What Does Leviticus 15:4 Mean in the King James?
Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, 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
Hebrew names the bed with the same root as the act of lying, making the place that receives the body part of the verse’s account of its condition.
THE MEANING
The verse shows how a body’s condition reaches its surroundings: the bed receiving the person lying down and whatever bears the person’s sitting enter the same ritual state. The repeated verb marks that state in both places the body rests or sits.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The bodily condition stays only with the person and leaves the objects around him unchanged.
THE ROOT
הַמִּשְׁכָּב
hamishkav
GROWS FROM
שכב
Lie down, recline.
English separates “bed” from “lies,” but מִשְׁכָּב (mishkav) and יִשְׁכַּב (yishkav) grow from the same root: the bed is the place of lying. That shared root makes the body’s resting place part of the verse’s map of where its condition reaches.
ALSO GROWS
shakhav: Lie down, recline.
שָׁכַב
This is the action named by the same root as “bed” in the verse.
mishkav: Bed; lying place.
מִשְׁכָּב
The bed is named as the place where the body lies, not just as an unrelated object.
yishkav: He lies down.
יִשְׁכַּב
This is the verb form in the verse, sharing its root with the bed on which he lies.
הַזָּב
hazzav
GROWS FROM
זוב
Flow, run.
“issue” in this verse is hazzav. The Hebrew names the person by what flows from the body: הַזָּב (hazzav), “the one with a flow.” That root makes the bodily condition concrete as a discharge, whose reach the verse traces into the places where the person rests or sits.
ALSO GROWS
zav: One with a discharge; a flowing person.
זָב
This is the term for the person whose condition is described in the verse.
zov: Flow, discharge.
זוֹב
It names the bodily flow that marks the condition.
lazuv: To flow.
לָזוּב
The verb makes the root’s basic image explicit: something running from the body.
יִטְמָא
yitma
GROWS FROM
טמא
Be or become ritually unclean.
The Hebrew verb describes becoming unclean, naming a ritual status rather than a moral diagnosis. Its repetition applies that status to both the bed and the object the person sits on.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean; in a state of ritual impurity.
טָמֵא
This describes the status the verse assigns to the bed and the object.
tumah: Uncleanness, ritual impurity.
טֻמְאָה
This noun names the state repeated in the verse.
time: Make unclean, render impure.
טִמֵּא
This related form shows the same root can describe causing that status in something else.
THE PATTERN
Contact carries a person’s ritual state outward through shared surfaces, and in another scene it becomes the path by which bodily wholeness is reached.
And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.THE THREAD
And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness.Verse 3 uses the זוב (zuv) flow-family to name both the discharge and the body’s running. Verse 4 follows that flow-associated condition onto the bed and the things the person sits on.
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