The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Uncleanness of Women
Leviticus 15:19–27 — The Uncleanness of Women. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
19When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- wə·’iš·šāh ṯih·yeh zō·ḇāh zā·ḇāh yih·yeh dām biḇ·śā·rāh tih·yeh ḇə·nid·dā·ṯāh šiḇ·‘aṯ yā·mîm wə·ḵāl han·nō·ḡê·a‘ bāh yiṭ·mā ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And a woman, when she has a discharge — blood being her flux in her flesh — seven days she shall be in her menstrual separation; and everyone who touches her shall be unclean until the evening.
Where the English smooths the original
To restrain the Jews from sharing these superstitions, and from resorting to any of these inhuman acts, as well as for sanitary purposes, the Lawgiver ordained these benign and necessary rules.Ellicott reads the law against its pagan background: where the surrounding nations isolated and brutalized women in this state with "superstitions" and "inhuman acts," the Lawgiver gives "benign and necessary rules" that restrain cruelty.
As the discharge does not last as a rule more than four or five days, the period of seven days was fixed on account of the significance of the number seven. In this condition she rendered every one who touched her unclean ( Leviticus 15:19 ), everything upon which she lay or sat ( Leviticus 15:20 )K&D explains why seven days and not four or five: the span is fixed by "the significance of the number seven," the covenant measure, not by the discharge itself.
She shall be put apart — Not out of the camp, but from converse with her husband and others, and from access to the house of God. Seven days — During the time of her infirmity, which might perhaps continue so long, and it was decent to allow time for her purification after the ceasing of her issue.Benson fixes the scope of niddâh: separation from the sanctuary and the marriage bed, not banishment from the camp like the leper.
if a woman have an issue—Though this, like the leprosy, might be a natural affection, it was anciently considered contagious and entailed a ceremonial defilement which typified a moral impurity.JFB names the typology directly: the natural condition is made to "typify a moral impurity" — the ceremonial pointing past itself to the moral.
20Anything on which she lies or sits during her menstruation will be unclean,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵōl ‘ā·lāw ’ă·šer tiš·kaḇ wə·ḵōl ’ă·šer- tê·šêḇ bə·nid·dā·ṯāh yiṭ·mā ‘ā·lāw yiṭ·mā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And everything on which she lies in her separation shall be unclean; and everything on which she sits shall be unclean.
Where the English smooths the original
And everything that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean,.... During her being apart from her husband, with whom she might be, and do all offices for him, but not lie with him; and whatsoever she lay upon during this time, bed or couch, and the clothes upon them, were unclean: everything also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean; chair, stool, &c. as is the case of a man, Leviticus 15:4 .Gill draws the careful line: she may keep the household and serve her husband; only the marriage bed and the contaminated furniture are barred — and the rule exactly matches the man's case of v. 4.
That is, when she has her period, by which she is separate from her husband, from the tabernacle and from touching any holy thing.The Geneva gloss unpacks niddâh as a three-fold separation: from husband, from tabernacle, and from every holy thing.
21and anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵāl han·nō·ḡê·a‘ bə·miš·kā·ḇāh yə·ḵab·bês bə·ḡā·ḏāw wə·rā·ḥaṣ bam·ma·yim wə·ṭā·mê ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And everyone who touches her bed shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening.
Where the English smooths the original
And whosoever toucheth her bed. —The regulations in these three verses are the same as those laid down in Leviticus 15:4-6 .Ellicott marks the exact symmetry: the woman's defilement-by-contact rules (vv. 21–23) reproduce, point for point, the man's rules of vv. 4–6.
And whosoever toucheth her bed,.... The same thing that is said of a profluvious man, and so in Leviticus 15:22 .Gill confirms the parallel: the law of the woman's bed reproduces the law of the man's (v. 5), the same contagion handled the same way.
In this condition she rendered every one who touched her unclean ( Leviticus 15:19 ), everything upon which she lay or sat ( Leviticus 15:20 ), every one who touched her bed or whatever she sat upon ( Leviticus 15:21 , Leviticus 15:22 ), also any one who touched the blood upon her bed or seatK&D lays out the whole descending chain of contagion — person, bed, seat, and even the blood upon them — each contact transmitting the unclean state, cleared (the block continues) only by washing and the coming of evening.
22Whoever touches any furniture on which she was sitting must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵāl han·nō·ḡê·a‘ bə·ḵāl kə·lî ‘ā·lāw ’ă·šer- tê·šêḇ yə·ḵab·bês bə·ḡā·ḏāw wə·rā·ḥaṣ bam·ma·yim wə·ṭā·mê ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And everyone who touches any vessel on which she sat shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening.
Where the English smooths the original
And whosoever toucheth anything that she sat upon,.... Which was appropriated to her to sit upon, as the Targum of Jonathan, which was her proper and peculiar seat, what she usually sat upon; such were obliged to wash their clothes and bathe, as in all the above cases. See Leviticus 15:5 .Gill, following the Targum, reads the defiled "thing" as her habitual seat, and notes the cleansing requirement is uniform with every prior case in the chapter.
We need not be curious in explaining these laws; but have reason to be thankful that we need fear no defilement, except that of sin, nor need ceremonial and burdensome purifications. These laws remind us that God sees all things, even those which escape the notice of men.Henry lifts the eye from the detail to the principle: under the gospel the only defilement to fear is sin, yet these laws still testify that God sees what men never notice.
23And whether it is a bed or furniture on which she was sitting, whoever touches it will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im hū ‘al- ham·miš·kāḇ ’ōw hak·kə·lî ‘al- ’ă·šer- hî yō·še·ḇeṯ- ‘ā·lāw bə·nā·ḡə·‘ōw- ḇōw yiṭ·mā ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And if it is on the bed or on the vessel on which she was sitting, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening.
Where the English smooths the original
Whilst the former two verses declare that if any one touches the bed itself, or the thing on which she sat, he contracts such a degree of defilement that he must wash his clothes, bathe his whole body, and remain in a state of pollution till sundown, the verse before us enacts that if he happens to touch any vessel, garment, or any other objects which are lying on the defiling bed or seat in question, he has only to remain unclean till sundown, without having to wash his garments. The defilement in this case is not primary, but secondary.Ellicott draws the law's fine gradation: direct contact with bed or seat demands washing and bathing; indirect contact with what merely lay upon them requires only waiting for sundown — primary versus secondary defilement.
also any one who touched the blood upon her bed or seat ( Leviticus 15:23 , where הוּא and בּו are to be referred to דּם); and they remained unclean till the evening, when they had to wash their clothes and bathe themselves.K&D resolves the grammatical crux by referring the pronouns to dām ("blood"): the verse legislates contact with the blood itself upon the bed or seat.
so defiling was a woman in such circumstances, and to whom the Scriptures often compare unclean persons and things: and Pliny (i) speaks of menstrues as very infectious, or worse, to various creatures and things, in a natural way. (i) Nat. Hist. l. 7. c. 15.Gill notes both that Scripture often makes this condition a figure of moral uncleanness, and that Pliny records the ancient (mistaken) belief in its natural infectiousness.
24If a man lies with her and her menstrual flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will become unclean.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im ’îš ’ō·ṯāh šā·ḵōḇ yiš·kaḇ nid·dā·ṯāh ū·ṯə·hî ‘ā·lāw wə·ṭā·mê šiḇ·‘aṯ yā·mîm wə·ḵāl ham·miš·kāḇ ‘ā·lāw ’ă·šer- yiš·kaḇ yiṭ·mā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And if a man indeed lies with her, and her separation comes upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean.
Where the English smooths the original
The verse before us, on the contrary, refers simply to the possibility of menstruation commencing during the act of conjugal intercourse, when the man would be involuntarily defiled through the unexpected uncleanness of the woman.K&D distinguishes this verse from the capital offence of Lev 18:19/20:18: here the defilement is involuntary, the onset coming unexpectedly during the act of intercourse, not a willful violation.
This must refer to an unexpected occurrence. Intercourse during the acknowledged period was a heavy crime, and was to be punished by "cutting off" Leviticus 18:19 ; Leviticus 20:18 ; Ezekiel 18:6 .Barnes sets the boundary: this is an accident, not the deliberate sin of Lev 18:19 and 20:18, which carried the penalty of being cut off from the people.
Seven days — If he did this ignorantly; but if it were done with his own knowledge, and that of the woman, they were both, after being accused and convicted, to be punished with death, Leviticus 20:18 ; for as there was a turpitude in the action, so it would be very prejudicial to the children should any be then begotten, as they would probably be weak or leprous.Benson reads the seven-day rule as covering ignorant defilement, with deliberate violation drawing the death penalty of Lev 20:18 — and notes the protective, near-medical concern behind the law.
It is generally supposed that the case treated in this verse is different from that contemplated in Leviticus 18:19 , Leviticus 20:18 . If, as some think, the three passages refer to the same act, they cannot all be from the same source.Cambridge surfaces the critical question honestly: most read v. 24 as a different (accidental) case from the capital crime of chs. 18 and 20, but if they are the same act, source-critics infer different authorship.
Not presumptuously but ignorantly, as Aben Ezra observes; for he was guilty of cutting off, that lay with her wilfully, Leviticus 20:18 , and her flowers be upon her; or, "her separation" (k), her monthly courses not being ceased: he shall be unclean seven daysGill, with Aben Ezra, ties the whole case to the word ignorantly: it is the inadvertent act, since the wilful one incurred karet (Lev 20:18). He also preserves the lexical fact behind "her flowers" — the Hebrew is nid·dā·ṯāh, "her separation" (so Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius) — the unit's keyword recurring here of the man's defilement.
25When a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days at a time other than her menstrual period, or if it continues beyond her period, she will be unclean all the days of her unclean discharge, just as she is during the days of her menstruation.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- wə·’iš·šāh yā·zūḇ zō·wḇ dā·māh rab·bîm yā·mîm ‘eṯ- bə·lō nid·dā·ṯāh ’ōw ḵî- ṯā·zūḇ ‘al- nid·dā·ṯāh hî tih·yeh ṭə·mê·’āh kāl- yə·mê ṭum·’ā·ṯāh zō·wḇ kî·mê nid·dā·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And a woman, when her flux of blood flows many days not in the time of her separation, or when it flows beyond her separation, all the days of the flux of her uncleanness she shall be as in the days of her separation: she is unclean.
Where the English smooths the original
Have an issue . . . many days. —The last case is that of a chronic issue, arising from a derangement in the constitution. This is the kind of complaint from which the woman suffered who came to Christ ( Matthew 9:20 ; Luke 8:44 ). As long as she suffered from it, which lasted sometimes for many years, she defiled and was defiling in the same way as in her menses.Ellicott identifies the chronic case directly with the Gospel woman of Matthew 9 and Luke 8 — the very affliction Leviticus legislates is the one Christ heals by touch.
Not an ordinary but an extraordinary one, not within that time, but out of it, and which continued three days at least; so the Targum of Jonathan, and sometimes many years; as the poor woman Christ cured, which she had had twelve years; see Gill on Matthew 9:20 , or if it run beyond the time of her separation; beyond the seven days of her separation, and so out of the usual way and time of it; whereby it appears to be somewhat extraordinary and unusualGill measures the chronic case's weight — possibly years, like the woman ill twelve years whom Christ cured — distinguishing the abnormal, extraordinary flux from the ordinary seven-day separation.
The fifth case of an issue - that of excessive menstruation, or menstruation occurring at the wrong time. This was probably the disease of the woman "who had an issue of blood" ( Matthew 9:20 ; Mark 5:25 ; Luke 8:43 ).The Pulpit Commentary independently makes the same identification across all three Synoptics — the chronic issue of Leviticus 15:25 is the affliction of the woman in the Gospels.
If the issue be abnormal, it is of the nature of a disease, and is treated in the same manner as the first case ( Leviticus 15:2-15 ). The woman in the Gospel ( Matthew 9:20 ; Mark 5:25 ; Luke 8:43 ) was thus afflicted.Cambridge classifies the abnormal flux as a disease, handled like the male case of vv. 2–15, and confirms the Gospel identification a third time.
26Any bed on which she lies or any furniture on which she sits during the days of her discharge will be unclean, like her bed during her menstrual period.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kāl- ham·miš·kāḇ ‘ā·lāw ’ă·šer- tiš·kaḇ kāl- hak·kə·lî ‘ā·lāw ’ă·šer tê·šêḇ yə·mê zō·w·ḇāh yih·yeh- nid·dā·ṯāh yih·yeh ṭā·mê lāh wə·ḵāl kə·miš·kaḇ kə·ṭum·’aṯ nid·dā·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Every bed on which she lies all the days of her flux shall be to her like the bed of her separation; and every vessel on which she sits shall be unclean, like the uncleanness of her separation.
Where the English smooths the original
Every bed whereon she lieth. —The rules here laid down about her defilement and defiling are the same as those in Leviticus 15:20-22 .Ellicott confirms the law's economy: the chronic case (vv. 26–27) simply re-applies the menstrual rules of vv. 20–22 — no new legislation, only extension.
Shall be unclean as the bed on which she lay when she had her natural disease.The Geneva gloss makes the comparison plain: the chronic-issue bed is unclean exactly as the menstrual bed, the diseased state measured by the natural one.
she was to be unclean as long as her unclean issue continued, just as in the days of her monthly uncleanness, and she defiled her couch as well as everything upon which she sat, as in the other case, also every one who touched either her or these things.K&D summarizes the whole extension: couch, seat, and every toucher defiled by the chronic flux exactly as by the monthly one — the same contagion, the same remedy.
27Anyone who touches these things will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵāl han·nō·w·ḡê·a‘ bām yiṭ·mā wə·ḵib·bes bə·ḡā·ḏāw wə·rā·ḥaṣ bam·ma·yim wə·ṭā·mê ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And everyone who touches them shall be unclean; and he shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening.
Where the English smooths the original
And whosoever toucheth those things shall be unclean,.... Her bed and seat; the Septuagint version is, "that toucheth her", see Leviticus 15:19 , and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even; let it be observed, that in all the above passages, where it is said, "he shall bathe himself in water", the Targum of Jonathan adds, in forty seahs or pecks of water; for this was done by dipping the body all over.Gill notes both the textual variant (LXX "toucheth her" against the Hebrew "those things") and the rabbinic gloss that bathing meant total immersion in forty seahs of water — the whole body dipped.
This ceremonial defilement had to be removed by an appointed method of ceremonial expiation, and the neglect of it subjected any one to the guilt of defiling the tabernacle, and to death as the penalty of profane temerity.JFB underlines the seriousness of the prescribed cleansing: to neglect it was to risk defiling the tabernacle and to fall under the death-penalty for presumption — the washing was no optional courtesy.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens with a deliberate hinge. John Gill, following Aben Ezra, marks it: "Having finished... what was to be said of the male, now the Scripture begins with the female." The two halves of Leviticus 15 are built on one word — zôwb (H2101, "flux"), which the Verifier finds in only ten verses of the whole Bible, almost all of them here. The man's discharge (v. 2) and the woman's (v. 19) are framed by the identical rare noun, and the chronic case (v. 25) repeats it again. The Verifier confirms the verbal tie: Leviticus 15:19 and 15:2 share zôwb (10 vv) and zûwb (41 vv) — the same flux-vocabulary binding male and female under one law. And the Hebrew of v. 19 keeps a reticence the English unfolds: biḇ·śā·rāh, "in her flesh," which Poole and Gill both read as the same delicate euphemism used of the man at v. 2 — "her secret parts, as the word flesh is taken Leviticus 15:2." The law is symmetrical and discreet at once: it names what defiles, and veils it.
The keyword the unit turns on is niddâh (H5079), from a root meaning "properly, rejection / putting apart" — a rare word (24 verses) that the older versions render "she shall be put apart" (Geneva, Benson, Poole). Joseph Benson fixes its scope precisely: she is put apart "not out of the camp, but from converse with her husband and others, and from access to the house of God." The Geneva gloss widens the lens: separated "from her husband, from the tabernacle and from touching any holy thing." This is exclusion from the sanctuary, not exile from the community. And Keil & Delitzsch insists the seven days are theological, not clinical: "As the discharge does not last as a rule more than four or five days, the period of seven days was fixed on account of the significance of the number seven." The law rounds the natural up to the covenant measure. The word will not stay in the ritual code: Jamieson, Fausset & Brown hears it already pointing past itself — the defilement "typified a moral impurity" — and the prophets prove him right, lifting niddâh out of Leviticus to name Israel's moral uncleanness (Ezek 36:17; Ezra 9:11).
What follows is one of the most carefully graded laws in the Torah, and the voices catch its precision. Charles Ellicott draws the gradation that the Hebrew encodes by what it includes and omits: direct contact with bed or seat demands the full remedy — "he must wash his clothes, bathe his whole body, and remain in a state of pollution till sundown" — but indirect contact, with what merely lay upon them, requires "only to remain unclean till sundown, without having to wash his garments. The defilement in this case is not primary, but secondary." The Hebrew marks this exactly: v. 23 alone drops the wash-and-bathe clause. The cleansing itself is two-fold and distinct: kâbaç ("trample," H3526) for the garments, râchats ("lave," H7364) for the body — clothes trodden clean, flesh immersed. Gill preserves the tradition that the bathing meant total immersion "in forty seahs... of water; for this was done by dipping the body all over." Yet even the full washing does not finish the matter: the toucher is unclean "until the evening" (ʻereb). Water cleanses; the day must also turn. The defilement is real, contagious, and bounded — never permanent, always remediable by the appointed means.
One verse turns from furniture to the marriage bed, and the voices divide over it more sharply than anywhere else in the unit. The Hebrew is emphatic — šā·ḵōḇ yiš·kaḇ, an infinitive absolute doubling the verb, "lying he lies" — and Keil & Delitzsch insists "The meaning cannot be merely if he lie upon the same bed with her, but if he have conjugal intercourse." The fork is over which case the law contemplates. K&D, Barnes, and Benson read an inadvertent defilement — K&D: "the possibility of menstruation commencing during the act of conjugal intercourse, when the man would be involuntarily defiled" — distinct from the deliberate sin of Leviticus 18:19 and 20:18, which carried karet, being cut off. Barnes: "This must refer to an unexpected occurrence. Intercourse during the acknowledged period was a heavy crime." Cambridge surfaces the unresolved tension with full honesty: "It is generally supposed that the case treated in this verse is different from that contemplated in Leviticus 18:19, Leviticus 20:18. If, as some think, the three passages refer to the same act, they cannot all be from the same source." The man who is defiled takes on her very state — her niddâh "comes upon him" — for seven days, the full span she bears.
The unit's last case is the longest shadow it casts. Charles Ellicott names it without hesitation: "The last case is that of a chronic issue... This is the kind of complaint from which the woman suffered who came to Christ (Matthew 9:20; Luke 8:44)." Gill measures its weight — "sometimes many years; as the poor woman Christ cured, which she had had twelve years" — and its full cost: "neither be admitted to her husband's bed, nor to the house of God, which made her condition a very deplorable one." The Pulpit Commentary and Cambridge independently make the same identification across all three Synoptics. The law itself is built by comparison: the abnormal case is reckoned "like the bed... like the uncleanness" of the normal (v. 26, the comparative k- twice over), the chronic flux folded into the menstrual rules. The rare impurity-noun here, ṭumʼâh (H2932, 31 vv), is the very word the Verifier finds shared with Ezekiel 36:17 — the same defilement that names a disease in Leviticus the prophet lifts to name a nation's sin. And so the unit that begins with a woman "put apart" ends pointing two ways at once: forward to the prophets who make her condition a figure of moral impurity, and forward to the Gospels, where a woman with exactly this zôwb reaches through a crowd to touch the one whom no uncleanness could defile.
Held under the rule that Scripture alone is final — and offered as a reading to be tested, not a verdict to be trusted — three things press out of these nine verses. First, uncleanness here is a state, not a sin. Nothing the woman has done is wrong; her body's ordinary working makes her niddâh, "put apart." The law does not moralize the condition — it manages it, and (as Ellicott shows against the cruelty of the surrounding nations) it manages it mercifully, barring her only from the sanctuary and the marriage bed, never from the camp or the home. To read these verses as shaming the woman is to read against their grain; they protect her. Second, the defilement is contagious, graded, and always remediable. It spreads by touch, descends by degrees (primary contact requires washing and bathing; secondary contact only the evening), and is never permanent — water and a sunset clear it. The Torah's God is not capricious about holiness; He is exact, and His exactness includes a way back every time. Third, the keyword reaches past the ritual into the moral, and past the law into the Gospel. The same niddâh and ṭumʼâh that name a woman's monthly separation become, in the prophets, the words for Israel's defiling sin (Ezek 36:17; Ezra 9:11) — JFB is right that the ceremonial "typified a moral impurity." And the same chronic zôwb that Leviticus 15:25 legislates is, the commentators agree, the affliction of the woman in the Gospels — who, instead of defiling the one she touched, was healed by Him. That reversal is the deepest thing these verses are reaching toward, and it must be weighed against the text: here uncleanness flows out and contaminates; there, when she touches Christ, cleanness flows in and heals. The Berean test applies even to that reading. Weigh it — including the places the voices leave genuinely open: whether v. 24 is the accidental case or the capital crime (Cambridge), and whether v. 23's pronouns point to the blood or to an object on the bed (K&D vs. Ellicott).
Under the old law uncleanness flowed out of the woman and contaminated whatever she touched; when she touched Christ, the current reversed — and cleanness flowed in. (A reading to be tested, not a verse.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Leviticus 15 is built as a diptych: the male discharge (vv. 2–18) and the female (vv. 19–30), framed by a single rare word. zôwb ("flux," H2101) occurs in only 10 verses of the whole Bible, and the chapter clusters them — v. 2 (the man), v. 19 (the woman's menses), v. 25 (her chronic flux), vv. 28, 30. Gill marks the hinge ("now the Scripture begins with the female"), and Poole notes the same euphemism — "flesh" for the body's intimate parts — governs both halves "as the word flesh is taken Leviticus 15:2." The Verifier confirms the verbal dependence: Leviticus 15:19 ↔ 15:2 share zôwb (10 vv) and zûwb (41 vv); Leviticus 15:25 ↔ 15:33 share zôwb, niddâh, zûwb, and ṭâmêʼ. The rarity of zôwb makes the link a near-fingerprint binding the chapter's two cases into one symmetrical law.
Leviticus 15:19 · Leviticus 15:25 · Leviticus 15:2 · Leviticus 15:33
basis: Verifier-computed rare shared lexemes: H2101 zôwb (in only 10 vv) for Lev 15:19 ↔ 15:2 and Lev 15:25 ↔ 15:33, with H2100 zûwb (41 vv) and H2931/H2932 ṭâmêʼ/ṭumʼâh. The 10-verse frequency of zôwb, confined almost entirely to this chapter, makes the verbal link certain — the same keyword frames the male and female discharge laws.
The machinery of contagion in this unit — whoever touches (nâgaʻ) becomes unclean (ṭâmêʼ), must wash his clothes (kâbaç) and remain unclean until the evening (ʻereb) — is the same machinery that governs the water of purification made from the red heifer's ashes in Numbers 19. The Verifier confirms a dense structural overlap: Leviticus 15:21 ↔ Numbers 19:21 share kâbaç (48 vv), ʻereb (125 vv), ṭâmêʼ (142 vv), and nâgaʻ (142 vv); Leviticus 15:19 ↔ Numbers 19:13 share niddâh, nâgaʻ, and ṭâmêʼ. Strikingly, Numbers 19 also uses niddâh — "the water of separation" (mê niddâh) — turning the very word for the woman's impurity into the name of the water that removes impurity. The link is a shared ritual grammar of touch-defilement and cleansing, not a rare-word quotation, so it is tiered structural — but the recurrence of niddâh on both the defilement and the remedy is worth seeing.
Leviticus 15:19 · Leviticus 15:21 · Numbers 19:13 · Numbers 19:21
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes (all mid-to-high frequency): H5060 nâgaʻ (142 vv), H2930 ṭâmêʼ (142 vv), H3526 kâbaç (48 vv), H6153 ʻereb (125 vv) for Lev 15:21 ↔ Num 19:21; plus H5079 niddâh (24 vv) for Lev 15:19 ↔ Num 19:13. The lexemes are common, so the link is the shared ritual grammar of touch-defilement and washing — structural, not a verbal quotation.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown says the defilement here "typified a moral impurity," and the later Scriptures prove the claim by taking the word itself. niddâh ("separation/impurity," H5079, 24 vv) and ṭumʼâh ("uncleanness," H2932, 31 vv) — both keywords of this unit — are lifted by the prophets to name Israel's moral defilement. Ezekiel 36:17: "the house of Israel... defiled it by their own way... their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman" (niddâh). Ezra 9:11 calls the land "an unclean land with the filthiness (niddâh) of the peoples." The Verifier scores Leviticus 15:25 ↔ Ezekiel 36:17 high on the shared niddâh + ṭumʼâh — rare enough that its raw computation reads "verbal." We deliberately downgrade it. This is not a quotation of Leviticus by Ezekiel but a metaphorical reuse of its vocabulary: the ritual word is borrowed to picture sin. The shared lexemes are real and the Verifier's computation is recorded, but the honest tier for a figural borrowing of a keyword is structural/thematic, not a quotation-claim.
Leviticus 15:25 · Ezekiel 36:17 · Ezra 9:11 · Leviticus 18:19
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes: H5079 niddâh (24 vv) + H2932 ṭumʼâh (31 vv) for Lev 15:25 ↔ Ezek 36:17 (the Verifier's raw computation reads "verbal"); H5079 niddâh alone for Lev 15:19 ↔ Ezra 9:11 and Lev 15:24 ↔ 18:19. Downgraded to structural by editorial judgment: this is the prophets' metaphorical reuse of a ritual keyword to picture moral sin, not a quotation of the law — under-claiming as the rule directs.
Verse 24 legislates an inadvertent defilement during conjugal intercourse; the voices are nearly unanimous (K&D, Barnes, Benson) that the deliberate act lies elsewhere and is treated far more severely. Ellicott on v. 24: "For committing this gross act presumptuously, both parties to it were visited with death (See Leviticus 18:19; Leviticus 20:18)." Leviticus 18:19 forbids approaching a woman "to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness" (niddâh), and 20:18 imposes karet — being cut off. The shared word is niddâh (24 vv); the Verifier confirms it for Leviticus 15:24 ↔ 18:19. The link is the same keyword spanning an accidental case (ch. 15) and the capital prohibition (chs. 18, 20) — a structural, thematic relationship built on a single mid-rare lexeme, not a quotation, and so tiered structural. Cambridge flags the genuine scholarly question of whether the three passages even describe the same act.
Leviticus 15:24 · Leviticus 18:19 · Leviticus 20:18
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexeme: H5079 niddâh (in 24 vv) for Lev 15:24 ↔ Lev 18:19. A single mid-rare keyword links the accidental defilement of ch. 15 to the capital prohibition of chs. 18 and 20 — the shared niddâh-motif of intercourse-during-separation, tiered structural rather than verbal since one lexeme does not constitute a quotation.
Four of the unit's voices — Ellicott, Gill, The Pulpit Commentary, and Cambridge — independently identify the chronic case of v. 25 with the woman of the Synoptic Gospels who "had a flow of blood for twelve years" (Matt 9:20; Mark 5:25; Luke 8:43). Ellicott: "This is the kind of complaint from which the woman suffered who came to Christ." Under Leviticus 15:25–27, that woman was perpetually niddâh — defiling everyone and everything she touched, barred (Gill) from "her husband's bed" and "the house of God." When she touched the hem of Christ's garment, the law's logic should have made Him unclean; instead, power went out from Him and she was healed. Held honestly: this is a New Testament Greek text and a Hebrew one — the Verifier confirms they share no original-language lexeme (Greek and Hebrew cannot share a Strong's number), so the connection cannot be called verbal. It is a genuine and ancient interpretive identification, drawn explicitly by four PD commentators here, and left flagged for the reader to weigh.
Leviticus 15:25 · Matthew 9:20 · Mark 5:25 · Luke 8:43
basis: Verifier reports no shared original-language lexeme (Greek↔Hebrew cannot share Strong's numbers) — the connection is thematic, not verbal. It is the explicit, repeated identification by Ellicott, Gill, Pulpit, and Cambridge of the chronic zôwb of Lev 15:25 with the Gospel woman's twelve-year flow; flagged so the reader weighs the cross-Testament reading.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The whole law of this unit runs one direction: uncleanness flows out from the afflicted person and contaminates whatever she touches. The chronic case of v. 25 makes a woman a lifelong source of defilement — barred, as Gill says, from "her husband's bed" and "the house of God," "a very deplorable" condition. Ellicott, Cambridge, and The Pulpit Commentary all identify her with the woman of the Gospels who, ill twelve years, "came to Christ" (Matt 9:20; Mark 5:25; Luke 8:43). Here the type breaks open. By every rule of Leviticus 15, her touch should have rendered Christ unclean "until the evening." Instead the contagion ran backwards: "power had gone out from Him" (Luke 8:46), and she was made whole. The one whom no impurity could defile met the one whom every impurity had exiled, and cleanness flowed in. The ancient reading sees in this the law's intended terminus — a Holy One stronger than uncleanness, in whom contact heals rather than contaminates. This is a Greek↔Hebrew, typological reading — no shared lexeme, drawn by the unit's own voices and by the Gospel scene itself.
Leviticus 15:25 · Mark 5:25 · Luke 8:43
The unit's keyword niddâh ("separation/impurity," H5079) is, Jamieson, Fausset & Brown says, a ceremonial defilement that "typified a moral impurity" — and the prophets confirm it, turning the word for the woman's monthly state into the word for Israel's sin (Ezek 36:17; Ezra 9:11). Leviticus offered water and a sunset to clear the ritual niddâh; it had no remedy for the moral one the word foreshadowed. Zechariah names what the law withheld: "On that day a fountain will be opened... for sin and for impurity (niddâh)" (Zech 13:1) — the same word, now the object of a promised cleansing the ashes-and-water of the old order could never reach. The typological reading hears this fountain opened at the cross: where the law could only manage and bound the unclean state, the blood of Christ "cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7), the moral niddâh finally washed away. Honestly held: the Zechariah link is Hebrew↔Hebrew on niddâh; the 1 John link is Greek↔Hebrew and shares no lexeme — both are read typologically, the image of cleansing-for-impurity carried from law through prophet to fulfillment.
Leviticus 15:19 · Zechariah 13:1 · 1 John 1:7
Every defilement in this unit is bounded but recurring: wash the clothes, bathe the body, wait for the evening — and tomorrow the same contact will defile again. The law's purifications, Matthew Henry says over this very chapter, are "ceremonial and burdensome," and their great mercy is that under the gospel believers "need fear no defilement, except that of sin, nor need ceremonial and burdensome purifications." The repeated washing till evening points, by its very repetition, to its own insufficiency — a cleansing that must be redone is not a finished one. The New Testament reads the figure exactly so: the old order's washings "can never... take away sins" because they are repeated (Heb 10:1–4), whereas Christ "by one offering... has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Heb 10:14). The sunset that cleared the toucher was a daily, partial mercy; it pointed past itself to a single cleansing no evening needs to renew. This is a Greek↔Hebrew, doctrinal-typological reading, drawn from Henry's own gospel-contrast, not a shared-lexeme claim.
Leviticus 15:27 · Hebrews 10:1 · Hebrews 10:14
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
This unit is the second half of the discharge-laws of Leviticus 15 (vv. 19–27, "the uncleanness of women"), and its commentary stream behaves accordingly. Matthew Henry and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown each repeat a single section-comment verbatim across every verse in the public-domain sources; their excerpts here are drawn from that shared block and pointed to the clause they best bear (Henry's gospel-contrast at v. 22; JFB's typology at vv. 19 and 27). Keil & Delitzsch likewise gives one block for vv. 19–23 and another for vv. 25–27, excerpted at the clause each explains. Matthew Poole has "No text... on this verse" at vv. 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, and 27; he is quoted only where he actually comments (vv. 19, 24, 25). Three honest disagreements are surfaced rather than smoothed: (1) the pronouns of v. 23 — K&D refers hū and ḇōw to dām ("blood"), making it the case of touching the blood itself; Ellicott refers them to an object lying on the bed, making it secondary defilement. The Hebrew permits both. (2) The case of v. 24 — most voices (K&D, Barnes, Benson) read an accidental defilement distinct from the capital crime of Lev 18:19/20:18, but Cambridge records that if the passages describe the same act, source-critics infer different authorship. (3) The text of v. 27 — Gill notes the Septuagint reads "toucheth her" where the Masoretic Hebrew reads "those things" (bām), a real divergence between the witnesses. Cross-reference honesty: the one confirmed verbal thread (the zôwb-frame across Lev 15) is Hebrew↔Hebrew, grounded in the rare shared Strong's lexeme zôwb (10 vv) computed by the Verifier. The Numbers 19, Leviticus 18, Ezekiel 36, and Ezra 9 threads are Hebrew↔Hebrew but rest on mid-to-high-frequency lexemes or a single keyword, so they are tiered structural — and the Ezekiel 36 link, which the Verifier's raw computation scores "verbal" on niddâh + ṭumʼâh, is deliberately downgraded to structural, because it is the prophets' metaphorical reuse of a ritual keyword to picture sin, not a quotation of the law (prefer under-claiming). The Gospel threads (Matt 9 / Mark 5 / Luke 8) and the Christ-section links to Zechariah 13, 1 John 1, and Hebrews 10 are Greek↔Hebrew and therefore cannot share a Strong's number — they are tiered flagged or argued as typological/doctrinal, never claimed as verbal quotation, even though four of this unit's own voices draw the Gospel identification explicitly. Frequencies cited in the bases are the Verifier's whole-Bible counts.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)