Commentari biblici

XV.

(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron.—This chapter, which lays down the laws of uncleanness arising from issues, discusses two diseased and three natural secretions.

(2) A running issue out of his flesh.—Flesh, as is frequently the case, euphemistically denotes private parts. (See Genesis 6:10; Genesis 7:13; Leviticus 6:3; Leviticus 16:4; Ezekiel 16:26; Ezekiel 23:20, &c.)

Because of his issue he is unclean.—Better, his issue is unclean. Hence, any one coming in contact with it, or with the garment on which traces of the secretion are found, is thereby rendered unclean.

(3) Whether his flesh run.—This verse defines more minutely the statement in the preceding verse.

(4) Every bed, whereon he lieth.—So severely did the canonical law deal with these cases that they interpreted the defilement communicated to the bed, and hence also to his seat and saddle, by the patient in five different ways: by standing, sitting, lying, hanging, or leaning on it. The patient’s polluting power is so great that even if the bed, seat, or saddle is under a stone, he defiles it through the stone by any of these actions. If he stood upon two beds, placing one foot upon each, he defiled both.

(5, 6) And whosoever toucheth his bed.—The defiling power of the patient was so great that the bed, seat, or saddle which he rendered unclean by any of the above-named five acts polluted again any one who came in contact with these articles in seven different ways: by standing, sitting, lying, hanging, leaning, touching, or bearing them. The person thus polluted had to remain in this condition, debarred from the privileges of the sanctuary, till sundown, when he had to wash his garments, and immerse his whole body in water.

(7) And he that toucheth the flesh.—With such intense loathing was the person regarded who had contracted this infirmity, that even the medical man who had professionally to examine him became defiled for the rest of the day. He had to wash his clothes and immerse the whole of his body in water before he could be admitted into the enjoyment of his own sacred privileges.

(8) If he . . . spit upon him.—Spitting in the face of a person was, and still is, commonly resorted to among Oriental nations as an expression of insult and contempt (Numbers 12:14; Deuteronomy 25:9; Isaiah 1:6; Job 30:10; Matthew 26:67, &c.). Suffering from the disease here discussed, the patient would naturally be more irritable, and hence be liable to give vent more frequently to this mode of expressing his wrath. Now, any person upon whom he happened to heap this indignity became defiled by the spittle in the same manner, and had to go through the same purification, as he who chanced to touch his garments, or as the physician who had to examine him.

(9) And what saddle soever.—Better, and any carriage. The word here translated “saddle” only occurs twice more: viz., 1Kings 5:6 in Hebrew, or Leviticus 4:26 in English, where it is rendered “chariot” in the Authorised Version, and in Song of Solomon 3:10, where it is translated “covering” but where it manifestly denotes the seat inside the palanquin. With the feminine termination the word in question occurs no less than forty-four times, and is invariably translated in the Authorised Version “chariot.” What kind of vehicle the masculine form of the expression in question denotes in the three passages in which it occurs must be decided from the context. In Kings, the horses which are used in connection with it show that it was a carriage drawn by animals. In Canticles it is a vehicle, or the essential part of it, carried by men, and this is the kind of vehicle meant in the passage before us. It is the well-known palanquin so largely used in the East.

Shall be unclean.—The conveyance used is to be unclean, and hence, is not to be used by any one else. It will be seen that the present text does not say how long the vehicle is to be defiled, though in every other instance the time is fixed. (See Leviticus 15:5-11.) There can, therefore, hardly be any doubt that the reading in the LXX., which has here until evening, is the original one, and that the words have dropped out of the Hebrew text.