What Does Leviticus 11:28 Mean in the King James?
And he that beareth the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: they are unclean unto you.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The bearer is marked by what he carries, but the mark has an appointed end.
THE MEANING
When you bear one of these carcasses, you wash your clothes and remain unclean until evening; contact with death has a real consequence. The verse also gives that condition a limit in time. What marks you is real, and it has an appointed end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that contact with uncleanness permanently defines the carrier: the text gives the condition an end at evening.
THE ROOT
הַנֹּשֵׂא
hannōśēʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
Lift, carry, bear
“beareth” in this verse is hannōśēʾ. The verse calls him the bearer, from נשא (nasa, carry or bear); the same seed forms מַשָּׂא (massa, a load) and the phrase נָשָׂא עָוֹן (nasa avon, bear crookedness). Carrying is active and consequential here: the man bears the carcass, and the verse says he becomes unclean for a set time.
ALSO GROWS
massāʾ: A burden or load
מַשָּׂא
A load is what someone bears, giving the verse’s verb a concrete branch.
nasa avon: To bear crookedness
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
This phrase carries the same verb into moral language, showing that bearing can describe more than lifting a physical object.
טָמֵא
ṭāmēʾ
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
Be unclean or ritually impure
The verse applies this root both to the carcasses, which are unclean unto you, and to the person who carries them, who is unclean until evening. The same word-family marks the boundary around the carcass and the temporary condition of its bearer.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean or ritually impure
טָמֵא
This form names the carrier’s condition, which the verse bounds by evening.
tum'ah: Impurity or uncleanness
טֻמְאָה
The related noun names the condition itself, making the verse’s limit in time part of its meaning.
THE PATTERN
Contact with impurity is real, while washing and a defined passage mark movement toward cleanness.
And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days.Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.The same verb נשא (nasa, carry or bear) names the carcass-bearer here and the one who bears griefs in Isaiah. Across both verses, bearing is bodily language for carrying something that has weight for the bearer.
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