What Does Leviticus 15:2 Mean?
Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When any man flows out of his flesh, by his flow he is soiled.
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
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean.THE KEY
The verse names the body’s flow as the source of ritual uncleanness, distinguishing a bodily condition from a deed of wrongdoing.
THE MEANING
A discharge from the body places the man in a state called unclean; the verse names the flow as the reason for that status. Nothing in this sentence calls the man guilty or says he chose the condition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The claim that every state called unclean means personal guilt falls away here; the stated cause is a bodily discharge, not a named wrongdoing.
THE ROOT
זוֹבוֹ
zōvô
GROWS FROM
זוב
Root זוב (zûv) means to flow or stream.
זוֹבוֹ means his flow or discharge, with a possessive ending attached to the root זוב. The same seed appears in זָב (zāv, flowing), tying the condition to the body’s ongoing flow rather than to a chosen act.
ALSO GROWS
zāv: Flowing; one who flows.
זָב
This participle appears in the verse’s description of the man, linking the person’s condition to the flow itself.
yāzûv: Flows.
יָזוּב
In Leviticus 15:25 the same root describes blood that flows, showing the word’s use for an ongoing bodily discharge.
טָמֵא
ṭāmēʾ
GROWS FROM
טמא
Root טמא (ṭ-m-ʾ) means to be impure or ritually unclean.
“soiled” in this verse is ṭāmēʾ. This root names a state of impurity; by itself, it does not name intent or wrongdoing. Here the sentence ties that status to the discharge, keeping bodily condition distinct from moral blame.
ALSO GROWS
ṭumʾāh: Impurity or uncleanness.
טֻמְאָה
This noun uses the same root to name the state that the verse calls טָמֵא.
ṭimmēʾ: To make unclean or defile.
טִמֵּא
This verb shares the root consonants and shows the related language of entering or placing something in an impure state.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names bodily conditions plainly, making the body’s state visible within ritual instruction and personal story.
And the priest shall look upon the stroke in the skin of the flesh; and when the hair in the stroke has turned white, and the stroke in its sight is deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a stroke of the striking; and the priest shall look upon him, and declare him soiled.And if a woman flows with the flow of her blood many days outside the time of her separation, or if it runs beyond the time of her separation, all the days of the flow of her soiling shall be like the days of her separation, and she is soiled.And a certain woman, who had a flow of blood for twelve years,THE THREAD
And when the one who flows is cleansed of his flow, then he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing, and tread his garments, and wash his flesh in living waters, and shall be clean.The root זוב names the flow in this verse and the issue in Leviticus 15:13. There, the flow has a boundary, after which a defined process leads to clean status; the condition is not a permanent identity.
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