What Does Leviticus 15:4 Mean?
Every lying place on which the one who flows lies is soiled, and every vessel on which he sits shall be 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
Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, shall be unclean.THE KEY
Hebrew names the bed with the same root as the act of lying, making the place that receives the body part of the verse’s account of its condition.
THE MEANING
The verse shows how a body’s condition reaches its surroundings: the bed receiving the person lying down and whatever bears the person’s sitting enter the same ritual state. The repeated verb marks that state in both places the body rests or sits.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The bodily condition stays only with the person and leaves the objects around him unchanged.
THE ROOT
הַמִּשְׁכָּב
hamishkav
GROWS FROM
שכב
Lie down, recline.
“lying place” in this verse is hamishkav. English separates “bed” from “lies,” but מִשְׁכָּב (mishkav) and יִשְׁכַּב (yishkav) grow from the same root: the bed is the place of lying. That shared root makes the body’s resting place part of the verse’s map of where its condition reaches.
ALSO GROWS
shakhav: Lie down, recline.
שָׁכַב
This is the action named by the same root as “bed” in the verse.
mishkav: Bed; lying place.
מִשְׁכָּב
The bed is named as the place where the body lies, not just as an unrelated object.
yishkav: He lies down.
יִשְׁכַּב
This is the verb form in the verse, sharing its root with the bed on which he lies.
הַזָּב
hazzav
GROWS FROM
זוב
Flow, run.
“issue” in this verse is hazzav. The Hebrew names the person by what flows from the body: הַזָּב (hazzav), “the one with a flow.” That root makes the bodily condition concrete as a discharge, whose reach the verse traces into the places where the person rests or sits.
ALSO GROWS
zav: One with a discharge; a flowing person.
זָב
This is the term for the person whose condition is described in the verse.
zov: Flow, discharge.
זוֹב
It names the bodily flow that marks the condition.
lazuv: To flow.
לָזוּב
The verb makes the root’s basic image explicit: something running from the body.
יִטְמָא
yitma
GROWS FROM
טמא
Be or become ritually unclean.
“soiled” in this verse is yitma. The Hebrew verb describes becoming unclean, naming a ritual status rather than a moral diagnosis. Its repetition applies that status to both the bed and the object the person sits on.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean; in a state of ritual impurity.
טָמֵא
This describes the status the verse assigns to the bed and the object.
tumah: Uncleanness, ritual impurity.
טֻמְאָה
This noun names the state repeated in the verse.
time: Make unclean, render impure.
טִמֵּא
This related form shows the same root can describe causing that status in something else.
THE PATTERN
Contact carries a person’s ritual state outward through shared surfaces, and in another scene it becomes the path by which bodily wholeness is reached.
And whoever touches his lying place shall tread his garments, wash himself in the waters, and be soiled until evening.And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and the living soul that touches it shall be unclean until evening.For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be delivered."THE THREAD
And this shall be his soiling in his flow. Whether his flesh runs with its flow, or his flesh is sealed shut against its flow, this is his soiling.Verse 3 uses the זוב (zuv) flow-family to name both the discharge and the body’s running. Verse 4 follows that flow-associated condition onto the bed and the things the person sits on.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us