What Does Leviticus 11:25 Mean?
And whoever bears any of their limp body washes his clothes and is unclean until evening.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And whosoever beareth ought of the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “bear” also names a burden and the act of lifting away, so the verse presents uncleanness as something carried that can be washed off, not as the carrier’s identity.
THE MEANING
When someone carries part of a carcass, the contact reaches their clothes; the clothes are washed, and the uncleanness lasts only until evening. The condition is real, but the verse marks its limit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that acquired uncleanness must define the carrier permanently: here it has a stated end.
THE ROOT
נֹשֵׂא
nōśēʾ
GROWS FROM
נשׂא
n-ś-ʾ
Lift, take up, carry.
“beareth” in this verse is nōśēʾ. The word names actively taking something up. The same root forms a word for a burden and appears in the phrase for bearing or lifting away crookedness; here, what is carried has a consequence, but washing and evening bound that consequence.
ALSO GROWS
maśśāʾ: A burden or load; something carried.
מַשָּׂא
The act of carrying and the burden itself share a root, making the carcass something taken up, not merely encountered.
nāśāʾ ʿāwōn: To bear or lift away crookedness; in some contexts, to forgive.
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same carrying verb can describe a burden being borne or lifted away, echoing this verse’s picture of a carried condition that has a boundary.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly joins uncleanness or sorrow with washing, presenting what clings as something that can be cleansed.
And whoever touches his lying place shall tread his garments, wash himself in the waters, and be soiled until evening.Remove my falling short with hyssop, and I am clean; tread me, and I am whiter than snow.And I say to him, My lord, you know. And he says to me, These are the ones who come out of the great pressure, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.“Borne” is נשׂא (nasa), the same Hebrew root as “beareth” here: to lift up or carry. The same verb reaches from carrying a carcass to bearing griefs, while this verse gives the carried condition a concrete limit, washing and evening.
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