Leviticus 15:1-12
Impurity can spread through contact and must be carefully managed to preserve holiness.
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When any man has a discharge from his body, because of his discharge he is unclean.
3 This shall be his uncleanness in his discharge: whether his body runs with his discharge, or his body has stopped from his discharge, it is his uncleanness.
4 “ ‘Every bed on which he who has the discharge lies shall be unclean; and everything he sits on shall be unclean.
5 Whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
6 He who sits on anything on which the man who has the discharge sat shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
7 “ ‘He who touches the body of him who has the discharge shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
8 “ ‘If he who has the discharge spits on him who is clean, then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
9 “ ‘Whatever saddle he who has the discharge rides on shall be unclean.
10 Whoever touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until the evening. He who carries those things shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
11 “ ‘Whomever he who has the discharge touches, without having rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
12 “ ‘The earthen vessel, which he who has the discharge touches, shall be broken; and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water.
Impurity can spread through contact and must be carefully managed to preserve holiness.
This passage establishes the laws governing abnormal bodily discharge in a man and details how such impurity spreads through contact to persons and objects.
After the summary closure of the skin, garment, and house impurity laws in Leviticus 14:54-57, Leviticus 15 turns to bodily discharges. Verses 1-12 introduce the case of a male discharge and describe the contact-chain by which uncleanness spreads through persons and objects.
Leviticus 15 addresses conditions that affected participation in camp and sanctuary life. The instructions gave Israel a shared covenant framework for handling bodily discharges without reducing the matter to either mere medicine or moral condemnation.
Bodily Discharges, Cleanness, and Guarding the Sanctuary From Uncleanness
The holy LORD orders embodied life, sexual fluids, bleeding, contact, cleansing, and worship access so that His dwelling among Israel is not defiled by uncleanness.