Numbers 19:16
וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר־יִגַּע עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה בַּֽחֲלַל־חֶרֶב אוֹ בְמֵת אֽוֹ־בְעֶצֶם אָדָם אוֹ בְקָבֶר יִטְמָא שִׁבְעַת יָמִֽים׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְכֹ֨ל אֲשֶׁר־יִגַּ֜ע עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הַשָּׂדֶ֗ה בַּֽחֲלַל־חֶ֙רֶב֙ א֣וֹ בְמֵ֔ת אֽוֹ־בְעֶ֥צֶם אָדָ֖ם א֣וֹ בְקָ֑בֶר יִטְמָ֖א שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִֽים׃
καὶ πᾶς ὃς ἐὰν ἅψηται ἐπὶ προσώπου τοῦ πεδίου τραυματίου ἢ νεκροῦ ἢ ὀστέου ἀνθρωπίνου ἢ μνήματος, ἑπτὰ ἡμέρας ἀκάθαρτος ἔσται.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Si quis in agro tetigerit cadaver occisi hominis, aut per se mortui, sive os illius, vel sepulchrum, immundus erit septem diebus.
“Si alguien en el campo toca el cuerpo de un hombre muerto a espada, o un cadáver, o un hueso humano, o una tumba, quedará impuro por siete días.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y cualquiera que tocare en muerto á cuchillo sobre la haz del campo, ó en muerto, ó en hueso humano, ó en sepulcro, siete días será inmundo.
Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Numbers 19:16 extends corpse-impurity to anyone who touches, in open ground, a person killed by a sword, any dead body, a human bone, or a grave. The verse states that such contact renders the person ritually unclean for seven days.
Key words
- khol ("every", H3605) — introduces the universal casuistic subject "whoever," combined with the relative 'asher to form "everyone who."
- yigga' ("he will touch", H5060) — qal imperfect, marking a future/generic action: any instance of touching triggers the law.
- chalal ("[one] slain of", H2491A) — construct form linked to cherev ("a sword", H2719), producing the phrase "one slain by a sword," a specific category of corpse.
- 'etzem ("a bone of", H6106G) — construct form joined to 'adam ("a human", H0120G), specifying "a human bone" as distinct from other bones.
- yitma' ("he will be unclean", H2930A) — qal imperfect describing the resulting state of impurity, parallel in form to yigga', tying cause and effect grammatically.
What the text says
The verse is built as a casuistic legal sentence: a protasis introduced by khol 'asher ("everyone who...") followed by the verb yigga' ("he will touch"), and an apodosis stating the consequence, yitma' shiv'at yamim ("he will be unclean seven days"). The four objects of contact — chalal-cherev ("one slain of a sword"), met ("a dead [body]", H4191, in participial form), 'etzem 'adam ("a bone of a human"), and kever ("a grave", H6913) — are joined by the repeated conjunction 'o ("or", H0176A), creating a list of equivalent triggers for impurity rather than a hierarchy.
The construct chains are significant: chalal-cherev does not simply mean "a dead man" but specifically "one slain by a sword," narrowing the first category to violent death by that weapon. Likewise 'etzem 'adam restricts the bone in question to a human one, as opposed to an animal bone. The phrase 'al-penei hasadeh ("on the face of the field", H6440J + H7704G) locates the contact spatially, in open, unenclosed ground, distinguishing this scenario from contact occurring inside a tent, which is treated elsewhere in the chapter.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders chalal-cherev ("one slain of a sword") with the single term τραυματίου ("of a wounded/slain one"), without an explicit equivalent for cherev ("sword"). The Vulgate expands met ("a dead [body]") into "per se mortui" ("of one who died by himself"), an interpretive gloss not present in the Hebrew text, which simply uses the participle met ("dead"). The BSB reflects this same expansion with "died of natural causes," a phrase supplied by the Vulgate tradition rather than by the Hebrew wording itself.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.