THE LORD SAID to Moses and Aaron, 2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any man has a bodily discharge, the discharge is unclean. 3Whether it continues flowing from his body or is blocked, it will make him unclean. This is how his discharge will bring about uncleanness:
4“‘Any bed the man with a discharge lies on will be unclean, and anything he sits on will be unclean. 5Anyone who touches his bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 6Whoever sits on anything that the man with a discharge sat on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.
7“‘Whoever touches the man who has a discharge must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.
8“‘If the man with the discharge spits on someone who is clean, that person must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.
9“‘Everything the man sits on when riding will be unclean, 10and whoever touches any of the things that were under him will be unclean till evening; whoever picks up those things must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.
11“‘Anyone the man with a discharge touches without rinsing his hands with water must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.
12“‘A clay pot that the man touches must be broken, and any wooden article is to be rinsed with water.
13“‘When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean. 14On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the LORD to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and give them to the priest. 15The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the LORD for the man because of his discharge.
16“‘When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 17Any clothing or leather that has semen on it must be washed with water, and it will be unclean till evening. 18When a man lies with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.
19“‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.
20“‘Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 22Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 23Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening.
24“‘If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.
25“‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. 26Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. 27Whoever touches them will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.
28“‘When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. 29On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 30The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the LORD for the uncleanness of her discharge.
31“‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.’”
32These are the regulations for a man with a discharge, for anyone made unclean by an emission of semen, 33for a woman in her monthly period, for a man or a woman with a discharge, and for a man who lies with a woman who is ceremonially unclean.
Original Meaning
DISCHARGES FROM GENITAL ORGANS are private matters. Thus, in Leviticus 15, determination of ritual impurities from these sources requires no examination by priests (contrast chs. 13–14). Individuals are responsible and accountable before the Lord to take proper precautions, notify each other as necessary, and avail themselves of any required ritual remedies.
Another difference from the outwardly visible “scale disease” of chapters 13–14 is the fact that some impure genital fluxes (i.e., nocturnal emission, ejaculation during intercourse, and menstruation) are healthy rather than abnormal. Of these, intercourse is voluntary. Male emissions of semen are not regular like menstruation and are not described by the root zwb (“flow”), which applies to the other less-sudden discharges in Leviticus 15.
In this chapter the abnormal impurity of a male is caused by a urethral discharge, such as pus or an excessive secretion of mucus. It can be caused mainly, but not exclusively, by gonorrhea: Blennorrhea urethrae or Gonorrhoea benigna, but not the venereal Gonorrhoea virulenta of more recent origin.1 The abnormal condition of a female involves a chronic vaginal discharge of blood resulting from a uterine disorder.2
Two patterns characterize the order in which chapter 15 treats genital discharges: Male precedes female, and the abnormal and normal categories create a chiasm:
a abnormal male (vv. 2–15)
b normal male (vv. 16–18)
b′ normal female (vv. 18–24)
a′ abnormal female (vv. 25–30)
Since verse 18 deals with the ritual impurity of sexual intercourse, which involves both genders, it provides a smooth transition from male to female discharges.
Because seminal emissions are of short duration, they give rise to light impurities that only require a man to bathe, launder any fabric or leather with semen on it, and wait until evening (vv. 16–18) for restoration to purity that allows contact with holy things. In the case of intercourse, these rules also apply to the woman (v. 18).
The slower zwb flows are more serious. For normal menstruation, impurity lasts seven days. If a flux is abnormal, a period of impurity persists as long as the symptoms continue, plus seven days beyond their cessation. As sources of impurity, the nonseminal fluxes communicate impurity to other objects and persons in a variety of ways. Objects are secondarily affected when the impure Israelite lies or sits on them. Persons are contaminated by contacting the impure individual or anything that has been under him or her.
A man with an abnormal discharge defiles anyone on whom he spits (v. 8) or anyone he touches (unless the man with the discharge has recently rinsed his hands, v. 11).3 He also contaminates some objects by touch, including an earthen vessel or wooden implement (v. 12).
Except when contact is by sexual intercourse, secondarily affected persons incur light impurities that require laundering clothes and bathing and waiting until evening. Sexual intercourse is a more intimate form of contact. So just as a woman shares equally in the light impurity of a man with whom she has intercourse (v. 18), a man who has intercourse with a menstruating woman shares her seven-day impurity.
Menstruation is a fairly severe impurity, lasting seven days. But because it is normal and regular, purification calls for no sacrifices. The text does not mention bathing either, but it can be assumed from the fact that purification with water is necessary even for the more minor impurities (e.g., v. 16; cf. 2 Sam. 11:2, 4). Since the regulations for a woman who has given birth and one who has a chronic discharge follow those of menstruation (Lev. 12:2; 15:25), we can assume that these women must also bathe.4
While monthly menstruation was undoubtedly inconvenient, an ancient Israelite woman was not ritually impure and therefore barred from participation in worship at the sanctuary as often as we might suppose. Women married young and generally had as many children as they could. There would not have been a market for contraceptives even if they had been invented. In other words, during much of her childbearing phase of life, a woman was in a state of pregnancy, which interrupts menstruation, or breast-feeding, which can suppress it. Furthermore, it appears that the onset of menstruation at puberty was later and its termination at menopause earlier than in modern times, when the menstruating years have expanded because of a richer diet.5
When an Israelite with an abnormal discharge is “pure” (Qal of ṭhr; 15:13, 28) in the sense of physically “healed,” he or she must wait seven days. At the end of this week the person must launder, bathe in “live” (i.e., flowing water/spring water, 15:13), and at that point becomes ritually “pure” (also Qal of ṭhr; 15:13, 28). In this context the meaning is: “pure enough for this stage” (cf. 14:8–9). There is more to the process.
On the eighth day the individual undergoing ritual cleansing must offer two birds as a purification offering supplemented by a burnt offering (15:14–15, 29–30). This pair is the same as the poor mother’s postpartum offering (12:8). The goal is to expiate (kipper) for (i.e., purge) the person from (privative min) his or her discharge (15:15, 30).6 This means that the sacrifice removes the remaining ritual impurity from the offerer.7
Leviticus 15:32–33 summarizes by simply listing the various kinds of cases covered in chapter 15, but verse 31 puts serious teeth into the legislation. Here at the end of the section of the book regulating physical ritual impurities, the Lord warns Moses and Aaron (cf. v. 1) to “set apart the Israelites from their impurity, lest they die through their impurity by polluting my Tabernacle which is among them.”8
In chapter 15 the Lord does not forbid the Israelites to incur the genital impurities. Indeed, it would be useless to do so because most of them are involuntary, and voluntary sexual intercourse is essential to continue the nation. However, God does demand that the Israelites limit effects of impurities to prevent their encroachment on the holy realm centered at the sanctuary. The people are to do this by taking precautions to avoid contact between impurity and holiness and by carrying out the appropriate ritual remedies that he has provided.
In 15:31 the words “by polluting my Tabernacle” do not limit the possibility of the sanctuary’s defilement to an impure person physically entering the sacred precincts. The implication is that anyone in the camp could defile the sanctuary simply by being illegitimately impure, that is, without undergoing proper purification (cf. Num. 19:13, 20). If it seems strange that impurity could travel through space in this way, keep in mind that we are dealing with dynamic conceptual categories rather than contagious transmission of physical entities (e.g., microorganisms). Remember that a person could become impure simply by entering a “scale-diseased” house (Lev. 14:36, 46–47). More to the point, a corpse in a tent contaminated persons and objects within that defined space (Num. 19:14–15). The Israelite camp was simply a larger unit of defined space, within which severe enough impurity defiled that which was most sensitive to it: the sacred domain of the sanctuary (cf. Num. 5:1–4).
Bridging Contexts
SEXUALITY AND IMPURITY/MORTALITY. In Leviticus 11 we read that the Lord wanted the Israelites to take into their bodies only “pure” food that was compatible with their holiness as his chosen people. In chapters 13–14 he was concerned that an outward appearance of decay not be associated with him and thereby misrepresent his holiness, which is characterized by life. In chapters 12 and 15, God pays attention to the private area of sexuality, marking a difference between himself and human beings, whose birth-death cycle is fraught with mortality. “The human cycle of procreation and death must be excluded from the realm of the eternal God, who creates life without suffering death.”9
Human sexuality and reproduction are not intrinsically impure. The Lord created this facet of life for perfect human beings in a perfect world (Gen. 1:27–28; 2:23–25). Made in the image of the holy God (1:26–27), they were designed to continue and participate in the divine process of creation, thereby emulating their Creator. So God intended sexuality to be a vital component of holy living (cf. the Song of Songs).
It is mortality resulting from the Fall (Gen. 3) that has sullied human sexuality in the sense that various aspects of the physical processes involved in our procreation, even the normal ones, underscore our mortal nature. With female reproductive potential or fulfillment comes loss of blood, which represents life. Accompanying male fertility is loss of semen, another “life liquid.”10 These healthy discharges are parodied by diseased fluxes that proceed from the same genital areas but do not contribute to reproduction.
Other rationales for the impurity of genital discharges could be suggested, but they are weak. (1) Menstruation eliminates ova (eggs) that die rather than coming to fruition. Similarly, each male ejaculation results in the deaths of millions of sperm, even if one of them manages to fertilize an ovum, thereby conceiving a new human being. However, with this theory we would be hard pressed to explain how taboos concerning sexuality, especially including restriction of contact with menstruants, are so widespread among other human cultures lacking microscopic knowledge.11 It is much easier to account for intercultural connotations of blood and semen, which are easily visible with the naked eye. Apparently ancient people did not know about ova, thinking instead that a woman’s role was basically to incubate the seed of life from the male.12
(2) Human procreation produces infants who are mortal. However, if the basis of impurity is the infant, why don’t we find evidence in Leviticus 12 that the newborn is impure, as we do in Hittite birth ritual texts?13
(3) Menstruation and diseased genital discharges interrupt fertility. But intercourse, which also incurs impurity, by no means interrupts fertility. Conversely, menopause terminates fertility but causes no impurity.
We have found that divine regulation of human sexuality had the purpose of protecting God’s holiness from association with human mortality by carefully delineating the impure/mortal category and separating it from the sacred category. Otherwise the Lord’s unique, inherent immortality (cf. 1 Tim. 6:16) would be devalued. At first glance it is depressing that God would emphasize the difference between himself and fallen human beings. On second thought, it is precisely this difference that gives us hope. Because he possesses such awesome, life-giving power, he can recreate us into much more than we are. Anything that diminishes his greatness simultaneously erodes our hope for receiving the amazing transformation that only he can give.
While distancing himself from human mortality, God did not attach any moral stigma to bodily sexual functions per se. All of the impure genital discharges in Leviticus 15 are involuntary except for sexual intercourse, which he established and blessed for continuation of the race (Gen. 1:28). Marriage is still honorable and the marriage bed remains morally pure (Heb. 13:4). Obviously people can and do abuse their sexuality by using it for immoral behavior, but all of this is outside the scope of Leviticus 15.
Evidence that this chapter retains the creation ideal of marital relations appears in its literary structure, which has verse 18 as its center. This verse deals with an emission of semen during intercourse as the last of the male genital discharges. However, because the act involves a woman, it serves as a transition to the female discharges covered in the rest of the chapter, which are formally introduced with ki (“when”) in verse 19. The transitional nature of verse 18 is heightened by its internal structure, in which the woman rather than the man appears first as the grammatical subject in Hebrew: “[This applies to] a woman, with whom a man has sexual relations; they shall bathe in water and remain impure until evening.”14
By reversing the expected order, verse 18 serves as an “inverted hinge” that anticipates the following topic and refers back to the earlier topic:
male (vv. 2–18)
female-male (v. 18)
female (vv. 19–30)
Thus, verse 18 binds male and female together rather than simply putting them beside each other. This structure reflects the creation ideal of equal responsibility in the sexual act and represents “in literary form the unification of man and wife as ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2:24).”15
Contemporary Significance
CONTAGION AND EPIDEMIC. Paul recognized that mortality is dynamic rather than static: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Rom. 5:12 NKJV). But in Leviticus, physical ritual impurity that represents mortality is conceptual rather than pathological or malformed in a medical or genetic sense. So how can it be communicable, as presented in chapter 15?
In his fascinating book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell points out that contagion occurs in many nonmedical areas of life:
. . . the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.16
Similarly, in ancient Israel the concept of mortality could spread like a virus through the influence of physical contact or location within a defined space. It was crucial that this contagious influence not reach and infect sacred things. The sphere of holiness/life was so opposed to that of impurity/mortality that the Lord could not even allow indirect contact between the two. It was not that death itself could actually make God mortal in the same way that it spread to all humankind. Rather, such contact would misrepresent the nature of God to the Israelites, starting a trend somewhat analogous to the “God is dead” movement of the 1960s.
Erosion of respect for God’s immortal nature, which contrasts with human mortality, inevitably leads human beings to underestimate their accountability to him. They lose the healthy fear of God that Christ encapsulated: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). As the immortal Source and Sustainer of life, God holds absolute power over human beings, who can and do die. He allows sinners to die so that they will not immortalize sin and all the infectious misery that goes with it (Gen. 3:22–24).
Ezekiel 22:26–29 describes what happened to the people of Judah when they lost their respect for God’s holiness:
Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain. Her prophets whitewash these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations. They say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says’—when the LORD has not spoken. The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice.
Notice that blurring ritual distinctions was accompanied by ethical sins. When the Lord was “profaned among them” (Ezek. 22:26) through disrespect for his holy things and holy time (Sabbaths), there was nothing to restrain stronger members of society from preying on those who were weaker. When God was lowered to the common level through a false priestly presentation, the people were ready to accept a deceptive prophetic “vision” that supported rather than opposed social injustice. Thus, the moral “immune system” of Judah was destroyed.
The Lord was unbelievably patient with his people, but their contagion of disrespect for divine holiness became an epidemic that took the nation beyond the point of no return “until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy” (2 Chron. 36:16). Physical destruction and exile soon followed (2 Kings 25; 2 Chron. 36; Ezek. 33:21–22).
How does contagion transform itself into an epidemic that is out of control? Gladwell explains:
These three characteristics—one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment—are the same three principles that define how measles moves through a grade-school classroom or the flu attacks every winter. Of the three, the third trait—the idea that epidemics can rise or fall in one dramatic moment—is the most important, because it is the principle that makes sense of the first two and that permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does. The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point.17
The more virulent and dangerous an infectious disease, the more careful we must be to contain it at the outset in order to prevent its contagion from becoming an epidemic. If influenza killed millions of people in the pandemic of 1918, what could Ebola and SARS do? The same principles appear in the Bible. Leviticus provides guidelines for containing various impurities, the more severe of which carry higher degrees of communicability. Ezekiel reports the calamitous effects of disrespect for the sacred that the regulations of Leviticus were designed to prevent.
While we are no longer required to literally observe the rules of Leviticus governing ritual impurities, reverence for God’s holiness is as important as ever. How do we portray God’s nature and character? Are we close to Leviticus or moving toward the stage described by Ezekiel? This question applies on a number of levels, including our individual and family lives, our church communities, and our nation. One attitude or act of reverence or irreverence leads to another. We influence ourselves as well as others. “Tipping Points” can occur on any level.
This is not a plea for legalism or judgmentalism. It is a call to examine ourselves for an accurate assessment of our faith relationship to God (2 Cor. 13:5), just as the Israelites were responsible for diagnosing their own private conditions of physical purity or impurity.
Leviticus encourages us by teaching that contagious evil can be contained and come to an end through water and blood. Romans encourages us that just as death spread to the entire human race because of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12), “how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (5:15). Because Christ became human and allowed our mortality to spread to him, paradoxically bringing our toxic impurity in contact with his holiness as our purification offering (see comments on Lev. 6:27), he reverses the contagion from evil to good.
Prominent religious philosophies teach that life and death, good and evil have always been and will always be with us. In ancient Egypt every tomb was a temple because death was holy, opening the way to the afterlife realm of the gods. But the ritual system of Leviticus, in which impurity that represents mortality is the mortal enemy of holiness, diametrically opposes the idea that death is holy and good or that we must accept evil and simply get used to it. Mortality is an intruder on Planet Earth, where God originally created human beings to be holy and to live.
In order to save human beings from mortality and thereby achieve his undying ideal for them, Christ strode into the seething masses of the world’s need, with evils of all kinds pressing on him from every side (e.g., Luke 8:45). He did not come to teach proper balance between a Yin and Yang of good and evil, but to give us abundant life (John 10:10). Sin, death, and mortality were not always here, and the Lord will have nothing to do with them except to help us escape their clutches and finally to destroy them (1 Cor. 15:51–55; Rev. 20:10, 14).
John Wesley caught the vision:
We see the general, the almost universal contagion; and yet it cannot approach to hurt us! Thanks be unto Him “who hath delivered us from so great a death, and doth still deliver!” And have we not farther ground for thankfulness, yea, and strong consolation, in the blessed hope which God hath given us, that the time is at hand, when righteousness shall be as universal as unrighteousness is now? Allowing that “the whole creation now groaneth together” under the sin of man, our comfort is, it will not always groan: God will arise and maintain his own cause; and the whole creation shall then be delivered both from moral and natural corruption. Sin, and its consequence, pain, shall be no more: Holiness and happiness will cover the earth. Then shall all the ends of the world see the salvation of our God; and the whole race of mankind shall know, and love, and serve God, and reign with him forever and ever!18