What Does Leviticus 11:36 Mean in the King James?
Nevertheless a fountain or pit, wherein there is plenty of water, shall be clean: but that which toucheth their carcase shall be unclean.
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
Here, contact, not mere proximity, is the hinge of uncleanness, and the gathered water remains an exception.
THE MEANING
The water source remains clean; the person who touches the carcass becomes unclean. The verse draws a boundary between gathered water and direct contact with death.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that death contaminates everything around it: the water source is explicitly clean, though the toucher is not.
THE ROOT
וְנֹגֵעַ
ve-nogeaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
to touch or reach
“toucheth” in this verse is ve-nogeaʿ. The verse assigns uncleanness to the one who makes contact. The same root also forms נֶגַע (negaʿ), a stroke or plague, holding the language of touch beside the language of affliction.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaʿ: To touch or come into contact.
נָגַע
The verse uses this root to locate uncleanness in physical contact.
negaʿ: A stroke, plague, or affliction.
נֶגַע
The shared root links contact with words for affliction, sharpening the consequence assigned to the touch.
מִקְוֵה־מַיִם
miqveh-mayim
GROWS FROM
קוה
to gather or collect
The phrase rendered “plenty of water” is a gathering of waters: the word pictures water collected in a source, not merely abundance. The verse marks that gathered water as clean even as the person touching the carcass becomes unclean.
ALSO GROWS
miqveh: A gathering or collection of water.
מִקְוֵה
This is the word describing the water in the source that remains clean.
yiqqāwû: Be gathered together; used of the waters in Genesis 1:9.
יִקָּווּ
The same root describes waters being gathered, linking this source to the image of collected waters.
THE PATTERN
Touch marks the threshold at which a condition passes between bodies or objects.
And if any beast, of which ye may eat, die; he that toucheth the carcase thereof shall be unclean until the even.Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.THE THREAD
Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.Haggai uses the same Hebrew root נגע (nagaʿ, “touch”) in a question about contact with corpse impurity. It extends this verse’s rule by asking whether impurity also passes from a contaminated person to whatever that person touches.
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