What Does Leviticus 22:6 Mean?
The living soul who has touched any such shall be unclean until evening, and shall not eat of the set-apart things unless he washes his flesh in the waters.
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 soul which hath touched any such shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water.THE KEY
What English calls the “soul” here is the living, embodied person whose contact changes access to set-apart food, with evening and washing marking the boundary.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as a living, embodied person: contact changes your ritual status and temporarily suspends eating from what is set apart. Evening bounds the condition, and washing your flesh with water marks the stated way back to the food.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that temporary uncleanness means permanent exclusion from what is set apart: the verse gives the restriction an evening boundary and a washing condition.
THE ROOT
תִּגַּע
tigaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
To touch, reach, or come into contact; the same consonants also underlie a noun for a stroke or affliction.
“touched” in this verse is tigaʿ. The Hebrew root holds ordinary contact and affliction in one word family. Here, touching is a consequential crossing of a ritual boundary, not just a passing physical detail.
ALSO GROWS
nagaʿ: To touch, reach, or come into contact
נָגַע
This is the verb used in the verse: contact changes the person’s ritual status.
negaʿ: A stroke, affliction, or plague
נֶגַע
Its shared root links touching with a forceful impact, giving contact a weight that the simple English word can conceal.
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh living soul
GROWS FROM
נפש
The living self or person; related verbal forms also carry the sense of recovery or refreshment.
The verse’s נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul) is the embodied person whose contact and flesh are named in the same sentence. English “soul” can sound detached from the body, while this word refers to the living person subject to the verse’s concrete condition.
ALSO GROWS
nephashot: Living souls or persons; the plural of נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul)
נְפָשׁוֹת
The plural form keeps this root grounded in living persons, not an abstract inner substance.
naphash: To recover or refresh oneself
נָפַשׁ
This related verb carries recovery within the same root family as the living self, echoing the verse’s bounded return to partaking.
הַקֳּדָשִׁים
haqqodashim the set-apart
GROWS FROM
קדש
To set apart or reserve for a sacred purpose.
“set-apart things” in this verse is haqqodashim the set-apart. The food belongs to the same root family as words for what is set apart and for the sanctuary. The verse describes a temporary boundary around access to that set-apart food, with evening and washing marking its limit.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This form names the quality shared by the food in the verse: it is reserved, not ordinary food.
miqdash: Sanctuary, a set-apart place
מִקְדָּשׁ
The shared root connects the set-apart food with the place set apart for it, making the restriction a boundary of access.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses bodily contact and washing to mark transitions in a person’s condition.
And whoever touches his lying place shall tread his garments, wash himself in the waters, and be soiled until evening.When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay from the spittle, and he smeared the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Leviticus calls the person נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul), the same Hebrew word Genesis uses for the embodied being that comes alive. That link places the restriction on a living person whose flesh can be washed, not on a separate, disembodied part of the self.
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