What Does Leviticus 15:31 Mean?
So you shall keep the children of Israel apart from their soiling, that they do not die in their soiling, when they soil my dwelling that is among them.
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
Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is among them.THE KEY
The tabernacle is among them, so uncleanness cannot remain a private condition.
THE MEANING
You are shown impurity as more than an individual’s status: it can reach the shared dwelling and bring death. Separation protects life because the tabernacle stands among the people, where sacred presence and communal life occupy the same space.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that uncleanness has no consequence beyond the individual. Here it reaches the tabernacle itself, and the consequence named is death.
THE ROOT
טֻמְאָה
ṭumʾāh ṭimmēʾ
GROWS FROM
ט־מ־א
ṭ-m-ʾ
To be ritually unclean or to render unclean.
“soiling” in this verse is ṭumʾāh ṭimmēʾ. The verse moves through one root from the people’s state of uncleanness to what happens when they defile the dwelling. The root makes impurity relational: it can cross a boundary and affect the place that stands among them.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean; ritually impure.
טָמֵא
Names the condition from which the people are separated.
ṭumʾāh: Uncleanness; impurity.
טֻמְאָה
Names the condition the verse repeats.
ṭimmēʾ: To defile; to render unclean.
טִמֵּא
Describes the effect that impurity can have upon the tabernacle.
מִשְׁכָּנִי
miškānî
GROWS FROM
ש־כ־ן
š-k-n
To dwell, settle, or abide.
The word for tabernacle grows from the word for dwelling. Its placement “among them” makes the sanctuary a dwelling in the community’s midst, not a distant sacred object.
ALSO GROWS
šākan: To dwell, settle, or abide.
שָׁכַן
The verb names the act that gives the tabernacle its character as a dwelling.
miškān: Dwelling place; tabernacle.
מִשְׁכָּן
The noun for the sanctuary carries the sense of an inhabited place.
šākēn: Neighbor; one who dwells nearby.
שָׁכֵן
This branch connects dwelling with nearness, echoing the tabernacle’s place among the people.
וְהִזַּרְתֶּם
vehizzartem
GROWS FROM
נ־ז־ר
n-z-r
To set apart, dedicate, or abstain.
“keep apart” in this verse is vehizzartem. The verb for separating the people belongs to a family that also describes consecration. Here separation is a dedicated boundary that prevents death.
ALSO GROWS
nāzīr: A set-apart person; a Nazirite.
נָזִיר
This branch shows separation as a distinct status, not merely distance.
nēzer: Diadem; mark of consecration.
נֵזֶר
Its association with consecration illuminates the boundary’s role in preserving what is set apart.
THE PATTERN
When divine presence dwells among a people, defilement of its dwelling carries consequences for the community.
And he said to me, Son of man, the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will settle among the children of Israel for the ages. The house of Israel shall no more make unclean my set-apart name, neither they nor their kings, with their harlotry, nor with the corpses of their kings in their high places.If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.THE THREAD
He makes a covering for the set-apart place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and for their rebellions in all their shortcomings, and so he does for the tent of meeting, which dwells among them in the midst of their uncleanness.Leviticus 16:16 uses the same impurity root and says the tabernacle remains among the people in the midst of their uncleanness. It opens “among them” as shared space: presence and impurity occupy the same place, which makes the boundary in this verse matter.
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