Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Leviticus Kabanata 15

The Uncleanness of Secretions. - These include (1) a running issue from a man (Leviticus 15:2-15); (2) involuntary emission of seed (Leviticus 15:16, Leviticus 15:17), and the emission of seed in sexual intercourse (Leviticus 15:18); (3) the monthly period of a woman (Leviticus 15:19-24); (4) a diseased issue of blood from a woman (Leviticus 15:25-30). They consist, therefore, of two diseased and two natural secretions from the organs of generation.

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This also applied to every one whom the man with an issue might touch, without first rinsing his hands in water.

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Sexual connection. “If a man lie with a woman with the emission of seed, both shall be unclean till the evening, and bathe themselves in water.” Consequently it was not the concubitus as such which defiled, as many erroneously suppose, but the emission of seed in the coitus. This explains the law and custom, of abstaining from conjugal intercourse during the preparation for acts of divine worship, or the performance of the same (Exodus 19:5; 1 Samuel 21:5-6; 2 Samuel 11:4), in which many other nations resembled the Israelites. (For proofs see Leyrer's article in Herzog's Cyclopaedia, and Knobel in loco, though the latter is wrong in supposing that conjugal intercourse itself defiled.)

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If a man lay with her and her uncleanness came upon him, he became unclean for seven days, and the bed upon which he lay became unclean as well. The meaning cannot be merely if he lie upon the same bed with her, but if he have conjugal intercourse, as is evident from Leviticus 20:18 and Numbers 5:13 (cf. Genesis 26:10; Genesis 34:2; Genesis 35:22; 1 Samuel 2:22). It cannot be adduced as an objection to this explanation, which is the only admissible one, that according to Leviticus 18:19 and Leviticus 20:18 intercourse with a woman during her menses was an accursed crime, to be punished by extermination. For the law in Leviticus 20:18 refers partly to conjugal intercourse during the hemorrhage of a woman after child-birth, as the similarity of the words in Leviticus 20:18 and Leviticus 12:7 ( דּמיה מקור ) clearly proves, and to the case of a man attempting cohabitation with a woman during her menstruation. 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.

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