What Does Leviticus 15:16 Mean in the King James?
And if any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even.
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 Hebrew word זֶרַע (zeraʿ, “seed; offspring”) keeps bodily emission linguistically joined to sowing and the line of descendants.
THE MEANING
When a man’s seed goes out from him, the verse names washing his whole body and a state of uncleanness that lasts until evening. The text treats this as a bodily condition with a defined duration, not as a verdict of moral guilt.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that every bodily impurity is itself a moral offense: the verse marks a washing and a time boundary, without calling the emission wrongdoing.
THE ROOT
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
ז־ר־ע
z-r-ʿ
To sow or scatter seed.
The phrase שִׁכְבַת־זֶרַע (shikhvat zeraʿ, “emission of seed,” literally “lying of seed”) names the body’s emission through the language of seed. The same root reaches from seed that leaves the body to seed that is sown and offspring that continue a line.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow or scatter seed.
זָרַע
The verb makes the image in “seed” active: what leaves the body is named with the same root as what is sown.
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring or descendants.
זֶרַע
The noun can name both seed itself and the descendants that come from it, linking this bodily event to generative possibility.
THE PATTERN
A bodily condition that creates ritual impurity is marked by washing and a defined time for its end.
The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the even.But it shall be, when evening cometh on, he shall wash himself with water: and when the sun is down, he shall come into the camp again.And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.THE THREAD
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.The Hebrew זֶרַע (zeraʿ, “seed; offspring”) appears in both verses. In Leviticus it names bodily seed; in Genesis it names offspring, showing how one word holds both the body’s generative substance and the descendants that come from it.
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