What Does Leviticus 15:27 Mean in the King James?
And whosoever toucheth those things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself 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
A touch can change your state without making it permanent: the verse gives the uncleanness a washing and an evening boundary.
THE MEANING
Contact with these things makes you unclean, and that state has a defined span: until evening. Your clothes are laundered and your body is bathed, while the condition remains named through its appointed limit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that one contaminating contact fixes your identity permanently; the verse sets an endpoint at evening.
THE ROOT
נֹגֵעַ
nōgēaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
n-g-ʿ
Touch, reach, come into contact, or strike.
“toucheth” in this verse is nōgēaʿ. The same root can name both contact and an affliction that leaves a mark. English separates “touch” from “plague,” while Hebrew links them through the idea of something reaching or striking a person.
ALSO GROWS
negaʿ: Affliction, plague, or lesion.
נֶגַע
This noun shares the touch root, linking contact with an affliction that can mark the one it reaches.
higgiʿaʿ: Reach or arrive.
הִגִּיעַ
The root also describes something arriving; here, what touches is what reaches the person and changes their state.
יִטְמָא
yiṭmāʾ
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
Be unclean or become defiled.
“shall be unclean” in this verse is yiṭmāʾ. This verb names a state the person enters, and the verse itself bounds that state with “until the evening.” The uncleanness is real, but it is not without an endpoint.
ALSO GROWS
ṭumʾāh: Impurity or uncleanness.
טֻמְאָה
The noun names the condition that this verb says the person enters.
ṭimmēʾ: Defile or make unclean.
טִמֵּא
This form names the act of causing the state described in the verse.
וְכִבֶּס
wə-kibbēs
GROWS FROM
כבס
k-b-s
Wash or launder, especially clothing.
The clothes are laundered with this verb, while the body is bathed with a different Hebrew root, רחץ (rāḥaṣ, “bathe or wash”). The verse names cleansing of clothing and body as distinct actions.
ALSO GROWS
kōvēs: A fuller or launderer.
כֹּבֵס
This related form names the person whose work is washing garments.
məḵabbəsîm: Fullers or launderers.
מְכַבְּסִים
The plural form appears with “fullers’ soap,” keeping the root tied to the laundering of clothes.
THE PATTERN
Contact can transmit a state, while contact with a cleansing source can reverse it.
And for these ye shall be unclean: whosoever toucheth the carcase of them 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
And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root נגע (nagaʿ, “touch or reach”) as Leviticus 15:27. There, the touch of a coal accompanies crookedness being taken away, showing the other direction of contact: what reaches you can mark you, or cleanse you.
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