What Does Leviticus 22:5 Mean?
Or whoever touches any swarming thing, by which he may be made unclean, or a man from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever uncleanness he has;
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
Or whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, or a man of whom he may take uncleanness, whatsoever uncleanness he hath;THE KEY
Impurity is not sealed inside its carrier; touch makes it transferable.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the reader with a porous boundary: uncleanness can be acquired through contact, from a creeping thing or another person. Whatever uncleanness the person bears is part of what the contact carries.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that uncleanness stays sealed inside the person carrying it.
THE ROOT
יִטְמָא
yiṭmāʾ
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
to be or become unclean; to defile
“be made unclean” in this verse is yiṭmāʾ. This root names both a condition and its movement: a person can become unclean, and uncleanness can be imparted. English repeats “unclean” and “uncleanness,” while Hebrew ties being defiled, making something defiled, and impurity itself to the same root.
ALSO GROWS
tumʾāh: uncleanness, impurity
טֻמְאָה
This noun names the condition the person carries and that another can receive through contact.
ṭimmēʾ: to make unclean, defile
טִמֵּא
This verb expresses the transition the verse describes: contact makes uncleanness transferable.
THE PATTERN
Contact is a point of transfer: uncleanness can spread through touch, while cleansing can reach the unclean through touch.
By these you are made unclean. Whoever touches their limp body is unclean until evening.And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and the living soul that touches it shall be unclean until evening.And Jesus, stirred in his inward parts, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will. Be clean."THE THREAD
Then Haggai said, If one who is unclean by a corpse touches any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.Haggai uses the same טמא root family to make the transfer explicit: contact passes uncleanness from the person to what is touched. Leviticus 22:5 names a person as a carrier too, extending the same chain.
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