What Does Leviticus 15:16 Mean?
And if the lying down of seed goes out from any man, he shall wash all his flesh in the waters, and be soiled 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 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 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 lying down of seed” in this verse is zeraʿ. 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.
And the woman also with whom a man lies, in the lying down of seed, they shall both wash themselves in the waters, and be soiled until evening.But it shall be, when evening comes on, that he shall wash himself in the waters, and when the sun goes 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. On the seventh day he shall cleanse himself, and wash his garments, and bathe himself in waters, and shall be clean at evening.THE THREAD
And I will set opposition between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall 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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