclean" followed by "he will be pure," both tied temporally to 'Erev ("evening", H6153).

What the text says

The sentence opens with ve.khol nefesh 'asher ("and every person who"), establishing a general, unrestricted subject regardless of status — this is reinforced later by the pairing ba.'ezrach ("among the native-born", H0249) and va.ger ("among the sojourner", H1616), both governed by the same preposition-plus-article construction (H9003), placing the two categories on equal grammatical footing.

The verbal chain after the relative clause consists of five sequential perfects (ve+perfect), a common Biblical Hebrew construction for narrating consequences in fixed order: khibbes ("he washed/will wash"), rachatz ("he washed/will wash"), tame' ("he was/will be unclean"), and taher ("he was/will be pure"). This chain does not use independent clauses with explicit connectors beyond the narrative vav (H9001); the sequence itself encodes the temporal and logical order of actions and states, moving from the eating, to washing of clothing (piel stem, H3526H) and body (qal stem, H7364), to a bounded period of impurity "until evening" ('ad ha'erev), ending in a stated change of status to tahor ("pure").

The distinction between the piel verb for washing garments and the qal verb for washing the body is a formal feature of the Hebrew that is not distinguished in the translations, which render both as "wash" or "bathe."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders nevelah and terefah as θνησιμαῖον ("that which died") and θηριάλωτον ("caught by a wild beast"), matching the Hebrew's two-term distinction. The Vulgate uses morticinum ("carcass") and captum a bestia ("taken by a beast"), also preserving the two categories. The Spanish SBLIBRE glosses these as "murió por sí solo" and "fue despedazado por las fieras," slightly expanding the compact Hebrew nouns into descriptive clauses.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.