What Does Leviticus 15:18 Mean?
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.
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
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.THE KEY
The phrase “seed of copulation” places intercourse in the language of sowing, and the verse makes its temporary bodily status shared by both people.
THE MEANING
Sexual union is named through seed, and the bodily response belongs to both people: both bathe in water and both remain unclean until evening. The condition described has a stated limit in time.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that one partner alone carries this status: the verse explicitly includes both, and gives the status an endpoint.
THE ROOT
זָרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow or scatter; seed, and by extension offspring.
“the lying down of seed” in this verse is zeraʿ. The Hebrew phrase שִׁכְבַת זָרַע (shikhvat zeraʿ, “lying of seed”) joins intercourse with the image of sowing. The seed-language carries a generative dimension within the description of the bodily event.
ALSO GROWS
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring or descendants.
זֶרַע
It is the word used in the verse, holding the physical seed and its generative possibility together.
zāraʿ: To sow, scatter seed.
זָרַע
This verb shares the seed’s root and makes the sowing image audible beneath the phrase “seed of copulation.”
רָחֲצוּ
rachatsu
GROWS FROM
רחץ
r-ḥ-ts
To wash or bathe.
“wash themselves” in this verse is rachatsu. The verb is plural: both people wash. The response is concrete and bodily, matching the shared status the verse names.
ALSO GROWS
verachatsu: And they shall wash or bathe.
וְרָחֲצוּ
This is the plural form in the verse, making the washing a shared act.
rachats: To wash or bathe.
רָחַץ
The same verb describes washing feet in Genesis 18:4, keeping its sense grounded in ordinary bodily washing.
טְמֵאִים
temeʾim
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
To be or become unclean; in this context, to have a temporary ritual status.
“soiled” in this verse is temeʾim. The verse says both are unclean “until the even,” giving this status a clear time boundary. Here the word marks a temporary condition rather than declaring either person permanently stained.
ALSO GROWS
tameʾ: Unclean.
טָמֵא
This is the singular form of the status named for both people in the verse.
tumʾah: Uncleanness or impurity.
טֻמְאָה
This noun from the same root names the condition as a state, which the verse bounds by time.
THE PATTERN
These purity instructions meet bodily conditions with washing where prescribed and a defined interval for the resulting status.
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.And if a woman flows, and her flow in her flesh is blood, she shall be in her separation seven days, and whoever touches her shall 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.THE THREAD
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.Leviticus 15:16 uses the same phrase, “seed of copulation,” for an emission from a man. Here that seed-language appears within intercourse, and the consequence is expressly shared: both wash and both remain unclean until evening.
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